Uncovering the News — 03/22/21 – 03/29/21

What’s At Stake:

African media applaud the effort of a Niger­ian bil­lion­aire who is giv­ing back to the home­land, Tigray con­flict con­tin­ues to grab the head­lines as Eritrea begins a peace effort by with­draw­ing its troops from Ethiopia, and pres­sure mounts on inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions to return loot­ed African arti­facts where they belong. 

Nigerian Billionaire Pays It Forward With A $100 Million Yearly Fund for Africa

In a press state­ment issued on March 23, Niger­ian busi­ness­man and phil­an­thropist Abdul Samad Rabiu announced the launch of a $100 mil­lion year­ly fund for Africa. 

Accord­ing to the state­ment, the fund, intend­ed to boost the continent’s devel­op­ment, will be direct­ed towards “edu­ca­tion, health and social devel­op­ment sec­tors, start­ing with infra­struc­ture and capac­i­ty devel­op­ment in these areas and sup­port­ing the efforts of var­i­ous gov­ern­ments in Nige­ria and Sub-Saha­ran Africa.”

The grant named the Abdul Samad Rabiu (ASR) Ini­tia­tive, will launch this year and offer $50 mil­lion to Nige­ria and $50 mil­lion will go towards the rest of the African continent. 

For account­abil­i­ty, the ini­tia­tive will present annu­al reports detail­ing all activ­i­ties over­seen by a board of trustees.

This ini­tia­tive is applaud­ed by African media, par­tic­u­lar­ly Niger­ian, while men­tions from non-African media are rare. Mean­while, news about the ini­tia­tive are buried in search engines and one would have to focus on African media only to be able to find out about the ASR initiative.

 

Eritrea Makes Peace With Troop Withdrawal From Tigray in Ethiopia

Ethiopi­an army sol­diers patrol the streets of Mekelle, in the Tigray region, March 7, 2021, after the city was cap­tured with an oper­a­tion against the Tigray Peo­ple’s Lib­er­a­tion Front (TPLF).Ethiopi­a’s Prime Min­is­ter Abiy Ahmed announced on March 26 that the nation of Eritrea has agreed to with­draw its forces from the Tigray region. In his state­ment, Abiy sug­gest­ed that the Eritre­an troops had no autho­riza­tion to join the war.

Since Novem­ber 2020, news out­lets over the world have head­lined the Tigray war. While many of them alleged Eritrea’s involve­ment in the war, both Ethiopi­an and Eritre­an offi­cials denied these allegations.

The media is quick to point out the para­dox of Ethiopi­an armed forces work­ing with Eritre­an troops since the two nations had only recent­ly come to a peace agree­ment for a war that last­ed near­ly two decades.

Since the Tigray war start­ed, thou­sands of peo­ple have died, with hun­dreds of thou­sands forced to flee their homes. Seri­ous war crimes are sus­pect­ed. The prime minister’s announce­ment came after grow­ing pres­sure from inter­na­tion­al governments.

While there is no guar­an­tee that Eritrea’s depar­ture is a step towards the end of the war, the act seems to bring hope to many as Eritre­an troops were blamed for the worst war crimes that took place in the Tigray Region.

Hundreds of Looted Artifacts Set to be Returned to Nigeria

 

On Mon­day, March 22, Hart­mut Dorg­er­loh, the direc­tor of the Hum­boldt Forum in Ger­many, announced plans to return the Berlin Bronzes to Nige­ria as soon as the fall. The Hum­boldt Forum, a new muse­um of non-Euro­pean art was set to dis­play half of the 440 Bronzes held at the Eth­no­log­i­cal Muse­um. Dorg­er­loh stat­ed that the exhib­it would instead show repli­cas of the bronzes or leave sym­bol­ic emp­ty spaces.

Fol­low­ing Germany’s lead is the Uni­ver­si­ty of Aberdeen in the Unit­ed King­dom, which announced it would also return a Benin Bronze to Nigeria. 

The Benin Bronzes are a col­lec­tion of more than a thou­sand met­al plaques and sculp­tures that were used to dec­o­rate the roy­al palace of the King­dom of Benin, now known as Nige­ria. The arti­facts, over 600 years old, were tak­en by British sol­diers in 1897 on a puni­tive raid on Benin City, now being called colo­nial loot. Many of the arti­facts are scat­tered across muse­ums in Europe and North America.

News out­lets such as CNN, BBC News, The Guardian, and many more have report­ed on the issue, putting more pres­sure on the rough­ly 160 insti­tu­tions world­wide that hold Benin’s trea­sures, to start speak­ing about their plans of return­ing them to where they belong.