By Osa Mbonu-Amadi & Prisca Sam-Duru

The biggest arts event of 2022 in Nigeria, no doubt, is the return of 22 looted Benin bronzes to the Nigerian government by the Federal Republic of Germany at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Abuja, on December 20, 2022. 

To underscore the importance Germany attached to the event, on the entourage of the Foreign Affairs Minister that came to Abuja to deliver the artefacts were a whopping 50 Germans.

Delivering sober speeches at the ceremony, Annalena Baerbock, Minister of Foreign Affairs said, “we are here to right the wrong. It was wrong to take them; it was also wrong to keep them. The bronzes, she said, are not just objects, they tell stories. They are part of your history. They are part of who you are.”

similarly, Claudia Roth, Minister of State for Culture, said “We closed our eyes for too long.” Heritage, she said, is handed from generation to generation. “For 125 years, Nigeria was denied this heritage.” Roth promised that more of those Benin Bronzes will be coming home where they belong. She also pleaded to Nigeria to consider loaning some of the bronzes to German museums.

Nigeria’s Minister of information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, disclosed at the event that the return of the 22 Benin bronzes was sequel to an agreement reached on July 7, 2022, where Germany signed the declaration with Nigeria to release all 1,130 Benin Bronzes in Germany public museums.

The minister also revealed that more than 900 Benin bronzes are still held at the British Museum, therefore calling on them to release the stolen artefacts.  It would be recalled that in October 2020, the Netherlands returned a 600-year-old Ife Terracotta, while the University of Aberdeen, and Jesus College of the University of Cambridge also returned the Benin bronzes in their holding. The Metropolitan Museum in New York also returned Ife and Benin bronzes, while in October, 2022 the Horniman Museums and Gardens in London, signed the legal transfer of 72 Benin bronzes.

Recently, Digital Benin, a new online archive, began the documentation of more than 5,000 Benin artefacts held in 131 institutions around the world.

In April 2022, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie earned her 16th honorary doctorate degree from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.

In addition to several awards, Chimamanda has also earned doctorate degrees from several reputable institutions like Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Edinburgh, Duke University, Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University.

In October, the prestigious books prize, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Annie Ernaux, the French author of mostly autobiographical work. According to the jury, Ernaux received the prize “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”.

The 82-year-old feminist icon whose novels cover daily life in France, with non-fiction also to her credit, is one of France’s most acclaimed authors.

 “Ernaux consistently and from different angles, examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language and class”, Anders Olsson, Chair of the Nobel committee, said about her work. Ernaux is the first French writer to win the Nobel since Patrick Modiano in 2014 and, the 16th French writer to have won the Nobel to date.

For her, winning the Nobel Prize was “a sign of hope for all female writers”, who “have not yet gained legitimacy as producers of written works”. Ernaux’s writing is heavily inspired by her personal experiences of class and gender, often casting a critical eye on social structures.

While giving a lecture in Stockholm before the gala prize ceremony, Ernaux revealed that she took to penning down her personal experiences because “a book can contribute to change” and “enable beings to reimagine themselves”.

Annie Ernaux grew up in Normandy and studied at Rouen University. Her books, particularly, A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story, have become contemporary classics in France. The Years, another of her work, won the Prix Renaudot in France in 2008, the Premio Strega in Italy in 2016, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2019. In 2017, Ernaux was also awarded the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her life’s work.

Also in October, the Advisory Board for one of the world’s richest prizes, The Nigeria Prize for Literature, sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited, announced ‘Nomad’, a poetry collection by Romeo Oriogun, as the winner of the Prize in 2022.

Romeo received $100,000 prize in the Poetry cycle after his winning book beat two other books on the Shortlist of Three – ‘TheCall of Water’ by Su’eddie Vershima  Agema and ‘Your Crib, My Qibla’ by Saddiq Dzukogi. ‘Nomad’ won out of 287 books entered for the competition in 2022.

The grand event was themed, “Touching the Stars” and had former president Olusegun Obasanjo as Special Guest.

In a most surprising and benevolent move, Oriogun announced that he was going to share some part of the prize money with the two runners-up -Agema and Dzukogi.

While announcing the winner at the Grand Award Night the Chair of the Advisory Board, Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, also announced Dr. Sakiru Adebayo as the 2022 winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literary Criticism. Dr Adebayo was awarded the cash prize of One Million Naira (N1,000,000).

And speaking about the Chair of the Advisory Board of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, she is one of Nigeria’s writers who made remarkable impact in the global literary community. In addition to publishing five books, she has a literary Prize in five categories instituted in her name as well as an international award, Fonlon-Nichols Award for Excellence in Creative Writing and Contribution to Freedom of Expression, etc.