Cambridge college to return looted bronze statue to Nigeria

LONDON (AP) — A Cambridge University college says it will return a looted bronze cockerel to Nigeria later this month. Jesus College said Friday that it would hand over the Okukor statue to Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments in an Oct. 27 ceremony in Cambridge. British colonial troops removed thousands of artifacts from the Court of Benin in what is now Nigeria after occupying Benin City in 1897. The college removed the statue from public view in 2016 after students protested. A working group on the legacy of slavery concluded that the statue “belongs with the current Oba at the Court of Benin.”