Some allegedly stolen artefacts of Nigerian origin, will today, be up for sale in Paris, France, amid efforts to stop the exercise.

The National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), a parastatal under the Ministry of Information and Culture, as well as some art scholars in the diaspora, had raised the alarm over the auction house’s (Christie’s Gallery) legitimacy to sell the relics.

In fact, the commission, in a letter dated June 17, 2020, had asked the auctioneer to halt the entire process.

But yesterday, the Legal Adviser to NCMM, Babatunde Adebiyi, disclosed that a correspondence, from Christie’s last Friday, indicated that the public sale would go ahead as planned.

According to him, the gallery stated that the artworks were legitimately acquired.

In the letter addressed to the Head of Sale, African and Oceanic Art Department, Christie’s Gallery, Victor Teodorescu, and copied to the European Head of the African and Oceanic Art Department, Bruno Claessens, the Acting Director-General of the NCMM, Aliyu Abdu, had noted:

“We are surprised to discover the advertisement of the under-listed artefacts on your website for a planned auction scheduled to hold on June 29, 2020, by 3 pm, at 9 Avenue Matignon, Paris, France.

“These artefacts, as you have stated, are from Nigeria, and they lack the proper providence. We thus, request that you suspend the auction, and provide us with the provenance of these artefacts because we are of the opinion that they belong to classes of antiquities that Nigeria will object to their exchange or transfer.”