A senior lecturer at the Department of Archaeology of the University of Ghana, Dr Wazi Apoh has joined the people Akpini traditional area in Kpando to call for the repatriation of artefacts seized by the colonial Germans and now being kept in a museum in Berlin, Germany.
The artefacts included drums, smocks, amulets, headdress, ceramic vessels and two ivory side blown horns built with human jaw bones.
The two notable artefacts that the Germans took from the Akpini people in the beginning of the 20th century were the Ivory blown horns built with human jaws as a war horn created by the reigning King of Akpini traditional area, Togbe Dagadu III but was seized by the Germans and also arrested the king and exiled him to Douala in Cameroon on March 11, 1914.
Dr Apoh said the horns were unique and served as important active heritage of the Akpini people because they were used ritually to bring the people of the community together.
He therefore said holding the artefacts in a German museum was unethical because they were unfairly seized and exported to Germany to serve the voyeuristic needs of the colonial agents instead of using the artefacts for promoting heritage tourism in Kpando.
Dr Apoh who had visited Germany under a research trip to discover the artefacts said if they returned the artefacts could be held temporarily in the palace of the paramount chief of Kpando pending the construction of a memory centre or museum at Kpando to promote heritage education or that the German colonial building at Kpando Todzi could be rehabilitated for the preservation of the artefacts.
He said the repatriation of the artefacts to Kpando would attract curious tourists and contribute to the revival of the local economy at Kpando.
In another development, Dr Apoh also called for the enactment of a Heritage Impact Assessment law to guide real estate development, mining, exploration, road construction and allied constructional industries in order to protect the heritage of the nation.
He was speaking at the sidelines of a field study by level 400 students of the Department of Archaeology of the University of Ghana at the Galenkui Hills in Ho to investigate the lifestyle of German colonialist who had settled there from 1880 to 1914.
Dr Apoh suggested that the discoveries from excavations by the students could be used to establish the German/Asogli cultural heritage site to promote tourism.
repatriation of artefacts forcibly taken German colonial government in 1914.
