Nigeria Elected To UNESCO Committee

By Gloria Ikibah

Nigeria has been elected Co-Vice Chair of the Subsidiary Committee of the Meeting of the States Parties to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.

The election which took place on Monday at the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris also voted Poland, India and Iraq as co-Vice Chair to Greece while Equador is to serve as Rapporteur for a term of two years

Nigeria was represented at the meeting by Director General of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), Yusuf Abdallah Usman, the National Implementation Agency of the Convention and Professor Folurin Shyllon of University of Ibadan and consultant to the Permanent Delegation of Nigeria to UNESCO.

It may be recalled that the NCMM has in the last few years strengthened its restitution efforts by a vigorous awareness raising campaigns among Heritage site communities, capacity building on documentation and setting up of special units to deal with issues of return, acquisitions and protection of antiquities leading to the return of over a hundred (100) Nigerian objects from Europe and United States of America.