Students at Jesus College, Cambridge, have voted to repatriate a bronze cockerel statue to Nigeria, which was dubbed by one student the “New Cecil Rhodes.”
The cockerel currently holds pride of place in Jesus College’s dining hall and reflects the three cockerels’ heads on the College’s official crest. It was given to Jesus College as a reference to the surname of founder John Alcock, the bishop and architect who constructed the college.
The statue is a Benin bronze, among hundreds taken by the British in the late nineteenth century from modern-day Nigeria.
The Jesus College Student Union Committee proposed the motion in an 11-page document entitled “Proposal to Repatriate Benin Bronze,” which argued that repatriation would be “both intrinsically and instrumentally good.” It went on to claim that returning the cockerel to the “community from which it was stolen” was “just”, and that “the contemporary political culture surrounding colonialism and social justice, combined with the university’s global agenda, offers a perfect opportunity for the College to benefit from this gesture.”
The motion was amended after Jason Okundaye, a member of the Benin tribe and a theology student at Pembroke, claimed the comical language was “disrespectful to Nigerian culture.”
The College commented, “Recognising that ethical issues are of great importance, Jesus College has structures in place through which these matters can be raised by its members. The request by students is being considered within these processes.”
