Prince Kum’a Ndumbe III, the founder of AfricAvenir International, is a renowned and dedicated pan-African scholar. He is a prolific author and the legitimate heir to the throne of Lock Priso (Kum’a Mbape), one of the most significant traditional rulers of the coastal peoples of Cameroon (Sawa). His lifelong commitment has been to the revival and critical reassessment of African cultures, the continent’s history, and the preservation of Africa’s historical artefacts and cultural identity. Prinz Kum’a Ndumbe III continues to champion restitution efforts, notably advocating for the return of the Tangue and compiling extensive documentation to support his claims to Lock Priso’s legacy.
Country:
Cameroon
Info:
Published Work: Restituez à l’Afrique ses objets de culte et d’art! : Reconstituons notre mémoire collective africaine! Douala IVè/Cameroun : Éditions AfricAvenir.
Field:
Indigenous Community Leadership
Chief Ne Kuko
A chief, whose village was pillaged and burned by Belgians demanded return of a wooden statue that belonged to Ne Kuko, one of the ‘nine great chiefs of Boma’ in the west of nowadays DR Congo. The statue was brought to Belgium in 1883 by its ‘collector’, Belgian officer Alexandre Delcommune, where it entered the collection of the Royal Museum of Central Africa. When chief Ne Kuko demanded the return of the statue from Delcommune, the latter insisted that the statue belonged to him as ‘booty’. Delcommune agreed to negotiate a ransom at a later date which never took place.
Country:
Democratic Republic of Congo
Field:
Indigenous Community Leadership
Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr
Felwine Sarr, together with Benedicte Savoy, developed the groundbreaking report “The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics” 2018. Felwine Sarr is a humanist, philosopher, economist, and musician and the Anne-Marie Bryan Chair in French and Francophone Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Afrotopia (University of Minnessota Press, 2019, tr. by Drew S. Burk). Sarr taught at the University of Gaston-Berger in Saint Louis, Senegal, where he was previously dean of its Economics and Management department. His research focuses on economic policies, the development economy, econometrics, epistemology, and the history of religious ideas."
