Field:
Jinty Jackson is a researcher, writer, and communications consultant who works at the intersection of storytelling, justice, and urban change. She has worked with think tanks, international media, and grassroots organisations. Jinty worked with Open Restitution Africa to develop on insight on Inventories that was drawn from a study undertaken by ORA on behalf of the South African Cultural Observatory & the National Department of Sport, Arts and Culture in South Africa (2024).
Affiliation(s): Independent
Country:
Field:
Ndapewoshali Ndahafa Ilunga is a historian, trained accountant, project manager and specialist in Namibian labour law. She has worked in the field of cultural heritage, art and culture since 2014. She is vehemently committed to the preservation, documentation and decolonisation of Namibia's historical landscape and cultural heritage. Between 2014 and 2024, Ndapewoshali worked at the Museums Association of Namibia (MAN) in various capacities, ultimately becoming its Director. She has more recently joined the FinNamKnow Project - a collaborative project between Finnish and Namibian scholar. The project seeks to explore ways to decolonise the history of the Finnish-Namibian relations, and to produce historical knowledge that is increasingly inclusive and multivocal, in a manner that overturns the epistemological legacies of European colonial projects. Here she is also exploring and growing in her identity as a Decolonial Christian Historian.
Affiliation(s): Henry Nxumalo Foundation Museums Association of Namibia FinNamKnow Project (Decolonizing History-Writing: Transcultural Production, Mobilization and Transformations of Knowledge in Finnish-Namibian Relations 1870–1990)
Country:
Published Work: Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures Documentary
Field:
Alhaji Lai Raufu Mohammed is a Nigerian lawyer and politician who served as the Minister of Information and Culture for an unprecedented eight years (2015–2023) under President Muhammadu Buhari. He studied at Obafemi Awolowo University graduating in 1976 with a Bachelor’s degree in French with second class (upper) Honours. He also holds law degrees with second class (upper) Honours from the University of Lagos and the Nigeria Law School, Lagos. He worked as a graduate assistant with the University of Ilorin in 1978 and joined the Nigeria Ports Authority as Senior Public Relations Officer in 1978 rising to the position of Corporate Secretary in 1988. He co-founded the legal firm of Edu & Mohammed in 1989, serving as Senior Partner between 1989 and 1999. In 1999 he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 1999. He later served for several years as the National Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria and later the All Progressive Congress. He is a member of the Nigeria Bar Association and a Fellow of the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations. As the Minister of Information and Culture, Mohammed was instrumental in making restitution efforts visible, by documenting and entering repatriated and return belongings into the public imaginary and sphere as a matter of policy.
Country:
Field:
Prince Edun Akenzua (15 September 1935 - 25 August 2022) was a renowned and consummate journalist, social commentator and popular historian who authored EKALADERHAN; a historical book on the origin of Obaship in the Benin Kingdom. He was installed as Enogie of Obazuwa/Ikoro on the 1st January 1988. Prior to his installment he served as the first editor-in-chief of the Nigerian Observer newspaper, and was the founder of the now defunct Akenzua Television. He also served as a member of Edo State Movement creation committee from 1981 to 1983, when the soldiers truncated the Second Republic. Enogie Edun Akenzua chairmanned the Great Benin Centenary Committee that organized the commemoration of the centenary of the British invasion of Benin in 1897. The centenary brought renowned scholars and tourists from across the globe to the Benin city in January 1997. He was also the founder and chairman of Benin Leaders of Thought, a pan-socio-cultural group advancing the overall interests of Benin. He was awarded Nigeria's national honour, Member of the Federal Republic (MFR) by former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and Fellow, Nigeria Guild of Editors by his professional peers. Throughout his lifetime Enogie Edun Akenzua championed the repatriation of Benin belongings that were scattered all over the world, and fortunate to see several Benin Bronzes being returned to the Palace of the Oba of Benin before his death at the age of 87.
Country:
Field:
Salama Moussa (4 February 1887 – 4 August 1958) was an Egyptian journalist, writer and political theorist who is lauded for having written/translated over 40 published books. While attending secondary school in Cairo, Moussa was exposed to writers such as Farah Antun, Jurji Zaydan, and Ahmad Lutfi Al-Sayyid that discussed modern and, at the time, radical ideas such as Social Darwinism, women's rights, and nationalism. He is credited for later popularising the idea of socialism in Egypt and for advocating for an egalitarian socialism where women's sovereignty was upheld. He was also an Egyptian Nationalist who championed unity amongst Egyptians, and called for the political and economic independence of Egypt from British occupation. In the 1920s, at the height of a cultural and literary renaissance in Egypt, he established the Egyptian Academy for Scientific Education. During this time he also participated in public debates around restitution, through his contributions to Al Ahram, where he called for the return of Egyptian cultural belongings as a matter of resistance to colonialism and reclamaition of identity. Following the closure of the academy by the government in the 1930s, he founded the magazine, Al Majalla Al Jadida,which was in circulation until the mid 1940s. In the 1950s he served as the supervisor of the science section in Akhbar el-Yom, a role he served in until his death in 1958.
Country:
Field:
Stephanie Busari is a journalist and editor at CNN Worldwide. She heads up CNN's Nigeria bureau where she pioneered CNN's first digital and multiplatform bureau. In 2017, she was named one of the Most Influential People of African descent in a UN-backed award and in May 2020, she was listed among 25 of the most powerful female journalists in Africa by Women in Journalism Africa.
Affiliation(s): CNN Worldwide
Country:
Field:
Nosmot Gbadamosi is a multimedia journalist and the writer of Foreign Policy’s weekly Africa Brief. She has reported on human rights, the environment, and sustainable development from across the African continent.
Affiliation(s): Foreign Policy (Africa Brief)
Country:
Field:
Eromo Egbejule is a Nigerian journalist, writer and filmmaker. He is known mostly for his work on the Boko Haram insurgency and other conflicts in West and Central Africa. He is currently Africa Editor at Al Jazeera English Online.
Affiliation(s): Al Jazeera
Country:
Jinty Jackson is a researcher, writer, and communications consultant who works at the intersection of storytelling, justice, and urban change. She has worked with think tanks, international media, and grassroots organisations. Jinty worked with Open Restitution Africa to develop on insight on Inventories that was drawn from a study undertaken by ORA on behalf of the South African Cultural Observatory & the National Department of Sport, Arts and Culture in South Africa (2024).
Rethinking Inventories for African-led Restitution Processes
