The Kingdom of Ife is a major exhibition currently on at the British Museum. The fact that the exhibition has sourced many of the artefacts from Nigeria though makes a mockery off the assertions by various museums in relation to Benin artefacts, that they can not honour return requests because the items would not be looked after well enough if they were sent back to Nigeria.

From:
Modern Ghana

ILE-IFE TRIUMPHS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON: WHO SAID NIGERIANS WERE INCAPABLE OF LOOKING AFTER THEIR CULTURAL ARTEFACTS?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Sun, 18 Apr 2010

“A glorious display of Ife sculpture has arrived at the British Museum. Nobody — and I mean nobody — in Britain should miss it. Why? Because it changes our understanding of civilisation. Because it rewrites the story of art. Because it is a once-in-a-lifetime revolutionary event. If none of those is a big enough reason for you, then go along merely to enjoy some of the most graceful and lovely sculpture ever made. Trust me. You need to see this one. “
Waldemar Januszczak (1)

By all standards, the current exhibition in the British Museum entitled, Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa, is outstanding. (2) This has been acknowledged by most critics and commentators. The British press is full of praises and enthusiasm. An article by Jonathan Jones, entitled, “The divine art of the Kingdom of Benin” in The Guardian bears a headline declaring:
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Waldemar Januszczak has commented in the past on the controversial cleaning of the Elgin Marbles by the British Museum in the 1930s. Here he looks at how seeing the original coloured versions of the sculptures as they first appeared would help to give us a greater understanding of their origins.

From:
The Times

From The Sunday Times
August 31, 2008
Waldemar Januszczak’s Sculpture Diaries
Waldemar Januszczak

[…]

Since sculpture has never had a Dark Age — and has never not been made — and because every society everywhere has always produced it, the BM has no more chance of covering the entire history of sculpture in its displays than I have in my short television series. But it has a go. Personally, I would love the museum to mount a display devoted to the colour of ancient sculpture that revealed how the Elgin Marbles were originally brightly painted. If the Elgin Marbles were as they should be, it would be so much easier to recognise the similarity that exists between them and, say, the African tribal sculpture from which they were descended.

[…]