Folarin Shyllon was a Nigerian legal scholar, historian and internationally respected authority on cultural heritage law. His career brought together three fields that are often studied separately: the history of Black people in Britain, the development of legal education in Nigeria and the struggle to recover cultural objects removed from African societies.
Decades before European and American museums began publicly confronting the colonial origins of their collections, Shyllon examined the legal and moral questions surrounding stolen and illegally exported cultural property. He argued through his scholarship that cultural objects were not merely decorative possessions. They could embody religious authority, historical memory, political legitimacy and the identity of entire communities.
He became one of the African scholars who gave the restitution movement intellectual depth, legal structure and historical evidence.
Early Life and Legal Education
Folarin Olawale Shyllon was born on 23 July 1940. He received his early education in Lagos, attending Yaba Methodist School and Eko Boys’ High School in Mushin.
He later travelled to Britain, where he studied at Kingston College in Surrey before pursuing legal education at King’s College, University of London. He completed advanced legal studies during the 1960s, including a master’s degree in law in 1967.
His education prepared him for a career that extended beyond conventional legal practice. Although he became a professor of law, his interests included history, archives, intellectual property, constitutional government and the international protection of cultural heritage.
His years in Britain gave him access to archives and institutions that supported his first major research projects. Instead of concentrating only on legal doctrine, he began investigating the historical experiences of Africans and people of African descent in Britain.
Legacy One: Rewriting Black British History
Shyllon first established his international reputation as a historian of Black Britain.
Oxford University Press published his groundbreaking book, Black Slaves in Britain, in 1974. The work examined slavery and the experiences of Black people within Britain itself. It challenged national accounts that concentrated mainly on Britain’s later role in abolition while giving less attention to British participation in slavery, slave ownership and racial oppression.
Shyllon placed the British abolition movement within the wider history of a society that had benefited from slavery and the Atlantic slave economy. His research demonstrated that the struggle against slavery could not be properly understood without studying the people who endured enslavement and challenged the institutions that sustained it.
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In 1977, Oxford University Press published Black People in Britain, 1555–1833. The book reconstructed the presence of Black servants, sailors, enslaved people, writers, campaigners and free residents in Britain across several centuries.
At a time when Black British history was often treated as a recent story beginning with twentieth-century immigration, Shyllon demonstrated that Africans and their descendants had been present in Britain for hundreds of years. His use of archival records helped restore Black people to a national history from which they had frequently been omitted.
That same year, he published James Ramsay: The Unknown Abolitionist. Ramsay was an Anglican clergyman whose writings against slavery contributed to the abolitionist cause. By examining figures who had received limited attention in popular histories, Shyllon continued his broader effort to reassess accepted historical narratives through documentary evidence.
These works made his name as a scholar who combined legal discipline with historical investigation. They also revealed a concern that remained central throughout his career: the relationship between power, historical evidence and public memory.
Folarin Shyllon and the University of Ibadan Faculty of Law
The second enduring legacy of Folarin Shyllon was his role in the development of legal education at the University of Ibadan.
The university’s law programme began in October 1981 as a Department of Law within the Faculty of the Social Sciences. Professor M. I. Jegede served as its pioneer head.
In January 1984, Shyllon succeeded Jegede as Head of the Department of Law. On 28 May 1984, the University Senate approved the department’s conversion into a Faculty of Law. The change fulfilled an important requirement of the Council of Legal Education concerning the admission of the university’s graduates to the Nigerian Law School.
Shyllon became the foundation Dean of the new Faculty of Law. He assumed leadership during a formative period when the programme was developing its academic identity, recruiting lecturers and establishing the institutional structures required for professional legal education.
His responsibilities involved more than administering an existing faculty. He helped build one.
The faculty developed programmes in public and international law, private law and business law. Former students went on to serve as attorneys-general, magistrates, High Court judges, appellate justices, Senior Advocates of Nigeria and university professors.
The later achievements of the faculty were the work of many lecturers, administrators, students and successive deans. Shyllon’s leadership at the moment of its creation nevertheless secured his place in the institutional history of the University of Ibadan.
Freedom, Justice and the Due Process of Law
Shyllon’s inaugural lecture reflected his concern with the relationship between government power and the rights of citizens.
On 15 May 1986, he delivered Freedom, Justice and the Due Process of Law at the University of Ibadan. Ibadan University Press published the lecture in 1987.
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It was the first inaugural lecture delivered from the university’s Faculty of Law. Its subject belonged to a wider period of Shyllon’s scholarship in which he examined constitutionalism, military government and the rule of law in Nigeria.
He was concerned with whether those exercising public authority remained subject to legal restraints and whether citizens could rely on fair procedures when confronted by state power.
This interest connected his constitutional writing with his later work on heritage. In both fields, he studied how law could restrain power, protect rights and provide remedies for injustice.
Legacy Two: Advancing Cultural Heritage Law in Africa
The third major legacy of Folarin Shyllon was his contribution to cultural heritage law and the campaign against the illicit trafficking of cultural property.
UNESCO and UNIDROIT described him as one of the founding figures of heritage law in Africa. Their joint tribute stated that he spent more than 50 years working against the illicit movement of cultural objects.
His influence developed through decades of scholarship, advocacy and work supporting the interpretation and implementation of international cultural heritage agreements.
The 1970 UNESCO Convention established an international framework for preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property. It encouraged participating states to create inventories, regulate exports, strengthen national institutions and cooperate in recovering stolen objects.
The convention does not operate retroactively and therefore cannot automatically resolve every dispute involving objects removed before it entered into force. This limitation is particularly relevant to African cultural objects seized during nineteenth-century colonial wars.
In 1995, UNIDROIT adopted a complementary convention addressing the private-law dimensions of stolen or illegally exported cultural objects. It established rules concerning restitution, return, possession and the responsibilities of those acquiring cultural material.
Shyllon encouraged African states to ratify and use these international instruments. In 2000, he published an important study on the recovery of cultural objects by African states through the UNESCO and UNIDROIT conventions and the possible role of arbitration.
He examined several possible approaches to restitution, including national legislation, diplomatic negotiation, arbitration, international cooperation and voluntary return.
The UNESCO and UNIDROIT Model Provisions
Shyllon also participated directly in the development of legal guidance for protecting undiscovered cultural objects.
He served as a Nigerian member of the independent expert committee convened by UNESCO and UNIDROIT to prepare model legislative provisions on state ownership of undiscovered cultural objects.
The committee met in Paris between 2010 and 2011. Its members represented different legal traditions and regions of the world. The resulting provisions were designed to help states strengthen their domestic laws and clearly establish ownership of archaeological objects that had not yet been discovered.
Clear ownership laws are important because objects removed through unlawful excavation may later enter the international art market. A country seeking their return can face serious difficulty when its legislation does not establish ownership before the objects are taken.
Through this work, Shyllon contributed to a practical legal instrument intended to strengthen the protection and recovery of cultural property.
Benin City and the Problem of Colonial Looting
The objects removed from Benin City in 1897 became one of the most prominent examples of the historical injustice examined in Shyllon’s cultural heritage scholarship.
British forces invaded Benin City, the capital of the Kingdom of Benin, in February 1897. They occupied the city and removed thousands of objects from the royal palace, its compounds and storerooms.
Many of the objects were subsequently taken to Britain, sold at auction or distributed among museums and private collectors in Europe and North America.
The expression “Benin Bronzes” is commonly used to describe the collection, but not every object is made from bronze. The wider group includes works produced in brass, bronze, ivory, wood, coral, leather and other materials.
These objects were not simply artworks created for display. Many had religious, commemorative or political functions within the royal court of the Oba. Some were placed on ancestral altars, while others recorded court ceremonies, royal authority and the history of the kingdom.
The principal international conventions governing cultural property were adopted long after the British invasion. Their non-retroactive operation means they cannot automatically compel the return of every object removed in 1897.
Shyllon’s scholarship showed that negotiation, ethical responsibility, provenance research, national legislation and voluntary restitution could address historical removals that fell outside the direct reach of modern treaties.
Later Scholarship and International Service
Shyllon continued to publish important work on law, heritage and intellectual property.
In 2003, he published Intellectual Property Law in Nigeria. The book examined copyright, patents, registered designs, trade marks, confidential information, parallel imports and the legal protection of expressions of folklore.
His attention to folklore was particularly significant. Traditional cultural expressions often develop collectively across generations, making them difficult to protect through intellectual property systems designed mainly for identifiable individual authors.
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In 2013, he published Cultural Heritage Law and Management in Africa. The book brought together his writings on Nigerian heritage legislation, monuments, archives, cultural festivals, illicit trafficking, colonial looting and international restitution.
After retiring from the University of Ibadan in 2005, he remained active in teaching, research and international cultural programmes. He was associated with Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute and later served as Dean of Law at Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State.
He also chaired Nigeria’s committee connected with UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme, which promotes the preservation and accessibility of documentary heritage.
In November 2020, shortly before his death, Shyllon remained involved in international discussions on the protection of cultural heritage. He participated in events marking the fiftieth anniversary of the UNESCO 1970 Convention and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the UNIDROIT Convention.
He died in January 2021 at the age of 80.
A Legacy Visible in Modern Restitution
The international movement for cultural restitution gathered greater momentum during the final years of Shyllon’s life and after his death.
Universities, museums and governments began returning objects or transferring legal ownership to African countries. These decisions resulted from sustained efforts by African governments, traditional authorities, researchers, campaigners and museum professionals over many decades.
In June 2025, the Netherlands physically returned 119 Benin objects to Nigeria. The transfer was unconditional and formally recognised that the objects had been looted during the British attack on Benin City in 1897.
Of the 119 objects, 113 came from the Dutch State Collection and six from the Municipality of Rotterdam. The official handover took place at the National Museum in Lagos.
The return addressed the same central questions that had shaped Shyllon’s scholarship: whether colonial seizure could create legitimate ownership, whether modern institutions had ethical duties beyond the narrow wording of domestic law and whether African societies should regain authority over objects central to their own histories.
Conclusion
Folarin Shyllon’s historical importance rests on three enduring achievements.
First, his early books transformed the study of Black British history by documenting an African presence that extended across centuries. Second, his leadership helped establish the Faculty of Law at the University of Ibadan during a decisive stage in its development. Third, his scholarship strengthened Africa’s legal and intellectual campaign for the protection and return of cultural heritage.
His career demonstrated that history, law and cultural memory cannot always be separated. Archives influence what societies remember. Laws determine who can control important objects. Museums shape how cultures are represented to the world.
Through his research and international work, Shyllon insisted that African cultural objects should be understood not merely as museum possessions, but as evidence of history, authority, creativity and identity.
Author’s Note
The life of Folarin Shyllon shows how scholarship can connect historical recovery with practical institutional change. By restoring Black people to Britain’s documented past, helping to build legal education in Nigeria and developing stronger approaches to cultural restitution, he demonstrated that control over history is closely connected to control over archives, laws and cultural objects. His enduring lesson is that preserving heritage requires more than admiration for the past. It requires institutions, evidence and a willingness to confront the circumstances through which important objects and histories were taken from their communities.
References
University of Ibadan, Faculty of Law, “History: Department of Public and International Law.”
University of Ibadan, “Senate Public Lectures: 1948 to Date.”
International Journal of Cultural Property, “Folarin Shyllon, 1940–2021,” Cambridge University Press, 2021.
UNESCO and UNIDROIT, “Tribute to the Late Professor Folarin Olawale Shyllon,” 21 January 2021.
UNIDROIT, Model Provisions on State Ownership of Undiscovered Cultural Objects.
UNESCO, “A Pioneering Convention.”
UNESCO, Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, 1970.
UNIDROIT, Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, 1995.
British Museum, “Benin Bronzes.”
Government of the Netherlands, “Benin Bronzes from the Netherlands Returning Home to Nigeria,” 18 June 2025.
WIPO Library, Intellectual Property Law in Nigeria, by Folarin Shyllon, 2003.
Berkeley Law Library, Cultural Heritage Law and Management in Africa, by Folarin Shyllon, 2013.
Oxford University Press, “Africa,” in The Oxford Handbook of International Cultural Heritage Law, by Folarin Shyllon, 2020.
