Under the cover of darkness, Nomali jumped over a wall, burst into a museum and snatched a human skull from a pedestal before escaping through a window to the wail of an alarm.
The daring heist was not the work of a real-life criminal. Nomali is the protagonist of a new action-packed video game where players "reclaim" artefacts taken from African countries to be displayed in the West.
Developed by Johannesburg studio Nyamakop, "Relooted" is set in an imaginary future but tackles a topical issue: calls for Western institutions to return to Africa the spoils of colonization.
Players are tasked with taking back 70 artefacts -- all of which exist in real life -- with a "team of African citizens", said producer Sithe Ncube, one of a team of 30 working on the game.
The items include the "Benin Bronzes" sculptures removed from the former kingdom of Benin more than 120 years ago, and which The Netherlands officially returned to Nigeria on June 21.
Another is the sacred Ngadji drum from Kenya's Pokomo community, which was confiscated by British colonial authorities in 1902.
"Its removal destabilized the community," Ncube said as an animated drawing of the wooden instrument flashed on her computer. Players "can see where it's from... and read about the history," she said, giving a demo.
“Is it stealing?'
On the screen a crew of characters in Afrofuturist costumes debated a plan to recover the remains of Tanzanian chiefs hanged by German colonial forces.
One asked: "Is it stealing to take back what was stolen?"
"We are going to do whatever it takes to take back Africa's belongings, and we are going to do it together," said the character Nomali.
"Sometimes the stories behind these (artefacts) are actually very upsetting," Ncube told AFP. "It makes you see how much colonialism has affected... and shaped the world."
Growing up in Zambia, she knew of her country's iconic "Broken Hill Man", a skull about 300,000 years old held in London's Natural History Museum and which is also featured in "Relooted".
But it was only when working on the game that Ncube realized how many African cultural artefacts were held abroad, she said.
In France alone, museums stored about 90,000 objects from sub-Saharan Africa, according to a 2018 report commissioned by the government.
"Africans, to actually see these things that are part of their own culture, have to get a visa, pay for flights and go to a European country," Ncube said. "My whole life, I've never seen 'Broken Hill Man'."
Skewed identity
The looting of artefacts over centuries robbed communities of their "archives" and "knowledge systems", said Samba Yonga, co-founder of the digital Museum of Women's History in Zambia.
"Our history predates colonization by millennia," she told AFP, but many people "don't even realize that we have a skewed sense of self and identity."
Reclaiming these objects would enable "a shift in how the next generation views their culture and identity," she said.
The same hope underpinned "Relooted", which was unveiled this month at Los Angeles's Summer Game Fest where it attracted a lot of interest from the diaspora and other Africans, Ncube said.
"I hope that the game encourages people from other African countries to want to tell their own stories and bring these things to light," she said.
One character felt personal for the producer: Professor Grace, Nomali's grandmother and described as "the brains behind the mission".
"I started seeing my own grandmother in her," Ncube said with emotion. "She represents a connection between our generations, fighting for the same thing we've always been fighting for."
