Students at Cambridge University have dubbed a statue of a cockerel the “new Cecil Rhodes”.

The students are calling for a bronze cockerel statue looted in a British colonial expedition in Benin in 1897  to be returned in a public ceremony.

It has even been called the “new Cecil Rhodes”,  following the row over whether the figure of the famous colonialist should be taken down at Oxford University.

Campaigners have said it should be repatriated to Nigeria in a ceremony at the county’s royal palace, having been among hundreds of bronze works of art stolen from Africa in the late 19th century.

A spokesman from Cambridge University told the Independent: “We recognise that ethical issues are of great importance.”