Traditional Rulers And The Slave Trade


On June 18, 2009, the U.S. Senate formally passed an "apology" resolution acknowledging the "Fundamental Injustice, Cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow Laws". Earlier in 2001, a French law that was passed, recognises the transatlantic slavery as a crime against humanity. Later again in 2007, the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, had equally apologised for the roles of Britain in the slavery holocaust.

These pronouncements are amongst the few but noticeable attempts by some heads of government, global, opinion leaders to attempt to wash off the blights and stains in their consciences, regarding the roles they played in the trans Sahara and transatlantic slave trade where hundreds of thousands of Africans were forcefully uprooted from their soil against their will and enslaved and shipped across the Sahara and Atlantic Ocean to Europe, USA and the Caribbean.

The poaching of these innocent and defenceless Africans, in the name of slavery started in the early 13th century, when the African continent was rampaged and plundered by European and American slave raiders, who forcefully snatched energetic men and women and took them abroad to work in plantations and factories. Regrettably, most of the African traditional rulers, reportedly significantly participated by collaborating and colluding with the slave raiders (after a bribe of fire arms or gun power) in the enslavement of African people.

Traditional rulers acquired an inglorious reputation of engaging in the act of slave trade, helping to systematically raid and kidnap in the neighbouring weak and defenceless communities or villages and then trading them off with European, American and other collaborators. At the plantation, the captured slaves were then subjected to various forms of inhuman, cruel and degrading treatment.

Despite attempts to break the spirit of many of these African slaves, some of the very few but courageous slaves rose to resist attempts at slavery and the subsequent human degradation. They rose up to attempt to gain their freedom and preserve their dignity, yet the mass crime inflicted on the African people for a period of 400 years enabled the West to build awesome economic wealth that propelled and prospered their industrial revolution.

Today, the impact and the devastating consequences of the crime of slavery on the lives of millions of Africans in the Diaspora and the continents continue. The era of slavery was characterised by brutality, cruelty, and untold human suffering inflicted upon innocent and helpless Nigerians and other Africans.

The impacts of slavery led to permanent demographic changes, irreversible and painful displacement and perpetual dislocation of closely blended families, which had lived for as long as evolution and historical evidence permits us to establish and verify. Apart from slowing down social reform and innovation in statecraft in the kingdom of Africa, it equally contributed to the de-culturalisation and forced foreign values and beliefs on Africans, it promoted unending wars, chaos in the African continent, and also heightened a sense of inferiority in Africans.

The consequences of slavery are also felt by its promotion of the extinction of culture and by its affliction of permanent psychological injuries on the people, that today some of them in their country are treated as second class citizens and some discriminated against for a fault that is not theirs. Despite these impacts, the slave masters and their sympathisers continued to make efforts to rewrite history and to wipe out Africa’s contributions to human civilisation. Africa and Africans no doubt have played significant roles and contributed immensely to world civilisation in so many ways.

Even before the rise of European civilisation, great African ancestors had built empires and pyramids in ancient Egypt and Nubia and involved in Trans-Atlantic trade in America long before the parents of Christopher Columbus were even born.

Africans had been in the Americas in ancient time, not as labourers, but as major influencing groups, occupying elite position in the society and civilising elements carried over from Africa even long before the 12th century. They (especially Egypt and Congo) have greatly influenced music and the arts of Europe and America and also made great inventions.

Today, the worlds current three major religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have their roots in or borrowed heavily from African religion and customs. Indeed and no doubt, Africa’s heritage to the world is glorious. In view of the fact that the Americans and Europeans have accepted the cruelty of their roles and have forcefully apologised, it would be logical, reasonable and humbling if African Traditional Rulers, representing their institutions and their ancestors accept blame and formally apologise to the descendants of the victims of their collaborative and exploitative slave trade in Africa and other places.

The essence of this apology is obvious and relevant. First, it will put a formal final seal to the history of the slave trade which had hitherto remained "inconclusive" as the victims or their descendants are yet to receive a formal apology. We cannot continue to blame the white men (Slave Raiders) as Africans, particularly the traditional rulers (as Chiefs, Obas, Obis, Emirs, Ezes or Kings) are not blameless in their involvement in slave trade.

It is based on these realisations that I call on the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Saad to without delay or hesitation apologise to the families of the descendants of victims of slave trade on behalf of Northern Nigeria for the roles of his forbears in the trans-Sahara slave trade, and also I call on the Oba of Benin, the Obong of Calabar, the Ooni of Ife, and the Oba of Lagos to without delay and hesitation apologise to the descendants of the victims of transatlantic slave trade.

These apologies (affecting other traditional rulers in Nigeria) will not only give your Highnesses the latitude and a say in the nations constitution, but will also make you credible for the roles you had consistently advocated and intended to play in the future constitutional reforms and development in Nigeria.

By these apologies, it will equally catalyse and set the pace for other traditional rulers and institutions in places like Ghana, Mali, Senegal and other Africa countries to follow suit. While I commend the indomitable spirit of those Africans who took necessary but needed and timely risks and paid the supreme sacrifices to ensure freedom and preserved the dignity of Africans, I make bold to say that their actions have in no less manner contributed to the promotion of the equality of all mankind.

For now, the letter of apology of the U.S., France, Britain and others will indeed be hypocritical as it was not backed up with relevant instruments of law for compensation or due reparation, because I consider as of greater relevance, reparation for the total healing of the wounds of slavery.

While there are urgent calls for reparation for slavery, there are those who defend it and invoke the principles of non-retroactivity or alleged illegality. To invoke the principles of non-retroactivity or to allege the legality of the degrading acts of slavery at the time it happens is indeed a demonstration of the highest hypocrisy towards the loss of human lives, values and reason. In the first instance, Europeans are at any given time only a global minority and would therefore not rightfully establish the rules and content of international laws by themselves.

There is indeed, a shabby manoeuvre to reduce their regrets of slave trade to vain words that may prove futile and counterproductive. Reparation for slavery should not be ignored or reduced by the decisive institution of international laws and politics. I therefore call on UNESCO and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to work hard towards the total healing of the wounds of slavery practices. I call for the establishment of a Pan African movement to champion and remind Africans that without justice, there cannot be peace and to do everything possible to establish and institutionalise a day for the remembrance of the slave trade and its abolition.

Finally, I call on Africans to rise up from the negligence of the past and work to create a new generation of Africans worthy of global respect, only then can there be total healing of the wounds of slavery in Africa and other parts of the world.

Sani is President of the Civil Rights Congress Kaduna, Kaduna State.