The Price of Reparations
The Price of Reparations
The reparations cause was given
top priority during the 38th African Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, on 15-16 February 2025. A Civil Society Pre-Summit Symposium was hosted by the African Union
Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), to discuss the 2025 African
Union Theme of the Year: “Justice for Africans and People of African Descent
Through Reparations.” In recent years, there have been official collaboration
between the African Union (AU) and Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on slavery and
colonial reparations.
But the struggle for reparations
against former enslavers and colonisers has been on for decades. For instance, in October 1990, Nigerian
business mogul, M.K.O. Abiola, attended the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) meeting
in Washington, and as the recipient of the 1990 CBC Chairman’s Award for
Excellence in Service, he was hailed as “a hero
in the global pursuit to preserve the history and the legacy of the African
diaspora”. By December 1990, M.K.O. Abiola sponsored the inaugural conference
on reparations in Lagos, Nigeria, and the conference theme was “Reparations for
Africa and Africans in the Diaspora”.
In June 1991, the reparations initiative was backed by the precursor to the
African Union (AU), the Organization for African Unity (OAU). Following a
meeting by the OAU member countries, a resolution was passed on the injustices
of slavery and the need to demand for reparations. On June 28, 1992, a
12-member Group of Eminent Persons on reparations was mandated by the OAU to pursue
the reparations cause, and M.K.O. Abiola was named the Chairman. In April 1993,
the first Pan-African Conference on Reparations was held in Abuja, Nigeria. During
the reparations conference, a resolute communiqué was issued affirming the
crimes perpetrated during the slavery era and the various manifestations of the
protracted exploitation of Africa.
For context, Leopold II of Belgium, who was a first
cousin of Queen Victoria of Britain, claimed Congo as his private property, and
his claim was rubber-stamped during the infamous ‘scramble’ for Africa by
Europeans assembled at the now infamous Berlin Conference – though should be
aptly named ‘The Brutes Conference’. The brutal reign of Leopold II in Congo
was characterised by exploitation, famine, disease, amputations, killings,
kidnapping, and forced labour to cultivate rubber, ivory and minerals for the
benefit of Belgium. Within the palace complex in Tervuren, Leopold II constructed a ‘human zoo’ – displaying as animals at
least 267 Congolese taken by force from Congo. Leopold II is responsible for
the deaths of at least “10 million” people in Congo.
Operation Legacy was
the British Colonial Office (now Foreign Office)
programme to destroy or conceal files that could potentially implicate
the British Empire in any wrongdoing, and to prevent the use of
incriminating information as evidence by ex-colonies. Hanslope Park, Buckinghamshire,
is the Foreign Office location of secret archives housing over a million historic files. Some of the
gruesome crimes were revealed when victims of the Mau Mau uprising won the right to sue the British government in 2011. These are
truly horrific stories that depict the true nature of the empire’s crimes on
indigenous populations forced into colonial rule. Graphic
details of depravity – murder, incarceration and sexual torture.
On a trip to Kenya in 2023,
King Charles III stopped short of an apology and was criticised for the missed opportunity, especially from the
perspective of those in Africa.
In a 2002 article, Boris
Johnson, seemed to concede that Africa is a ‘mess’ but failed in his rather
lame exculpation of colonialism. Johnson
opined that the problem was not one of being once in charge, but that of not
being in charge anymore, and suggests the best fate for Africa is for another
colonial ‘scramble’, but without the feeling of guilt that followed past
European incursions.
The Transatlantic Slave
Trade is usually narrowed down to circa 1500 – 1870 and was one of the ‘major human migrations in history’, with at least 12 million Africans forcibly
enslaved. The crux of the argument is that the West was built on the blood and
sweat of the enslaved Africans shipped away from their homelands. Surely, the
countries of the former enslavers and colonisers have benefited from cheap
forced labour and had inevitable economic advantages. The Industrial Revolution
was firmly built upon slavery and the exploitation of colonies.
The wealth of some of the richest British families can be traced to the
slave trade. Some institutions benefitted from the slave trade as well –
University of Oxford’s All
Souls College was bequeathed a magnificent library. Experiments
such as that of the steam engine inventor, James Watt, were financed with the proceeds from slavery.
The eventual abolishment
of slavery, following 26 years of bureaucracy, was
primarily economic, and did not
culminate in the compensation of the enslaved. Rather, in 1833, Britain paid 40% of its national budget: the sum of £20 million – worth billions in
modern equivalent – to compensate thousands of slave-owner families, and it
took British taxpayers 182 years (1833-2015) to complete payment.
It has often been argued that if
the Jews can rightfully get reparations for the horrendous Holocaust they
suffered for 12 years (1933-1945), reparations for slavery in Africa is a
legitimate cause. The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of
Germany was signed on September 10, 1952. Since 1952, Germany has paid more
than $90 billion, and in 2024, committed to paying $1.4 billion.
Evidently, the pursuit of reparations
has huge implications for those who committed crimes against humanity for
centuries. The agitation
for reparations is often resisted from various quarters, particularly the countries
of former colonisers, where anti-immigration sentiments are
currently on the rise. However, the Western populace, especially the far-right,
need to be educated on the nexus between history and contemporary economic
challenges. Those guilty of slavery and
colonialism cannot escape their past, so the sooner the reparations matter is
confronted, the better for resolving global socioeconomic disparities. As the
reparations discourse endures, the world grapples with development challenges
in Africa, the migration issue, debt traps and the ineffectiveness of foreign
aid. Embedded neocolonial
structures have kept Africa in a perpetual state of susceptibility and
exploitation. Addressing the matter of reparations is inevitable,
but at what price?
© M.B.O 2025
M.B.O
Owolowo is the author of R.O.G.U.E:
Reality On Ground Undermining Enterprise
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