Traditional African rulers whose ancestors collaborated with European and Arab slave traders should follow Britain and the US by publicly apologizing, a human rights group said.
The Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria has written to tribal chiefs saying: “We cannot continue to blame the white men, as Africans, particularly the traditional rulers, are not blameless.”
The appeal has reopened a sensitive debate over the part some chiefs played in helping to capture their fellow Africans and sell them into bondage as part of the transatlantic slave trade.
The congress argued that ancestors of the chiefs helped raid and kidnap defenseless communities and traded them to Europeans. They should apologize to “put a final seal to the history of slave trade,” it wrote.
“In view of the fact that the Americans and Europe have accepted the cruelty of their roles and have forcefully apologised, it would be logical, reasonable and humbling if African traditional rulers ... [could] accept blame and formally apologise to the descendants of the victims,” it said.
Between 10 million and 28 million Africans were sent to the Americas and sold into slavery between 1450 and the early 19th century.
More than 1 million are believed to have died in transit across the so-called “Middle Passage” of the Atlantic because of inhumane conditions aboard slave ships.
Three years ago then-British prime minister Tony Blair described Britain’s participation as a “crime against humanity.” The US Senate voted for an apology this year.
Shehu Sani, head of the congress, said it was calling for traditional rulers to apologize now because they were seeking inclusion in a forthcoming constitutional amendment in Nigeria.
“We felt that for them to have the moral standing to be part of our constitutional arrangement there are some historical issues for them to address,” he told the BBC World Service. “One part of which is the involvement of their institutions in the slave trade.”
He said that traditional rulers “raided communities and kidnapped people” for slave buyers. Many slaves captured inland in Africa died on the journey to the coast.
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