It is not possible to calculate or estimate in pure monetary terms the appropriate ‘reparation’, that is to say, the levy to be paid to make amend for the wrongdoing committed with the transatlantic slavery. It also is not possible to calculate or estimate the appropriate ‘recompense’, that is to say, repayment or payback in return for the transatlantic slavery. This is because the transatlantic slavery was so immense:

1.     The enterprise lasted for 400 years.

2.     European slavers loaded some 10 million Yoruba men, women and children onto their slave ships.

3.     The Yoruba slaves grew sugar cane in the New World plantations from which sugar, rum, molasses and other products were exported to Europe.

4.     Profits generated from slavery economically and politically transformed port cities like Liverpool and Bristol, and linked them to large areas of the British hinterland for goods and services.

5.     Some of the wealth generated supported the British government, the Crown, arts and architecture, academic institutions, the insurance sector, and banks.

6.     The number of British merchants, shipbuilders, and investors involved was huge.

7.     The slavery was not only legal, but was considered to be ethical.

8.     The slavery was a major source of wealth, influence, and respectability for many. 

Following the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, to compensate slave owners for the loss of their slaves, the British government borrowed £20 million (equivalent to £30 billion today). This was 40% of the Treasury’s annual income or about 5% of the British GDP. The loan was one of the largest in history. British taxpayers were repaying the loan up until 2015. On 16 April 1862, the District of Columbia in the US enacted the Compensated Emancipation Act, which compensated slave owners up to $300 (equivalent to $10,125 today) for each freed slave.

The Applicants here make the case for victims of the transatlantic slavery. The Yoruba were urban dwellers with a population density comparable to that of Europe. More than two thirds of that population was lost to the transatlantic slavery. Left alone, it could not be discounted that the Yorubaland would have developed much more than it had today. At the onset of the transatlantic slavery, for example, the Yoruba had already mastered the science of metallurgy, as evidenced by the sculptures, and the science of disease prevention, as evidenced by vaccination against smallpox. The transatlantic slavery put a stop to potential future developments for 400 years.

Britain benefitted the most from the transatlantic slavery. It would be right and fair for Britain to ‘return’ benefits that it accrued directly or indirectly from the transatlantic slavery. The Yorubaland was the source of most of Britain’s slaves. It would be right and fair for the Yoruba to be the beneficiaries of the benefits that Briatin  ‘returned’. The principle of ‘restorative action’ was to look at wrongdoing as harm done rather than punishment for wrongdoing. The intent of ‘restorative action’ in this case would be to return the Yorubaland to its former uninjured condition:

               i.         a self-governing independent sovereign State,

              ii.         with its own customs, laws and governance system,

             iii.         with an extant agreement with Britain (the 1888 Treaty) to assist with its development.

The first and second conditions would be satisfied by UN Membership, which Britain could sponsor at the Security Council. The third condition would be satisfied if Britain invested in the infrastructure of the Yorubaland. Britain used the sea to cart benefits away from the Yorubaland, Britain could use same to return benefits to the Yorubaland. Britain could do this, for example, by assisting the Yorubaland to develop a maritime economy. The Yorubaland has the longest coast for a State in Africa (some 500 km) with a deep sea, ideal for establishing a maritime economy. Hundreds of jobs would be created in both Britain and the Yorubaland - naval architecture, marine and ocean engineering, ship and boat building, electricity generation, pipefitting and welding, mechanical engineering, computer technology, marine biology, to name a few.

What the Applicants propose has been done before. The Marshall Plan (The European Recovery Program) was a US-sponsored program (The Recovery Act 1948) to restore the economic infrastructure of post-WWII Europe. The US committed $13.3 billion to the plan, of which Britain received 26%, the largest share. The Marshall Plan was about strategic thinking. It was not focussed on the destruction wrought by war. What was important was to instil hope and self-reliance. Within 5 years, the economies of the assisted countries had surpassed the pre-war levels. The Marshall Plan was catalyst. It is the Applicant’s contention that Britain owed the Yorubaland a similar ‘restorative action’.

It has been argued that nothing could or should be done since the original victims of the transatlantic slavery have long died, and it would not be possible to trace family connections. This argument has no merit. Germany paid $700 million to the State of Israel as heir to the victims of the holocaust who had no surviving family. Similarly, the Yorubaland is heir to the victims of the transatlantic slavery.