The Yoruba Party in the UK (YPUK) seeks compensation from the British government, on behalf of the Yoruba, for the destruction, pain, and suffering wrought upon Yorubaland with the Transatlantic Slavery.
Yorubaland, God-given homeland of the Yoruba, is a distinct geographical entity in West Africa, enclosed by the natural barriers of the River Niger to the north and east and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, which the Yoruba, probably the largest monoethnic group in Africa, have by themselves occupied and owned, continuously, uninterrupted, and undisputed, since time immemorial.
Between the 16th and 19th centuries, Yorubaland was the scene of unrelenting violence of slave raiding. Between 5 to 10 million Yoruba were forcibly removed from Yorubaland and shipped to various locations in the Americas. Millions of families lost loved ones including children, present and future bread winners, present and future brides and grooms, present and future artisans and craftsmen, and present and future leaders. The violence brought desolation and destruction to millions and millions of homes, towns, and villages, places of work including farms, places of leisure, places of worship, places of commerce including crafts, artisans and looms, and places of buying and selling. The Transatlantic Slavery corrupted Yorubaland’s expected development. The psychological effects of the slavery remain to this day in the form of a complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD).
YPUK makes this claim for compensation on behalf of those that were left behind in Yorubaland as slavers violently removed their kinsmen from streets, forests, homes, and villages and towns. YPUK has the legal standing to make the claim as a purely Yoruba ethnic political party registered with the UK Electoral Commission on 13 February 2024, which entitled it to claim the mantle of heirs to the Yoruba legacy, in the same vein as the State of Israel, a political institution, successfully claiming the mantle of ‘heirs to the 6 million’.
It has been suggested in the press that the British government should neither apologise nor pay compensation for the Transatlantic Slavery. YPUK asserts that this position is not legally tenable on two grounds.
Ground 1: the British government acknowledged that the Transatlantic Slavery was a crime against humanity.
The British government made this acknowledgement as signatory to a communique issued at the end of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Apia, Samoa, on 26 October 2024. At Paragraph 21, the Commonwealth Heads stated unequivocally that the Transatlantic Slavery was an appalling tragedy in the history of humanity in its abhorrent barbarism, magnitude, organised nature, and negation of the essence of the victims. The Heads stated further that the Transatlantic Slavery was a crime against humanity that should always have been so. At Paragraph 22, the Commonwealth Heads recognised the enduring effects of the Transatlantic Slavery on the peoples of the Commonwealth and the importance of ‘reparatory justice’. The Heads agreed therefore to engage in a meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation towards forging a common future based on equity, addressing harms caused by the Transatlantic Slavery.
There is no time limit to paying compensation for a crime against humanity. It has been suggested that regardless the British government cannot afford the funds to pay compensation to the victims of the Transatlantic Slavery. What the government can or cannot afford is irrelevant. In 1833, the British government could not afford to pay compensation to the slave-owners so it turned to the London financial institutions for help. The compensation was only fully paid off in 2015. There is no reason why the British government could not do in 2025 what it did in 1833 to get funds to compensate the Yoruba victims of the Transatlantic Slavery.
Ground 2: the British government tacitly accepted liability for the Transatlantic Slavery.
The British government signalled its acceptance of liability when in 1933 it paid the generous compensation package of £20 million (about £300 billion in today’s money) to slave-owners for the loss of their human ‘property’. The Bank of England administered the payments on behalf of the British government. The compensation package is reported to amount to 40% of the Treasury’s annual income or 5% of GDP. The loan, obtained via the London financial institutions, was one of the largest in history. Britain only finished paying off the debt incurred in 2015.
Under British law, the person liable for a crime does not get to determine whether or not he paid compensation to his victims or what amount of quantum he paid for his crime. Since the British government already tacitly accepted liability for the Transatlantic Slavery, what remained to be decided was the amount of quantum to pay to the victims. That is a matter for the courts, and a matter on which British courts have experience and expertise. Proportionality demands that Britain paid compensation to the Yoruba victims of the Transatlantic Slavery comparable in amount to what it paid to the slave-owners.
Liability for crime against humanity cannot be transferred, so said the British courts in the Mau Mau compensation case. From 1952 or thereabouts, the British committed crime against humanity on Kenyan soil. The British executed, tortured or maimed some 90,000 Kenyans. They sexually abused including cold-bloodedly castrating men and inserting broken glass into the vaginas of women. They physically abused including pouring sand and water into the detainee’s anus as he was hung upside down. The British launched the ‘villagisation’ campaign in which they forced some 1 million Kenyans to burn down their own homes themselves, and thereafter, the British incarcerated over 150,000 Kenyans in punitive villages or in concentration camps just like the Germans had done to the Jews a decade or so earlier. The British courts refused the government’s attempts to transfer liability to the Kenyan government. The matter was eventually settled out of court with the British government paying £20 million in compensation to more than 5,000 Kenyan victims.
The British government has tacitly accepted liability for the Transatlantic Slavery so that all that remains is for the courts to award compensation to the victims, in this case, to those left behind by the slave raiders. British courts have an obligation to award compensation in any case where damage has resulted from an offence. The Transatlantic Slavery is a crime against humanity for which compensation is due. Under British law, compensation does not always mean money. It may take the form of a non-monetary benefit. YPUK does not seek monetary compensation for the Yoruba home victims of the Transatlantic Slavery. What YPUK seeks from the British government is a development-based compensation in the form of a marine economy on the Atlantic coast of Yorubaland.
The Yoruba coast is an underdeveloped marine economy that presents enormous market potential for both Britain and Yorubaland. The coast is some 500km long and the sea is deep. The development would involve a wide range of economic activities including but not limited to biology, medicine, engineering, technology, tourism, town planning, renewable energy, marine transportation, security, infrastructure development, and so on. Self-evidently, thousands and thousands of local professionals and non-professional workers would be employed for the enormous task of creating the marine economy. YPUK estimates that the volume of trade to Britain from that source alone could yield up to £15 billion a year from a capital outlay by the British government of £1 billion spread over five years.
The Nigerian government was signatory to the 2024 Commonwealth communique on the Transatlantic Slavery meaning that it is ‘locked in’, and could not obstruct or prevent compensation awarded by the British courts being paid directly to Yorubaland for the destruction, pain, and suffering that the slavery wrought upon Yoruba people.
To make donations towards these legal battles visit www.yorubapartyuk.org
Individuals, media outlets, and organisations who wish to support the YPUK initiatives please send your offers to info@yorubapartyuk.org.