A Nigerian bishop has backed campaigns for compensation for slavery but warned they must not distract from the deeper moral and spiritual imperative of restoring human dignity. Source: The Tablet.
Speaking in the wake of a United Nations resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the “gravest crime against humanity” and a landmark meeting in Ghana demanding reparations, Sokoto Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah said the campaign had a basis in Catholic moral theology.
He described chattel enslavement as “the highest expression of human depravity” and “the evil that manifests the consequences of fallen man”.
“Any culture or law that diminishes the human person, made in the image and likeness of God falls within this category,” Bishop Kukah told the online outlet Crux.
He affirmed that the transatlantic slave trade – in which 12 to 15 million African men, women and children were captured and trafficked to the Americas to work as slaves between the 15th and 19th centuries – unequivocally qualifies as the gravest sin against humanity.
Bishop Kukah’s comments came amid renewed calls for restorative justice, including at a recent gathering of African and Caribbean leaders in the Ghanaian capital Accra.
The meeting drafted a 19-point global framework for reparatory justice, including demands for financial compensation, the return of cultural artefacts and human remains, and multilateral measures to address the crushing sovereign debt burdens of Global South nations.
Bishop Kukah praised the Accra initiative, crediting Ghana’s President John Mahama and the Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley for reviving a conversation that “faded away” since the 1990s. However, he urged caution regarding the focus on financial payouts.
“The issues of compensation, especially in financial terms, can easily become a distraction,” Bishop Kukah said.
“Let’s all focus on the key issues of human dignity with each of us taking responsibility. Let us focus on a proper narration and context, ensuring that we avoid a repeat of the same mistakes that created the conditions for the exploitation of the time.”
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Kukah backs reparations for slavery but says finances must not become distraction (By Ngala Killian Chimtom, The Tablet)
