Dear Mrs Badenoch,
I write to you in my capacity as leader of the Yoruba Party in the UK. I understand that you were critical of Britain abstaining and not voting against the UNGA resolution on Reparation for Slavery, which was passed by majority vote on 17 March 2026. I understand also that it is your position that Britain should pay no reparation for the slavery because Britain assisted in bringing it to an end. Your position is akin to saying that a thief should face no sanctions just because he repented. That is not how the world works. There is no jurisdiction where repentance exempted the perpetrator from civil responsibility. Even the thief on the cross acknowledged that he was getting what he deserved. In our view, repentance can only be validated through providing restitution to those who were harmed.
Under Britain’s domestic laws, a guilty party could not unilaterally determine whether he should pay compensation, and what amount. Those are matters for the courts. The courts are assisted in this case in particular by the fact that in 1833, Britain accepted civil liability for the Transatlantic Slavery, and paid £20 million to 47,000 slave owners in compensation, £30 billion in today’s money; that is the compensation figure that we at the Yoruba party have in mind for the loss of over 5 million of our people to the Transatlantic Slavery. It is our duty as heirs to the Yoruba legacy to fight for compensation for the deprivation inflicted on Yorubaland over the 400 years of slavery, mostly by Britain.
The loss of so many million Yoruba to the development of the Yorubaland is incalculable. Nathan Nunn (in ‘Understanding the long-run effects of Africa’s slave trades’ VoxEU eBook; 2017) summarised data from a series of studies that he and his colleagues had conducted on the matter over the years. They found as follows. The transatlantic slavery had negative impact on African societies and led to the long-term impoverishment of West Africa. In the 1800s, Africa’s population was half of what it would have been but for the transatlantic slavery. Pervasive insecurity and violence associated with the transatlantic slavery retarded institutional, social and economic development. The countries from where most slaves were taken became the poorest on the continent. The parts of Africa that was the most developed, such as Yorubaland, yielded the largest number of slaves.
But for the transatlantic slavery, 75% of the income gap between Africa and other developing nations would not exist; Africa would have a similar level of development as Asia or Latin America. Much of Africa’s poor performance today could be explained by the 400 years of slave raiding. Slavery did not just remove people, it fundamentally altered the fabric of society. Slave raiding led to the collapse of cities and communities as well as ethnic fragmentation. The Transatlantic Slavery resulted in substantial deterioration in local, ethnic, legal and political institutions and governance. The transatlantic slavery created the conditions that enabled subsequent European colonisation of Africa.
Something profound and permanent occurred at the UNGA on 17 March 2026. The majority of the countries of the world, 123 of them, agreed to establish a new international law – the Slavery Reparation Law. The new law accords with the letter or spirit of Article 38(a) of the ICJ Statute. On 17 March 2026, the matter of reparation for slavery transferred from the political arena to the legal (judicial) arena. It had not been possible to litigate this matter until now that123 countries have designated the Transatlantic Slavery a crime against humanity, a crime that time legally could not pardon. It thus is redundant whether Britain abstained or voted against.
Respectfully yours
Baasegun (Dr) Olusola On1
2 April 2026