Five books on slavery
The number of Nigerians returning from Libya boggles the mind. The stories are as heart wrenching as they are unbelievable. Slave camps, torture, hangings, rape, sexual abuse, treatment for human beings as if they were animals, starvation, slave labour and bestiality. The list is endless and the stories are becoming more bizarre by the day. […]
The number of Nigerians returning from Libya boggles the mind. The stories are as heart wrenching as they are unbelievable. Slave camps, torture, hangings, rape, sexual abuse, treatment for human beings as if they were animals, starvation, slave labour and bestiality. The list is endless and the stories are becoming more bizarre by the day. The death tolls in slave camps in Libya, in the desert, the thirst leading some to drink their own urine or fuel just gets me in a knot. The incredulity of being raped by several men over and over again if you are a woman, and who knows if you are a man.
I have looked at the long narrative, the interviews in the papers of the ordeals of fellow countrymen and I have been shivering from the information on-line and in the media about the tales of those who want to escape Nigeria.
A young man said his father forced him to go to Europe through Libya, selling a family parcel of land to send him. They ended up paying a huge ransom to a kidnapper after the initial sum of N450,00 to his trafficker. Another returned blind after being hit by a trafficker in the eye.
The trafficking ring across the world is a merciless, high yielding trade with networks in every country. Highly criminalised and corrupt, it’s the second biggest illicit trade after drugs. There is intrigue, drugs and murder in this trade that stretches from Sudan, Libya, through Italy to East Europe. The ring is wide and growing. These groups are fierce, dangerous and merciless, why should anyone ever get involved with them? People tell you they are fleeing wars and poverty, but no one tells you that in a lot of instances you are better off in your home country, except in severe war situations.
The risks are high, but Nigerians continue to flee their country while Lebanese, Indians and West Africans are rushing into Nigeria.
It is time to get a truly high powered media advocacy out there to keep our people from running towards death. State governments, the Federal Government, stakeholding agencies should come together and do the needful. Let us also fix our nation. Let us talk to our children. The grass is not always greener on the other side.
In addition to this, racism and fierce nationalism are on the increase in Europe and America and right wing groups are springing up every day. Home is always a better option. Most nations no longer want immigrants. Going by whatever means is a mindset in spite of the glaring dangers. Let each person do something to prevent it. Here are five books to give you some thoughts on slavery and how this is big business, and inside, it is only pain, corruption, death and inhuman conditions.
1) ROOTS BY Alex Haley. This is a semi-autobiographical book by the American author, Alex Haley based on his search for his ancestry in the small West African nation, The Gambia. Alex Haley’s grandmother started the fire in Haley to trace his roots after telling him many tales of how his ancestors were captured and forced into slavery. The story was fascinating, especially about one African called Kunta Kinte, whose life story became our obsession when the book was adopted into mini-series that kept us all glued to our screens for many weeks.
Haley’s work has been described as “an astonishing feat of genealogical detective work” The abduction of Kunta Kinte, beaten, chained and forced into an American slave ship was in 1767. With each new edition of the mini-series we are horrified by the depths of human wickedness and the indignities black people endured in the hands of their white masters.
The intriguing part of this tail lies in Elmina castle in Ghana and the slave museum in Badagry. The story is told quite clearly of the black accomplices who sold their brothers into slavery, kings and chiefs who for a mess of pottage sold off their citizens. Take a look at the Libyan story and the Nigerian accomplices considered even worse in their evil habits and more wicked towards them than the Libyans.
2) Say you are one of them, Uwem Akpan’s phenomenal collection of short stories has a gem on human trafficking in the collection. Once read, this particular short story never departs you. It stays in your head forever. For its attention to detail, its emotional heaviness and its profundity. Fattening for Gabon resonates even more now with the sordid tales of Nigerian slaves in Libya.
Set in an unnamed country this novella is about a 10-year-old boy and his sister who have been recently orphaned and are taken in by an uncle who pretends he is going to send them to school but instead begins the process of selling them into slavery. The uncle collects a motorcycle from traffickers in lieu of the sale. One night as he prepares them without their knowledge, he strips naked in front of his young niece who is shocked at this turn of events. But he assures her it’s not strange and she should get used to it, ostensibly preparing her for the rape that she might encounter.
3) Sefi Attah’s Lawless and other stories is another collection of short stories that looks at the human trafficking tragedy. Written in 2009, Sefi’s stories stay with you and in a very unobtrusive way, demand that you think of the characters. This is such an important book that must be read by all Nigerians.
4) Slavery in the World by Murray Gordon. Slavery in the Arab world did not begin today. Described by Arab book world as “a comprehensive portrait of slavery in the Islamic world from earliest times until today” The Liberian conundrum must not only be seen as modern slave trade but a historical analysis of slavery in the Arab world would further put it in perspective.
5) Another America: The story of Liberia and the former slaves who ruled it by James Ciment. This is the story of how returnee African Americans sailed back to Africa , built a nation described as America’s illegitimate child. Their domination of native Liberians is still with us and has affected the 2017 elections in that country. Not only have Americo-Liberians treated their native brothers badly, largely discriminating against them, they also enslaved them at the time of their return, selling them into slavery. A sad tale.