Reparation a morale justice for Africa: the Benin (Nigeria) in perspective

• Main Authors: Stephen Osaherumwen Idahosa, John Afeagbokhai Onimhawo, Solomon Ijeweimen Ikhidero
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 2017-12-01
• Series: Vestnik RUDN International Relations
• Subjects: репарации; империализм; колониализм; справедливость; западные державы; Бенинское царство
• Online Access: http://journals.rudn.ru/international-relations/article/view/16065

The paper offered a review of Africa’s moral call for reparation. It emphasized among other things that the continued underdevelopment and marginalization of the African continent today, is not unconnected with the trilogy of slavery, imperialism and colonialism. From the perspective of the British expedition of the Great Benin Kingdom in 1897, the paper highlighted how the African continent had been brutalized to strengthen the economies of their colonial overlords. The paper anchored its call for reparation on the premise that, reparation is not only recognized in international law, it has been paid to countries of the world whose dehumanizing experiences are not even as pathetic as those of Africa’s over 500 years of abject treatment, damages and destruction occasioned by slavery, imperialism and colonialism. It unveiled also the scholarly argument opposed to reparation. The work thus proposes that reparations from the western countries to Africa should be on cooperative and partnership basis. This should be in favour of development through deliberate international efforts in recompensing Africa for all the ills visited on her by the west.