UPDATED: It’s time to discuss reparations for slavery, Nigeria, other Commonwealth countries agree

Nigeria and 55 other Commonwealth countries have agreed that the “time has come” to discuss reparations for the slave trade.

The BBC reports that a document signed by 56 heads of government, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, acknowledges calls for “discussions on reparatory justice” for the “abhorrent” transatlantic slave trade.

Mr Starmer had earlier ruled out any possibility that the UK would pay reparations for leading the slave trade where millions of Nigerians, other Africans, Indians and others were sold as slaves. The slave trade brought huge wealth to the British Empire then.

The Commonwealth leaders came to the resolution at their summit in Samoa where they resolved that it is time for a “meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation.”

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that Nigeria was to be represented at the meeting by Vice President Kashim Shettima.

Mr Shettima’s plane, however, suffered damage in New York, according to the president’s office.

“The delegation, which will now represent Nigeria at the 2024 Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa, is being led by the Minister of Environment, Balarabe Abass Lawal.

“The summit began on the Pacific island on 21 October. It will end on 26 October,” the presidency said then.

The UK government had claimed it does not pay reparations and insisted that the question was not on the agenda of the summit. Mr Starmer, however, eventually cosigned a paragraph on reparatory justice in the summit ‘s communique.

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The UK prime minister has, however, downplayed the significance of the section in question. “The slave trade, slave practice, was abhorrent, and it’s very important that we start from there. Abhorrent is the right word,” he told journalists in Samoa.

“There is … the paragraph in the communique about reparatory justice, which does two things: it notes calls for discussion and it agrees that this is the time for a conversation.”

He added that the section on reparations was a small part of “quite a long communique” and that the “absolute priority” for Commonwealth countries at the summit had been to discuss resilience to the climate crisis, the Guardian reported.

The prime minister concluded that the next opportunity to discuss the issue would be the UK-Caribbean Forum next year. During the summit, he told other leaders he recognised the “strength of feeling” about reparations.

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Proponents of reparatory justice say it can take many forms, including educational programmes, debt relief and other kinds of economic support.

When asked after the summit what form the discussions would take, Patricia Scotland, the outgoing secretary general of the Commonwealth, said: “Our Commonwealth is going to take exactly the same approach to considering these matters … that they have taken to every difficult issue which has been painful and has been a matter of concern for our members,” the Guardian stated.

The communique’s section on reparatory justice referred not just to the slave trade across the Atlantic but also to the Pacific. It said most Commonwealth countries “share common historical experiences in relation to this abhorrent trade, chattel enslavement, the debilitation and dispossession of Indigenous people.”

It also mentioned the “enduring effects” of slavery and mentioned the practice of “blackbirding”, where Pacific islanders were forced into slave or cheap labour in colonies including Australia.