The Minority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has described calls for reparatory justice over the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade as misplaced, arguing that the historical narrative must accurately reflect the role played by some local actors in the trade.
According to the Effutu Member of Parliament, the slave trade was not driven solely by external forces but also involved the active participation of some indigenes who captured and sold their own people.
Reacting to ongoing discussions on the issue, Afenyo-Markin condemned the suffering endured by victims of the trade but maintained that the full context must be told.
“When somebody berths a vessel at Cape Coast, and you decide to go to the North, Bono area, get to the Ashanti area, to the Assin area, and you are chasing your strongest among your own people, then after 100 years, you say ‘I should be compensated’,” he said.
“Who should compensate whom? We maltreated our own and told the whiteman that he should also maltreat our own. The story must be told and must be put in its proper context.”
He, however, stressed that the inhumane treatment, humiliation, marginalisation, injustice and abuse suffered by ancestors who became victims of the slave trade must be unequivocally condemned.
The Minority Leader’s position sparked a debate in Parliament, with the Majority Leader and Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga, defending calls for compensation.
Ayariga argued that many developed countries can trace their accumulated wealth directly to the labour of slaves on plantations.
“Many of those countries that have wealth can trace their wealth to slavery. Many of the capitalist countries that have become rich started from plantations that were worked on by slaves. It is the labour of these slaves that helped them to build capital. As a result, there is the need to share that wealth in recognition of those who have been the foundation of the creation of that wealth,” he said.