Slavery
Nigeria has been listed among 17 countries penned down by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party for possible visa blockage for asking for reparations over slavery.
The party has vowed to halt legal migration from countries trying to ‘use history as a weapon’ as they call for slavery reparations
In recent days, there has been a spike in the number of countries and voices demanding some form of reparation from the Western world, especially the United Kingdom, for the scourge of slavery that was visited upon their ancestors.
On March 22, in Jamaica recently, people calling for slavery reparations, protested outside the entrance of the British High Commission during the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Kingston.
Nigel Farage’s party said it would halt legal migration from 17 countries calling for compensation over Britain’s role in the slave trade. Britain was a major actor in the evil slave trade during which persons from poor black nations were subjected to the most inhuman treatment in history.
Vowing to block visas, Reform said the “bank is closed and the door is locked” for anyone who wanted to “use history as a weapon to drain our treasury”.
This follows pressure on Keir Starmer’s Government and the Royal Family to agree to talks on reparations, which experts have estimated could amount to trillions of pounds.
The party’s home affairs spokesman, Zia Yusuf, said demanding that the UK pay compensation over historical slavery was “insulting”.
“These countries ignore the fact that Britain made huge sacrifices to be the first major power to outlaw slavery and enforce this prohibition,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
Yusaf said the UK “is not an ATM for ethnic grievances of the past, and we will no longer tolerate being ridiculed on the world stage.
“While countries like Jamaica, Nigeria and Ghana ramp up their demands for reparations, the Westminster establishment has rewarded them. Enough is enough.”
Eleven Caribbean countries have called for slavery reparations from the UK. They include Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.
Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory in the region, has joined those calls.
Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana are the three African nations that have also called for compensation, as have Guyana and Suriname in South America and Belize in Central America.
Reform claims that 3.8 million visas have been issued to people from countries calling for reparations over the last two decades.
Nigeria would be hit hardest by the policy if Reform wins power as it has the highest number of visitor and study visas to the UK.
