Slavery and slave trade have always been a part of our heritage as a people. Though they ended about two centuries ago, they still bear imprints in the lives of the African society from the way we eat to the way we govern.
But we tend to live in denial and this attitude accounts for why we hardly say it in public or teach it with any great fervour in our schools.
The initiative of the Lagos State Government under its helmsman, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, in renovating and unveiling the Vleteke Slave Market and Museum is an immense step forward for our appreciation of that era.
Some Nigerians have known the place as an icon of value but only in the abstract. It has also suffered immense neglect over the years, and part of it derives from the accretion of fear to probe our heritage.
Also, a certain philistinism feeds this ignorance as we sometimes think that it is merely a cynosure of the arts.
But it generates in us our sense of our own essence merely by ogling and standing in its presence with all the artefacts and rooms. We can also stare into the water as we visualise men and women, bound and helpless, their chains clattering and their groans meshed with roaring seas as they walked in split and wobbly steps into what seemed an infinity of space into the sea craft that chugged away out of their native land into the horizon.
Much of Vlekete Slave Market and Museum’s value comes from its ability to compel our imagination to see our forbears in that state. The white man, in his superior racial air powered by arms and deceptive religion, separated father from mother, sibling from sibling, and turned humans like them into chattels for profit and barbarism.
The museum will make us celebrate a mournful recall of a time when things might have been different if those who sold us civilisation were kind enough not to sell our kind and were not so civilised.
Governor Sanwo-Olu jolts us by revamping that place. Hear how the governor describes the museum: “This includes: slave market replica; replica of slave punishment centre showing the manner of treatment and inhuman punishment that humans who were tagged as slaves were subjected to as a result of their disobedience against their owners and the slave masters.”
He goes further to say that “there is also the replica of slave tunnel where slaves were temporarily kept after being captured before being shipped to their masters or owners.”
But it is not just for historical introspection alone. It will also generate interest for tourism around the world. We have heard of similar places in Ghana and Senegal, like the Goree Island.
“I strongly believe that with the refurbishment that has taken place at this slave market museum, Badagry is now better positioned as a major destination for tourism, relaxation, and history education,” noted the governor.
But he cannot do that alone. The chiefs and leaders of the community must act as stakeholders by guarding it.
We also expect that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) will show verve in this project. As Dimitri Sanga, its director of multisectoral regional office asserts: “Museums are not merely places where our common heritage is preserved, they are key spaces of education, inspiration and dialogue. They play essential role in social cohesion and sharing collective references, they also provide opportunities to foster creativity, imagination and respect for self and others.”
It is edifying that this unveiling is timed with the state’s reintroduction of the study of history as a compulsory subject in primary and junior secondary schools in the state.