A Christian group, Universal Prayer Fellowship, has appealed to the United States (US)President Donald Trump to champion a global fundraising conference to mitigate the impact of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa.
The president and founder of the group, Evang. Iwuchukwu Ezenwafor, made the call in a letter he addressed to the US president on behalf of the organisation, a copy of which was made available to newsmen in Awka, Anambra State yesterday.
He said the over four centuries exploitation of the West Coast and Sub-Saharan Africa was responsible for the current woes in the areas.
He stated that the current astronomical rise of the Western Powers was predicated on the unprecedented exploitation of the negros of West and Central Africa.
“The making of modern Europe and the United States of America is at a massive odious expense of the West Coast and the sub-saharan Africa”, the letter contained.
“Do anyone still wonder how we became the face of abject poverty the world had ever known! And for obvious reasons, the popular demand for Negro slaves opened a vista of untold misery for a period of four hundred gruesome years!
“The frequent raids, riotous kidnappings and hot sales of the captured Negro minor and adult compatriots became an abominable routine. Imagine such a trade run without any known regulations, hence the situation was abnormally devastating and nightmarish!
“The transatlantic African enslavement business opened up the New Found World ( the Americas ) in farming, commerce and industry to the awful detriment of the entire West Coast and the sub-saharan Africa in extension.
The foundation/backbone of the famed Western industrial revolution/wealth creation was literally anchored upon the enormous gains of slavery over the centuries.
“The economies of the Western Powers were so dependent on this trade that it took a very fierce campaign and rigorous lobbying for decades to enact the law abolishing it.
“Even after the declaration of the end of the trade by the UK in 1807 and the US in 1808, it took over sixty years for the Royal Navy of the British empire to battle the illicit transaction to a final end.
“It is on record that about a thousand five hundred slave merchant ships were accosted and prosecuted with over one hundred and fifty thousand live slaves freed in the process.
“It was not untill the year 1870 that the most vicious and heinous crime against humanity in history was finally brought to an absolute halt.
The costly effects of this stupendous crime against mankind is unimaginable with unquantifiable implications taking into consideration the spread and duration.
” It created an atmosphere of palpable dread of the whites/Europeans laced with lawlessness and violence in the midst of hitherto peaceful indigenous habitations.
“In Igbo land ( major victims) for instance, the communal economic structure and attendant social cohesion were battered to the extent that the enviable egalitarian societal norms and traditions were jeopardised.
“The peculiar Igbo communal lifestyle and cultural values were threatened to becoming extinct.
“And the homegrown art and cultural heritage of the era in question were violated while treasured artefacts were serially vandalised without caution!
” What naturally followed was a nasty situation where the highly cherished and revered customs/heritage jealously preserved down the centuries were trampled upon and summarily desecrated.
” With such affront, the European encounter resulted in a gruesome humiliation and loss of self worth amongst the otherwise enthusiastic and proud people. Empirically the earliest contact the Igbo had with the so-called civilised Europeans was nothing but a bitter experience of tragedy.
” They simply brought death and went away with hope and life!
“There’s no better way to portray properly the true picture of the era but one thing is certain – Igbo land nay sub-saharan Africa is till today eclipsed in the shadow of a morbid inhuman transaction known as slave trade”, the Christian group leader’s letter to Trump further read.
To mitigate the unfortunate situation, he asked the US president to champion a cause for “Raising Africa from the ashes: the action plan proposal”.
He told Trump that his current presidency of the US was divinely ordained so that he could save the black world.
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