Human Rights in Buhari's Nigeria

There is no modern political history of Africa without a history of struggle—for the recognition of racial equality; for political emancipation; for the affirmation of political freedom; and for the realization of human rights.

One of the earliest incidences of the struggle for the recognition of racial equality was during the Atlantic slave trade when many Africans resisted enslavement through shipboard insurrections against European slave traders. A famous tale that is also well-documented is of a man called Tomba who conducted a shipboard revolt against a crew of English slavers in 1721, in the region now known as Sierra Leone.

Although Tomba’s resistance was repressed, it has come to epitomize the struggle for human dignity in a period where the recognition of dignity was colorized and, as such, considered non-attributable based on stereotypical skin hues. When this struggle ended with the abolition of slave trade in the early nineteenth century, a different form of struggle emerged on the continent; this one against colonial rule.