Arent u proud to be a Nigerian once again hearing TOYIN AGBETU, a Nigerian by origin confonting the acclaimed most recognized royal head in the world today demand an apology from the Queen and the Prime Minister Tony Blair for the charade they Commemoration of  called Abolition of Slave Trade at Westminster Abbey
Only God knows what level of development Nigeria would be if Toyin and the likes were given d chance to explore but NO. People like that are killed or threatened out of this country, Remember Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, 
we will get there

M'lost. Can someone pls fill me in on this?

FROM GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER-NIGERIA
Protester demands Queen's apology over slave trade
A MILD drama nearly marred yesterday's ceremony marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slave trade by Britain.

According to Agence France Presse (AFP), a 2000-strong congregation, including the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, government ministers, as well as the descendants of slaves and of leading abolitionists, had gathered at the London's Westminster Abbey for a church service to mark the event.

Suddenly, a black man named as Toyin Agbetu, ran in front of the altar, and within a few metres of Queen Elizabeth II, shouting: "You should be ashamed, you're a disgrace, this is an insult to us," and demanded a personal apology from the monarch.

And to the African Christians present at the service, the 39-year-old one-man protester said they too should be ashamed of themselves for attending the ceremony.

However, before he could do any harm, Agbetu was whisked off by security guards and once outside the church, was arrested and taken away in handcuffs by the police.

The 200th anniversary had left political and religious leaders wrestling with how Britain should face up to its past role in the slave trade.

Blair had expressed "deep sorrow" for Britain's involvement in the obnoxious trade, but stopped short of a full apology.

But before Agbetu was taken out of the church, he had yelled: "We should not be here, this is an insult to us. I want all the Christians who are Africans to walk out."

And to the Queen, he had insisted that she needed to apologise on behalf of her ancestors.

"You don't have the decency, Mr. Blair, to make an apology and the word sorry, and you, the queen, has to say sorry. It was Elizabeth I. She commanded John Hawkins (a pioneer of the English slave trade) to take his ship. The monarch and the government and the church are all in there patting themselves on the back.

"This nation has never apologised, there was no mention of the African freedom fighters. This is just a memorial of William Wilberforce."

Wilberforce was the driving parliamentarian behind the landmark change in the British law, which abolished the slave trade.

Agbetu said he was from Ligali, a British-based lobby group, which sets out to "challenge the misrepresentation of African people and culture in the British media."

Maj.-Gen. David Burden, the receiver-general of Westminster Abbey, insisted that the queen, 80, and her husband Prince Philip, 85, had been safe.

The protester, who had a ticket, had been through security checks and scanners, he said.

"The queen was protected by her own protection officers," said Burden, adding:

"We allow them to speak for a little and then encourage them to leave. We wish it hadn't happened but we're not embarrassed at all."

The service included a sermon from the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and an address from Lady Kate Davson, a great-great-great grand-daughter of Wilberforce, who read one of her ancestor's speeches.

Williams, the leader of the world's Anglicans, called slavery an offence to human dignity and freedom.

"We, who are the heirs of the slave-owning and slave-trading nations of the past, have to face the fact that our historic prosperity was built in large part on this atrocity," he said.

Afterwards, Queen Elizabeth laid flowers on the memorials to Wilberforce and all those affected by slavery

Thanks pal.
So any recent scoop on this Toyin guy?
Why won't the British pay reparations to us if they're soo "sorry"? Even Germany showed better remorse for the treatment meted out to the Jews.

From my inbox, being discussed in a private forum but felt some might find the article interesting.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


WRITTEN IN YESTERDAY'S Guardian, London Mayor Ken Livingstone explains why he is saying sorry for London's role in the slave trade.

============ ========= ========= ========= ========= =======

The state failure to issue an apology for a crime as monstrous as the slave trade diminishes Britain in the eyes of the world.

Next Sunday marks the bicentenary of the abolition of one of history's greatest crimes - the transatlantic slave trade. The British government must formally apologies for it. All attempts to evade this are weasel words.

Delay demeans our country. Recalling the slave trade's dimensions will show why. Conservative estimates of the numbers transported are 10-15 million; others range up to 30 million. Deaths started immediately, as many as 5% in prisons before transportation and more than 10% during the voyage - the direct murder of some 2 million people.

Conditions imposed on survivors were unimaginable. Virginia made it lawful "to kill and destroy such Negroes" who "absent themselves from , service". Branding and rape were commonplace.

A Jamaican planter, Thomas Thistlewood, in 1756 had a slave "well flogged and pickled, then made Hector shit in his mouth" for eating sugar cane. From 1707, punishment for rebellion included "nailing them to the ground" and "applying fire by degrees from the feet and hands, burning them gradually up to the head".

When in 1736 Antigua found there was to be a rebellion, five ringleaders were broken on the wheel, 77 burned to death, six hung in cages to die of thirst. For "lesser" crimes, castration or chopping off half the foot were used. A manual noted: "Terror must operate to keep them in subjection".

Barbarism's consequences were clear. More than 1.5 million slaves were taken to the British Caribbean islands in the 18th century, but by its end there were only 600,000. By 1820, more than 10 million Africans had been transported across the Atlantic and 2 million Europeans had moved. But the European population grew to 12 million while the black slave population shrank to 6 million.

If the murder of millions, and torture of millions more, is not "a crime against humanity", these words have no meaning. To justify murder and torture on an industrial scale, black people had to be declared inferior, or not human.

As historian James Walvin noted, there was a "form of bondage which, from an early date, was highly racialised. By 1750, to be black in the Americas (and often in Europe) was to be enslaved." The 1774 History of Jamaica argued black slaves were a different species, able to work "in a very bungling and slovenly manner, perhaps not better than an orangutan".

Material being produced today to mark the anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade makes it appear that white people liberated black - the assumption being they could not do it themselves. In reality, slaves rose against the trade from its inception. This broke it.

The first recorded slave revolt was in 1570. There were at least 250 shipboard rebellions. Jamaican slave society faced a serious revolt every decade, in addition to prolonged guerrilla war. In 1760, 30,000 Jamaican slaves revolted. The culmination, recorded in CLR James's magisterial The Black Jacobins, was the 1791 slave revolt in St Domingue.

After abolition of the trade, slavery in British possessions was abolished following revolts in Barbados in 1816, Demerara in 1823, and Jamaica in 1831, in which 60,000 slaves participated. For this reason Unesco officially marks August 23, the anniversary of the St Domingue rebellion's outbreak, as slavery's official remembrance day.

No one denigrates William Wilberforce, but it was black resistance and economic development that destroyed slavery, not white philanthropy.

Slavery's reality is increasingly acknowledged outside Britain. One of the few things on which I agree with George Bush is his description of transatlantic slavery as "one of the greatest crimes of history".

The Virginia general assembly last month expressed "profound regret" for its role, stating slavery "ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals". The French national assembly declared slavery a "crime against humanity". In 1999, Liverpool became the first major British slaving city to formally apologise. The Church of England Synod followed suit.

The British government's refusal of such an apology is squalid. Until recently, almost unbelievably, it refused even to recognise the slave trade as a crime against humanity, on the grounds that it was legal at the time. It helped block an EU apology for slavery.

Two arguments are brought forward against official apology - not only by the government but by David Cameron. First, an apology is unnecessary because this happened a long time ago. This would only apply if there had been a previously apology - there hasn't been. Slavery was the mass murder of millions of people. Germany apologised for the Holocaust. We must for the slave trade.

Second, that apologising is "national self-hate". This is nonsense. Love of one's country and its achievements is based on reality, not denying it. A Britain that contributed Shakespeare, Newton and Darwin to human civilisation need fear comparison with no one. A British state that refuses to apologise for a crime on such a gigantic scale as the slave trade merely lowers our country in the opinion of the world.

It is for that reason that I invite all representatives of London society to join me in following the example of Virginia, France, Liverpool and the Church of England, by formally apologising for London's role in this monstrous crime

@Afam
That wz so enlightening.Thanks.
Now we know those that love us.

And these are the same people that try to make us believe they are the custodians of decency,decorum,equity,justice and what have you and paint the Saddam Husseins as evil.These records of theirs stink to the high heavens I must say.

Guys, this reparation thing is gathering momentum o. Been talking about it to some of my colleagues and you know - there is no time like the present to raise dust about it. See http://9jaman..com
Toyin Agbetu has raided issues people have been sweeping under the carpet. Let us speak our mind.

@Bolarge,

Thanks man and the funny thing is that the same people that used the sweats and bloods of our forefathers to develop their lands are now labeling us either under developed world, developing nations or 3rd world countries and some black men and women agree with them without realizing it.

Here is another information from the same private forum posted on the same issue. Hope some of us that are black and proud enjoy it.

==============================================================

A world without black people.

LIFE WITHOUT BLACK PEOPLE



A very humorous and revealing story is told about a group of white people who were fed up with African Americans, so they joined together and wished themselves away.



They passed through a deep dark tunnel and emerged in sort of a twilight zone where there is an America without black people.



At first these white people breathed a sigh of relief.



At last, they said, No more crime, drugs, violence and welfare.



All of the blacks have gone! Then suddenly, reality set in. The

"NEW AMERICA " is not America at all-only a barren land.



1. There are very few crops that have flourished because the nation was built on a slave-supported system.



2. There are no cities with tall skyscrapers because Alexander Mils, a black man, invented the elevator, and without it, one finds great difficulty reaching higher floors.



3. There are few if any cars because Richard Spikes, a black man, invented the automatic gearshift, Joseph Gambol, also black, invented the Super Charge
System for Internal Combustion Engines, and Garrett

A. Morgan, a black man, invented the traffic signals.



4. Furthermore, one could not use the rapid transit system because its procurer was the electric trolley, which was invented by another black man, Albert R. Robinson.



5. Even if there were streets on which cars and a rapid transit system could operate, they were cluttered with paper because an African American, Charles Brooks, invented the street sweeper.



6. There were few if any newspapers, magazines and books because John Love invented the pencil sharpener, William Purveys invented the fountain pen, and Lee Barrage invented the Type
Writing Machine and W. A. Love invented the Advanced Printing Press. They were all, you guessed it, Black.



7. Even if Americans could write their letters, articles and books, they would not have been transported by mail because William Barry invented the Postmarking and Canceling Machine, William Purveys invented the

Hand Stamp and Philip Downing invented the Letter Drop.



8. The lawns were brown and wilted because Joseph Smith invented the Lawn Sprinkler and John Burr the Lawn Mower.



9. When they entered their homes, they found them to be poorly ventilated and poorly heated. You see, Frederick Jones invented the Air
Conditioner and Alice Parker the Heating Furnace. Their homes were also dim. But of course, Lewis Lattimer later invented the Electric Lamp, Michael Harvey invented the lantern and Granville T. Woods invented the Automatic Cut off Switch.



Their homes were also filthy because Thomas W. Steward invented the Mop & Lloyd P. Ray the Dust Pan.



10. Their children met them at the door-barefooted, shabby, motley and unkempt. But what could one expect? Jan E. Matzelinger invented the Shoe Lasting Machine, Walter Sammons! invented the Comb, Sarah Boone invented the Ironing Board and George T. Samon invented the Clothes Dryer.



11. Finally, they were resigned to at least have dinner amidst all of this turmoil. But here again, the food had spoiled because another Black Man, John Standard invented the
refrigerator.



Now, isn't that something? What would this country be like without the contributions of Blacks, as African-Americans?



Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "by the time we leave for work, Americans have depended on the
inventions from the minds of Blacks."



Black history includes more than just slavery, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Marcus Garvey & W.E.B. Dubois.





PLEASE SHARE, ABUNDANTLY

log on  on to www.ligali.org and see the course this youngman is championing to redeem the image of Africans while our leaders are busy subjecting the citizens of this country into sub-human existence. Better we rise against this oppression and stop blaming God for giving us abundant resources

If we ask the Queen to apologise for her ancestors.should  our African leaders also be apologising for our ancestors.

According to history the whites stayed in places like Badagry and the blacks, our ancestors(kings,warlords,etc) captured slaves and sold to the whites in
exchange for guns copper etc.

Are any African leaders aware that it is 200 years since the abolition of slavery?

I don't know who Toyin Abgetu is .Is he a black african or a black carribean/american who has adopted an african name. If he is a Nigerian/African, can he honestly say he knows what role his ancestors played in slavery.should he be apologising?

black and whites fought for slave trade to be abolished.

Madam Tinubu was a renowned slave trader before she fought against it? should her descendants be apologising?

the slave trade would not have lasted 300 years without help from the africans,sometimes i wonder if all the problems in africa is a backlash from all the atrocitities commited in the past.

now the white man doesn't need to come and kidnap the black man,he/she is ready to go to astonishing lenghts to get visas to come and sweep his roads.

I agree with you that the whites could not have succeeded with the slavery stuff if our own people did not help them mainly for their selfish aims.

The Madam Tinubu, is she related to the governor of Lagos state?

I don't know if he is related.
but I'm sure a few nigerian families can can trace their family's wealth back to the slave trade era.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/2918

Another Link with pics:

Well dis goes to whoever has contributed to dis posting. First of all Toyin Agbetu is an Ijebu man, although born and bred in Britain. And dat name connotes alot,
Meanwhile white came to play on our intelligence and capitalize on our ignorance and they are still doing dat right now or what do u think is happening in d Niger Delta. Why are they still staying if they really are frustrated with those kidnaps. It is simply because they are cheating us and our leaders dont give a damn about d bargain so far they are taken care of.
For your info there were white slaves too but they didnt go thru such sub-human existence those our forefather went thru or d deadly voyage on d sea
Well we see things differently but it is a pity,

Watch the Video
Toyin Agbetu

Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0qWkRrABXQ

http://www.thinkersroom.com/blog/2007/04/great-grandpa-was-a-slave-apologize/


Great Grandpa Was A Slave. Apologize

Apparently black people wish for some sort of apology, as well as some sort of financial consideration because at some point in time these sons of toil moved tons of soil under a variety of persuasive agents such as whips, shotguns and axes. They sowed, weeded and harvested for massa to eat. They cleaned, washed, mowed and painted for the modest salary of room and board, shared and hard respectively.

I am not one of these seeking these nebulous things.

As a matter of fact, I find these attempts, and the resulting rippling gymnastics hilarious.

Tony Blair, trademark Cheshire cat grin in abeyance, bemoans the shameful enterprise that was the slave trade, conveniently overlooking the fact that a good bit of Rule Britannia was built on the backs of slaves on all 7 continents. If Atlantis had been around you bet your boots some of His Majesty’s vessels would have set out there and delivered gifts of whips, guns, bibles and small pox. Tony came just short of wringing his hands in sorrow.

The Archbishop of York, emotion plainly visible across his countenance, also called for a formal apology from the UK, temporarily forgetting that the UK is not the shouting gentlemen who sit in parliament — he too is part and parcel of it.

The British are not a people to do things by halves. London Mayor Ken Livingston is unable to resist the overwhelming urge to apologize for London’s complicity in the Slave Trade. He also finds among his conflicting great emotions, overwhelming sorrow.

Some doofuses even had the temerity to chain themselves and had a brisk walk with said chains in empathy for the slaves. Uh huh. Try doing that for 60 years.

The Church too has not hesitated to toss its hat into the ring. The Archbishop of Canterbury too wishes for the Church to make amends post haste for the trade.

Whoever came up with the pearl “honey catches more flies than dung” ought to have shared this with the bearded gentlemen who landed on our hallowed shores to convert our black hearts. I find it hilarious that they found the natives rather reluctant to be converted. I wasn’t there, you understand, but perhaps the natives found it difficult to reconcile fellows talking out “turning the other cheek”, “blessed are the meek” and “peace on earth” with hard swearing, vicious fellows who substituted lambs with village maidens and proceeded to lay down with them by night, whipped, clubbed and shot errant natives before noon and in the afternoon burnt incense and read from the Good Book.

The good Archbishop conveniently forgets to mention that the Good Book itself is replete with slaves and slavery. Just mention Hagar to Abraham and watch him turn pink.

But I digress.

With little fanfare, the 25th of March was the anniversary of the ban of the slave trade. There was little mention of this in the Kenyan media. This could be due to the fact that we are:

1. Bored beyond belief with the proliferation of meaningless anniversaries and holidays. The other day we had ‘ World Water Day’.
2. There was nothing actually to commemorate.
3. All the above

The fact that people believe the slave trade is over just because there are no people living in plantations saying “Yessuh massa William suh!” speaks volumes of the collective naiveté of a civilization that prides itself on “information everywhere”, “globalization” and “communication”. Visiting the yahoo home page and giving a cursory look to the headlines therein is enough to convince most that they are indeed in touch with the realities on the ground.

Consider for example the domestic maid. This poor lass is generally source from some remote village and planted in a household. Her impressive array of duties include cooking, cleaning, sewing, darning, washing, taking care of the general household and taking care of the massa home owner’s children. Her pay is usually token, and meals are deducted from the same. She generally eats on her own in the kitchen. Any breakages or damage is invariably deducted from her token pay.

And then on the 25th of March the massa home owner sits down at his PC and, emotion creasing the face, poured out the heart about the angst, consternation, anger, sadness the vile trade(delete as applicable)

His/her people inflicted on the slaves
His/her people had inflicted upon them

Consider too the thriving traffic of young girls and women to Europe, where under lock, key and whip, they attend to the assorted needs of their masters and mistresses.

Today. 2007. 200 years since slavery was banned.

So, with regards to this reparation, I wonder if anyone would answer for me the following questions:

1. Who, exactly is going to apologize is it the governments? I for one would laugh myself to tears seeing Condoleezza Rice or Baroness Amos apologizing for the slave trade. Is it the civic society? Is it the common man? The church?
2. If we generously generalize that black people were oppressed by the white people, what becomes of those shades of grey like Colin Powell and Barack Obama? Do they apologize from one side of the mouth and accept the apology with the other?
3. Since the blacks happily took part in the slave trade themselves, vigorously buying and selling their brothers, how do these factor into the apologies?
4. Our Arab brethren also took part in this trade and made some good living out of it. Why then the double standards?
5. What use is this apology?
6. Why am I being apologized to, and it is my great great great grandfather who was bought, sold and worked himself into the grave for no pay?
7. Why do people want an apology from Tony Blair for things done 150 years before he was even an idea in his folks’ minds?
8. If Mr. Blair does make this apology, it will be completely hollow and meaningless. Why would he take responsibility for the deeds of his forefathers? If my ancestors through guns, whips and ships propelled my country to be the second superpower in the world and I stepped into the shoes of leadership, I dare say I could find the tears and sorrow to be as sorry as you would like me to be. I would even apologize if you’d like. At the end of the day I’d still be sure that it wouldn’t change a damn thing
9. Am I the only one who finds ludicrous the notion that I have to apologize to a boy I wouldn’t know from Adam because my father soundly clobbered his father in nursery school?
10. Those outraged black folk fuming about the white oppressing them ought to put down those writs and dig a little deeper into history where they will find the Berbers took white slaves from Europe. Are they ready for that reparation?
11. There was a roaring slave trade in West Africa, and as a matter of fact they even constructed a market! Demanding an apology from Tony Blair is as absurd of demanding an apology from a bullet and neglecting to mention the gun.
12. Why stop at the transatlantic slave trade? Myopia appears to be a fairly coming affliction
The prime minister of Greece should apologue for all the things the Greeks did when they dominated the world, including trading in slaves
The prime minister of Italy should apologize for all the things the Romans did when they dominated the world, including trading in slaves
Saddam Hussein, before being unceremoniously hanged, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should have been made to apologize for all the things the Persians did when they dominated the world, including trading in slaves
The relatively mild people of Norway, Denmark and Sweden should be startled out of their placid lives with demands that they apologize for the things the Vikings did
We can ask the same of the Mongols, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Egyptians …
13. If financial reparation is to be made:
Who will actually foot the bills for this? The taxpayers of the US and the UK? Which include descendants of the said slaves?
How will the figures be arrived at?
Who will receive this monies? If your great grand mother was the bed wench of a plantation owner are you eligible for half?
14. If we can figure out who will offer the reparation, and how it will be done, how will this invalidate the inhumanity that took place?
15. If it is an apology people want, what if I personally offered an apology for the inhumanity of the slave trade. Will that do? If not, why not?
16. We have spent all these centuries without these reparations. Why the sudden urgent need now? I like to think that most of us are doing just fine without it.

I think it is high time we started taking responsibility for ourselves, and stop looking for feeble crutches like the need for reparation to get on with our lives. Don’t get me wrong — the life of a slave back then was infinitely worse than death. The people that participated in this were undoubtedly the scum of the earth. I believe that they and Hitler will get their own heated section of Hell to themselves.

But come on people! Enough with the feeble crutches! Are we poor because of the slave trade? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The question is what are we going to do to correct the situation? Sit on our backsides waiting for nebulous apologies and money from the guilty descendants of the slave traders that will magically transform us? Someone has even discovered post traumatic slave syndrome! Get over yourselves already!!!

When will people ever learn — no one is going to help you. You wait for George Bush and Tony Blair to apologize. You wait for money to be wired to your bank account in reparation. That’s right, my sons and daughters. Wait right there for millennia of oppression and brutality to be corrected by a hallmark e-card and a wire transfer. Bush and Blair won’t apologize for something blatant for invading Iraq but somehow they will apologize for centauries of slave trade. They have so much money in their coffers and have fulfilled all their health care, defence, education and social security needs that they are looking for something to do with the extra funds.

You wait there. You may never walk alone my lovely but I can assure you that you will jolly well wait alone.

Lets put all this talk about slavery and apology behind us and move forward the modern day salvery(dafur,zimbabuwe and their likes ) should be what we should be fighting against not what has been ended over 200 years ago with the full participation of our unscrupulous ancestors.