As We Remember the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Slavery Takes on a New Look in 21st Century Nigeria -By Princess Egieya

When enslaved men and women rose up against their captors on the island of Saint-Domingue (now known as Haiti), on August 23^rd 1791, it marked the beginning of a rebellion that led to the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. UNESCO chose that day to remember both the tragedy of the slave trade and the act of bravery by otherwise powerless slaves that set the wheels in motion to end it.

Every year, we mark the International Day for the Remembrance of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its Abolition by visiting museums, listening to lectures, and making tributes on social media to the millions of people who were put in shackles, shipped off, and sold without any form of human dignity.

As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to remember those events, a nigging question deserves to be asked and answered: Are Nigerians returning to servitude of their own free will after over two centuries of freedom?

This modern-day servitude started with a drive that has now been termed ‘japa,’ a Yoruba word meaning ‘to flee.’ A generation of people seeking all means to escape the shores of Nigeria and the realities that exist within its borders. Visa application queues got longer, and when visas were rejected, or people could not afford to relocate legally and safely, they took to the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert.

Like a repeat of history, thousands of Nigerians die every year at sea, and in the deserts, without making it to the other side. According to statistics from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), 1200 Nigerian deaths were recorded across both routes in 2023. In 2025, nearly 8000 migrants were reported dead or missing on international migration routes globally, Nigerians included. Scary as the figures are, hundreds of people would rather risk their lives than stay back in Nigeria.

And for those who make it to the other side after spending days at sea or on the back of overpacked trucks crossing the Sahara, the reality they meet is more often than not, completely different from what they expected. The jobs they are assigned to are in practice, closer to slavery than one could imagine.

Nigerians arrive in foreign countries only to have their passports confiscated, their movements restricted, wages withheld, and their dignity shredded to nothingness. They call it a caregiving job, a house help, a sales person duty, but we must call it what it really is. When people are made to work impossible long hours only to earn a fraction of the pay they were promised, have their travel documents are taken from them, are treated violently, and cannot even leave their houses or workplaces without the risk of deportation, does that not resemble slavery more than freedom?

An even grimmer situation awaits women and girls who are trafficked into Libya only to be coerced into commercial sex work to pay off debts to the people who helped them relocate. Most of these women are held in detention, become victims of rape, and in some cases, locked up in Libyan prison for months or even years. Those who are lucky enough are assisted by the IOM and the Nigerian government to return home and are reintegrated into society. In 2026 alone, 7,825 Nigerians have been assisted to return home, bringing the number of assisted returnees to over 65,700 since 2017 till date.

With these realities, the phrase ‘an opportunity abroad’ should be treated with caution and suspicion as it might be a term used to sugarcoat modern-day slavery. There might be no physical chains, no hot branding irons, and no loss of identity, but when a person loses control of their time, body, and livelihood, it is doubtlessly slavery repackaged as an opportunity for a better life.

Instinctively, you might ask why someone would walk into such arrangements willingly. But rather than blaming these Nigerians for bad judgment, one must understand that even staying in Nigeria has its dangers.

In current-day Nigeria, a young person graduates with a degree, sometimes gets a second one, and stands at the door of an economy that does not have a job for him. If he gets a job, he is overworked and underpaid. Nigerians watch the naira lose its value against nearly every currency that matters, such that a salary you’re ‘managing’ in January is completely unable to sustain you by July. And of course, salary reviews, whether it be the national minimum wage or private salaries, happen less often than a blue moon.

Staying in Nigeria means betting your life on a health sector that is so depleted because its workforce has moved to greener pastures, and its medical facilities were outdated 50 years ago. Staying means that farming, traveling, or simply existing in certain states and localities make you a target of kidnapping and insurgency. It means watching public institutions function with no transparency, integrity, or responsibility towards citizens. And of course, votes that should count but somehow never do.

Against the backdrop of the Nigerian reality, undertaking a dangerous desert or sea-crossing adventure, and taking up a job that turns out to be violent and exploitative can sometimes seem like a more rational (however tragic) choice.

The fact is that Nigerians did not wake up one day and start choosing badly. Their choices and opportunities back home just continued to narrow until ‘anything else’ seemed like a better option.

This is why, on a day such as this, we should not only remember history but look at the present. We shouldn’t stop at honoring the abolitionists who dismantled the slave trade and its systems; rather, we should look into the conditions that are shaping the systems we see in the 21^st century.

The Nigerian government should see the ‘japa’ exodus from the lens of policy failures and Nigerian sectors that need reviving. Government should invest in education, health, the sciences, commerce, and the arts. Improve pay and working conditions to make staying back viable. Return safety to the streets and villages of Nigeria. Remain accountable and answerable to Nigerians. Dismantle the networks of trafficking. When all these are done, we can have an honest conversation if young Nigerians still fail to see a future for themselves within the shores of Nigeria.

Of course, migration in itself has never been the problem. People have always moved, and will always move in search of better opportunities, and legal migration has its benefits to Nigerians, Nigeria, and the receiving countries. However, illegal migration and its numerous dangerous consequences for Nigerians remains a matter of grave concern.

So, as we remember the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, let us pick up a mirror, look ourselves in the face, and recognise the chains that begin to shackle us. Let us make Nigeria a place where Nigerians can thrive and move on from the desperation of seeking a way out.