Titus Eleweke I Editor South East
AWKA, Anambra – A group, the Universal Prayer Fellowship (UPF), has written to the chairman of the Board of Peace (BoP) and President of the United States, Donald Trump, demanding the convening of an international reparations board for Africans over the transatlantic slave trade between 1480 and 1870.
The Board of Peace (BoP), also known as the Peace Board, is described as an international organization with a mandate to promote peacekeeping initiatives worldwide.
The group said the board is chaired by President Trump and headquartered at the White House, Washington, D.C.
Speaking to journalists in Awka, the Founder and President of UPF, Evangelist Dr. Iwuchukwu Ezenwafor, presented a copy of a letter dated January 28, 2026, which he said had been sent to President Trump.
He added that the Embassy of the United States, Abuja acknowledged receipt of the correspondence.
In the letter, Ezenwafor argued that reparations are necessary to address the indignity, dehumanization, and long-term socio-economic consequences suffered by Africans as a result of the slave trade.
“History remains criminally silent on the devastating consequences and indelible scars of the inhuman transatlantic slave trade, which spanned nearly four centuries (1480–1870) and led to the forced shipment of over twelve and a half million people,” the letter stated.
He attributed the expansion of the trade first to the Portuguese and Spaniards, and later to the British, French, Dutch, Irish, and other European merchants. According to him, the mass removal of millions of Africans critically depleted the continent’s workforce and human capital, stunting development and entrenching cycles of pain, social dislocation, loss of self-worth, and poverty.
“Communities, ethnic nationalities, tribes, and kingdoms across the West Coast and Central Africa are yet to fully recover from the ripple effects of this sustained exploitation,” he said.
The group maintained that financial and institutional reparations are necessary to begin healing what it described as a historic injustice of enormous magnitude.It argued that the countries involved in the slave trade cannot continue to downplay what it characterized as a grave crime against humanity.
“The Western powers must understand that an issue of this magnitude cannot be swept under the carpet. Such malfeasance, regardless of how it is interpreted, demands a comprehensive and well-structured reparations framework,” the letter stated.
Citing the principles and values often associated with modern Western civilization — including justice, human rights, and accountability — the group urged the leadership of the countries involved to take decisive action.
“The time to address this historic wrong is now,” the group added.
Read full letter:
~January 28, 2026
The Chairman
Board Of Peace
The White House
Washington DC
United States Of America.
Dear Mr President,
*African slavery : demand for belated reparations*
God Almighty so loved the world that He gave you to us meaning that you are a consummate gift to mankind through Christ Jesus because you are in Him. We therefore make bold to adduce that you are simply the best thing that happened to the contemporary world.
By your body language, principles and actions so far, one can obviously observe your predestined mission in The White House. For us who should know by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, the details of your assignment are not only prosecuted with finesse but are accomplished with a rare grace, commitment and undaunted courage. We do hereby affirm that we’ve got your back standing in the gap continuously.
*The basis for reparations*
History is criminally silent over the devastating consequences and the indelible scars trailing the inhuman transatlantic slave trade spanning over a space of four centuries (1480 – 1870AD) with the shipment of over twelve and half million souls.The perpetrating of the heinous transactions first by the Portuguese and the Spaniards followed by the British, the French, the Dutch, the Irish and other European merchants critically depleted the workforce/human capital necessary for sundry development entrenching pain, sorrow, loss of self worth and abject poverty. Till date the various communities, ethnic societies, tribes and kingdoms across the entire catchment areas of the West Coast and the Central Africa are yet to recover from the ripple effects of the carefree rampage.
The strongest debilitating impact on man is entrenched via loss of self confidence or self worth. And when a people who have over the ages sojourned and flourished in a quiet serene abode suddenly became emasculated by darkness of despair as endangered specie owing to universal conspiracy of the Europeans, things literally fell apart!
Prior to the ominous invasion of the European merchants, most of the affected people were literally dwelling together in an organic community settings devoid of man-made crisis like war and hostilities. Owing to largely the rainforest habitation environment and other factors, they were neither threatened with invading attacks nor conquests. But the eventual encroachment by the shrewd strange intruders instantly turned the regions upside down!
It’s not therefore a mere coincidence that the sub-saharan Africans had over the centuries grappled with peculiar and uncommon challenges since the initial visit of the Europeans down to the creation and annexation of the territorial colonies of the various European powers. One cannot truly appreciate the enormity of the ill-fate suffered by the Black race up untill now without unearthing the Augean stables of the historical past!
The astronomical rise of the Western Powers was predicated on the unprecedented exploitation of the negros of West and Central Africa as a matter of fact. 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. 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!!
*Raising Africa from the ashes: the action plan proposal*
Today, we are looking at the beckoning necessity of healing the enormous wound by adequate restitution. We cannot continue any longer to downplay such a scary assault and capital crime as it were. The Western Powers should clearly understand that a matter of this magnitude can never by any means be swept under the carpet.
This kind of malfeasance no matter how it’s considered and evaluated can only be addressed by a well thought out reparations. Going by the principles and values of the Western/modern civilization, it behoves the leadership of all the countries involved to do the needful and the ideal time is absolutely now.
With the contemporary global leadership placed on the lap of the US, a clarion call for an international conference for Reparation Fund Raising should be conscientiously made sooner than later under Your Excellency’s able close watch. In a bid to deliberately uphold justice, equity and fairness, all the parties/nations involved should be subject to due self assessment and willing individual responses in terms of the measure of resource contributions.
The fund raising exercise will have to be deliberately spaced over a fairly long time to enable a maximum pooling of adequate resources that could assuage the massive losses and damages that accumulated over such a long period of about four hundred years.
*The Funds*
As a way of ensuring minimal risk of resource loss or waste, a Fund Management Board should be put in place by Your Excellency’s distinguished office. This Fund Managers will be tasked to draw up a comprehensive rebuilding and resuscitation plan/programme for all the affected peoples in whatever locations in their respective countries of today.
The prime assignment will be to directly impact the reparation beneficiary communities with essential life transforming/changing projects that would remain as symbols of justice and humanitarian legacies of all times. The contractors and the supervisors of the same compensation projects will be made to be independent of the various host authorities/governments.
The Fund Management Board shall be saddled with the duty of coordinating the projects and concurrently harnessing the Fund raising exercise for as long as possible. As a matter of fact, there’s no amount of time and resources channelled into this milestone cause that is not worth it. Meanwhile, the requisite synergy to give the reparation initiative the right kick it deserves must be readily availed by all the concerned authorities and governments. All things being equal, the determined involvement of all the supposed community of nations that benefited from the notorious triangular transactions of the slave trade era will obviously translate to a reasonable impact of redress by all standards.
The welfare of the entire Black race shall take a swift turnaround in the event this proposed action plan see the light of the day and becomes a reality. The unprintable abuse unleashed upon our ancestors that left a trail of silent but deep generational psychological bruise and badly affected our mentality down the ages will be finally redressed. We cannot wait to see and experience the reverse impact on our loss of self worth syndrome by the cordial restitution and reparation regime as proposed. A mentality reset shall be after all tenable and we will be consequently on the rise again in a positive twist of fate!
Finally, it’s pertinent to note that the only sane and plausible approach to curtailing the prevailing migration crisis across the Western economies caused by especially Africans is to simply toe the line of the aforementioned action plan. The implications of the tragic recklessness of the past are persistently beckoning for humane attention and due judicious redress cum pacification – even the deaf, dumb and blind have taken notice! And the Western civilization is invariably under trial!!
Thank you in anticipation of your kind consideration and your usual swift response.
We remain with esteemed regards.
Yours in the service to God thru humanity,
For: *Universal Prayer Fellowship*
*Evang. Dr Iwuchukwu Ezenwafor*
FOUNDER/PRESIDENT.
