Honouring pan-Africanist Mere Jah as Door of Return marks Badagry Diaspora Festival 2025
By Anote Ajeluorou
AFTER a few years of quiet, the rechristened ‘Badagry Diaspora Door of Return Festival’ roared to life on Friday, October 17, 2025 with a symposium celebrating the life and legacy of Mere Jah, who festival the Dr. Babatunde Olaide-Mesewaku-led African Renaissance Foundation (AREFO), festival organisers, described as ‘iconic pan-Africanist, votive face of liberation, champion of the contemporary ‘Back-to-Africa’ movement.’ It had as theme ‘Ayikata Ana Go’ (The Irresistibility of Homeland Return). Originally from Guadeloupe, Mere Jah would conscript her husband, Pere Jah, into the famous ‘Back-to-Africa’ movement, a radical decision that rocked the Caribbean island nations and the French world in the 1970s. The Jahs would later settle in Benin Republic and help other returnees back to the African homeland. Mere Jah, a die hard Pan-Africanist, passed away in April 2024 at Ouida in Benin Republic after spending 28 years as a returnee to the African soil having voluntarily repatriated to Africa from Guadeloupe in 1977.
The symposium, which was held at the palace of the Akran of Badagry, De Whenu Aholu Menu-Toyi I, had Prof. Shenayon Olaoluwa of African Studies Institute, University of Ibadan, delivering the keynote address. This was after the ancient rituals of libations and ancestral invocations had been said in communion with the ancestors. It was a day of intense immersion into the life of Mere Jah, a woman who singlehandedly reshaped African diaspora discourse across continents. The famous Zangbeto masquerades emerged from the spirit realm to commune with man, as they paraded ancient Badagry streets all the way to the roundabout at the busy Lagos-Benin Republic expressway and back to town and into their shrine.
The intellectual and solemn celebration on the first day became more animated the second day when visitors and tourists converged at the Badagry Marina Street, a street infamous for its past slave trade history, having silently been witness to the millions that passed through its shores in chains and suffering.
The rechristening from Badagry Disapora Festival to ‘Badagry Diaspora Door of Return Festival’ is symbolic and reflects the new temper of genuinely seeking the return of descendants of African diaspora who were dispersed across the world through the infamous Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Africa genuinely needs rebuilding, and her descendants whose ancestors were forcefully removed centuries ago, also need to be part of the rebuilding. And what other ritual moment of return can there be other than through the ‘Door of Return’ after their ancestors were stolen and forcefully taken away through the ‘Port of No Return’.
And at a spot overlooking some of the slave relics museums like the Mobee Family Slave Museum and the Seriki Abass Slave Baracoon, slave holding spots before they were ferried across the narrow stretch of the Marina Street waters to Gberefu and onto the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of Badagry natives and visitors alike gathered to witness a historic moment. Across the narrow stretch of water spanning the Marina Street, African sons and daughters were forcefully taken away through Badagry centuries ago into an unforgettable dark history. Now, after trekking back from the same Atlantic Ocean shore through Gberefu to retrace the arduous journey of no return of their ancestors from across the same Badagry water, African sons and daughters from America, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean were ushered back onto the shores of the African homeland. They returned through the symbolic ‘Door of Return’ amidst drumming, singing and celebration only fitting for heroes and heroines’ welcome. Colourful boat regattas accompanied their historic ritual return across the Badagry Lagoon to shore.
Prof. Wole Soyinka flanked on both sides by the diaspora returnees
In nine boats, the returnees were ferried from ashore and made to pass through the Door of No Return back to African soil again after centuries of living in strange lands, having been sold off like wares. But now they have found their ways back home where they truly belong.
However, the celebration of their return was unceremoniously cut short, as the about 57 delegates from the US, UK, Brasil, Haiti and Cuba, including the family of Mere Jah, were hurried ushered out of the festival venue without the ‘Ritual of Return’ that the Akran palace and chiefs had prepared. The palace officials were waiting to perform this ritual for their returnee sons and daughters, but it was not to be, as there appeared to be a clash between AREFO and Nigerians in Diaspora Commission’s (NiDCOM) Chairman/CEO, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, who hurriedly led the August visitors to waiting boats and ferried them away to the Mile 2 Jetty and away from their ancestral hosts. This unceremonious gesture would stun Badagry people, who could not understand why the visitors were not led on a courtesy visit to the Akran’s palace either before or after the festival. Neither were the visitors made to stay for the ritual of return ceremony with the gins, kolanuts, other ritual items as the chiefs waited alongside Prince Seyon Akran, who represented the Akran.
Shortly after they returned through the door, however, the delegates were ushered onstage where speeches were made in the presence of Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka who was special guest at the festival, and who presented the delegates with ‘Certificate of Return’. The delegates included American singer of the famous Shalamar musical group, Jeffrey Glenn Daniels, Dr. David Anderson, Cuban Ambassador to Nigeria Miriam Morales Palmero, and Brazilian Consul General Mr. Celso de Arruda Franca, among others.
While receiving the delegates, Prof. Soyinka said every journey had two parts, a departure and a return, saying the voyage of the African diaspora scattered all over the world was incomplete until they returned and reconnected with their ancestral roots. He said the festival was a symbolic launch-pad for the long-awaited return, and prayed for the homecoming of all Africans in diaspora, who had been dispersed in the unpleasant manner of the slave trade.
Mrs. Dabiri-Erewa, disclosed that President Bola Tinubu would receive over 2,000 diaspora people next year, who would come to Badagry during the festival’s next edition. She said Prof. Soyinka would be the chief organiser, adding, “Next year, under the chairmanship of Prof. Soyinka, we are planning historical voyage events where we will experience a real journey from Brazil and Cuba to Nigeria. Today’s event is just a test-run.”
Representing Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was the Special Adviser on Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mr. Idris Aregbe, who described the festival as a “living testament to Lagos’ commitment to cultural renaissance and diaspora unity,” and commended Badagry people for sustaining their cultural legacy as the cradle of diaspora return and pledged the state’s continued support to amplify its global recognition.
Chairman of House Committee on Tourism, Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Bonu Solomon, commended the festival’s symbolic value, saying it was ‘a heritage bridge between Africa and her children abroad,’ and assured of continued legislative backing for initiatives that promote tourism, culture and the preservation of the historical identity of Lagos.
World class ‘Door of Return: A Memorial to Slavery’ desisgned by AREFO
The Chairman, Badagry Local Government Area council, Babatunde Hunpe, highlighted the sacred role of Badagry as the soil of return and reaffirmed his administration’s readiness to keep supporting the festival and other cultural programmes that deepened the town’s tourism and economic growth. Olorunda LCDA, Badagry West LCDA and SMA Foundation were other supporters of Badagry Diaspora Door of Return Festival 2025.
Ambassador of Cuba to Nigeria, Palmero, expressed delight at the enduring spiritual and cultural bond between Africa and the Caribbean while Dr. David Anderson, the leader of the returnees from United States, described the ‘Door of Return’ as a door of joy and happiness. For Jeffrey Daniels, the festival simply meant a joy of return, as the darkness their ancestors faced had been turned into a thing of joy.
AREFO founder and originator of Badagry Diaspora Door of Return Festival, Dr. Olaide-Mesewaku, said this year’s festival is dedicated to Ngoumou Edima Jah Evejah, popularly known as Mere Jah, and recalled the idea of dedicating the diaspora festival to people of African descent in 2014. That year the festival had been dedicated to Marcus Garvey and to Haitian leader, Touissant L’ouverture in 2015, Alouada Aquinno in 2016, and to Descoredes Maximiliano Do Santos in 2017, a Brazilian cultural icon, who was a returnee to Africa in 1970 after tracing his ancestral root to Ketu kingdom in today’s Benin Republic after 500 years of lineage slavery in Brazil.
According to Dr. Olaide-Mesewau, “The objective is to locate and honour people of African heritage either living or late who had contributed significantly to socio-political or economic emancipation of Africa. This is where Mere Jah belongs in the heart of Badagry people and Africa as a whole. Her contributions to the development of the Diaspora Door of Return Festival was quite impactful since she started participating in the festival before she died.”
He recalled how instrumental Mere Jah was to the annual home pilgrimage to Badagry to a significant number of diaspora families from across the world, how she encouraged them to participate in the festival to reconstruct their history, culture and identity since 2014, noting, “Beyond the festival, her impact on the lives of numerous individuals and children through the establishment of ECOLOJAH at Ahozon in Ouidah, a pan-African alternative school that shapes the lives of many through the teachings of the knowledge of Africa and her relationship with world. Mere Jah deserves every single honour the Badagry people and especially African Renaissance Foundation leadership could accord her memory.
“The festival and its cultural programmes including the Door Of Return ceremony offer the diaspora a concrete opportunity where it will reconstruct its past, imagine a new future, identities, roles, rituals and beliefs and, of course, reconnect, redefine, re-establish and reinforce its relationship with the homeland. To actualise this, the festival aggregates both the tangible and intangible cultural resources as expressed in the history of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and genealogy, artefacts, monuments, places of memory, religion and natural ambience of the homeland as instigator for homeland return.”
Dr. Olaide-Mesewa further stated that the ‘Door of Return’ ceremony (as against the ‘Point of No Return’ trajectory of the dark era of slave trade) accentuates diaspora return and homecoming objective of the festival, adding, “The Door of Return ceremony is a symbolic event in which our brothers and sisters in the diaspora are welcome back to Nigeria through Badagry in a symbolic return celebration from across the Badagry Lagoon in a cruise boat decorated in green-white-green colour. The importance of this speaks to the fact that as their progenitors were taken away as slaves, Africa, in this context Badagry/Nigeria, is welcoming them back home as kings and queens!”
Olaide-Mesewaku further explained that the Badagry Diaspora Door of Return Festival was originally conceptualised and designed by African Renaissance Foundation in 2014 as a national event, because festivals that incorporate diaspora content across the coast of West Africa are being organised with direct involvement of the Presidency or Federal Government, hence the collaboration with the Chairman/CEO of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Mrs. Dabiri-Erewa, in 2017. He, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the way and manner she has seemingly ‘hijacked’ the festival from AREFO and has gone solo.
For instance, Dr. Olaide-Mesewa lamented that the original world class design of the Door of Return undertaken by AREFO was jettisoned for a hasty design that lacks the cultural nuance of the slave trade era. According to him, the original design he submitted to Lagos State Government is capable of rivalling the Statue of Liberty in New York, US, Eiffel Tower in Paris, France or Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The design images and accompanying description of AREFO’s original design of the Door of Return shows thoughtful details, global outlook and breath-taking conceptualisation that dwarfs what was eventually built.
Properly named ‘Door of Return: A Memorial to Slavery’, with layout displayed in the festival brochure, the original memorial structure has a bridge with ‘a cantilevered glass that provides an un-obstructed 360 degrees view for the bold-hearted. The glass view provides breath-taking view of the surrounding scene that includes the Badagry Lagoon, Vlekete Slave Market, Badagry Slave Museum and the original slave path to the Atlantic Ocean (in Gberefu). On top of the gate is a statue of five freed slaves in different celebratory mode as they express their freedom.’
Further attention to details can also be seen in the innovative design configuration: ‘A monument to commemorate the return of freed slaves to their homeland beginning from the 19th century, it will be built with reinforced concrete, glass, marble, travertine and copper. Designed to look like inverted (ship) sails, 20 metres tall, with an elegant glass bridge connecting the sails. Visitors take the stairs or ride elevators from the base to the top.’
While providing further indication in the festival brochure, Dr. Olaide Mesewaku said, “The Diaspora Door of Return as shown in the drawing was conceived as an iconic, world class tourism super-structure, first of its kind in Africa. It was designed in the mold of the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower or Christ the Redeemer Statue. It was this drawing that was presented to the Governor of Lagos State and he promised the state government would build it, and was officially launched during the 2017 Door of Return Festival by African Renaissance Foundation in collaboration with Hon. Abike Dabiri of NiDCOM.”
The Door of Return built by Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa
He further stated that the contractor to whom he transferred the original designs “unilaterally and damagingly altered the original patented designs, the aesthetics and the narratives it epitomises for the people of Badagry, their historiography, heritage and the global diaspora fraternity,” describing what has been hurriedly built by the same contractor, as ‘the makeshift Door of Return of the 2014 edition of the festival” after abandoning the original design.
“In brevity, the two boat-like pillars represent the shipment of Africans from the African continent to the Western world,” Dr. Olaide-Mesewaku provides further explanation in the brochure, “while the glass-bridge linking the two boat-like pillars stand for the Diaspora Door of Return Festival, as a major attraction that provides not only the historical and cultural link but homeland primordial spirituality to the people of African descent in the diaspora.”
There’s no gainsaying that the ‘makeshift’ design that Mrs. Abike-Dabiri ushered the diaspora returnees through is in sharp contrast to AREFO’s imposing, thoughtful and innovative original design. Why and how this cultural sabotage took place is something that Badagry people are yet to come to terms with. And they did not fail to express their frustration at the sad turn of events, as they watched helplessly their cultural heritage slipping through their fingers certainly not with the intent to make it better, as the structure they will wake up every day to see shows – a stark distortion of their dreamed of waterfront. AREFO’s Dr. Olaide-Mesewaku, who had midwifed the festival from inception in over 20 years, lamented that the chance to truly put Badagry on the global tourism map had been scuttled by interests other than those that serve Badagry. He is pained that his brianchild has been hijacked and is considering several redress options, not excluding the possibility of a legal one.
