The President of the Saint Lucian Senate, Alvina Reynolds, has revealed that many people in Saint Lucia trace their roots back to Nigeria. She shared this during a welcome speech for Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who visited the island’s parliament on Monday.
Reynolds cited data from a British census taken in Saint Lucia in 1815, which showed that out of 16,282 enslaved people on the island, 3,488 were born in Africa. Of these Africans, 34 percent came from Nigeria, 11 percent from Nigeria-Cameroon, and 22 percent from the Congo. The rest were mostly descendants from the Senegambia region and Nigeria.
She described Tinubu’s visit as a historic chance to reunite people of African descent in the Caribbean with their homeland in Africa. Reynolds also paid tribute to Sir Darnley Alexander, a Saint Lucian who served as Nigeria’s Chief Justice in the 1970s.
The Senate President highlighted the deep cultural bonds formed over 350 years through the transatlantic slave trade and called for closer cooperation between Nigeria and Saint Lucia.
In his response, Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister Philip Pierre spoke warmly of the island’s strong spiritual and cultural ties to West Africa, calling Saint Lucia “a small fragment of Africa.” He acknowledged the Nigerian community’s important role in the island’s healthcare, religion, cuisine, tourism, and social life.
Pierre also noted that despite Saint Lucia welcoming over a million tourists annually, few come from Nigeria due to limited flight connections. He suggested partnerships in tourism, sports like football and cricket, fintech, and healthcare to boost relations between the two countries.
The joint parliamentary session was attended by diplomats and leaders from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), marking a new chapter in Africa-Caribbean relations.