Badagry

Why Badagry matters

Badagry is a town in Lagos State with sites linked to the transatlantic slave trade. According to one travel account, slave trading continued in Badagry until 1886.

Visitors come to see the museums, relics and monuments that record this history, and to walk the route that captives were taken along towards the sea.

Seriki Williams Abass Slave Museum

According to Wikipedia, the museum occupies a 19th-century barracoon, a building used to hold enslaved people before forced transport. The site dates to the early 1840s.

The compound was also the home of Seriki Williams Abass, a chief born around 1835 in Orile, Ogun State, and originally named Ifaremilekun Fagbami. The Nigerian government declared the site a national monument in 2003.

• Chains and shackles
• Documents on Badagry's role in the slave trade
• Maps of slave-trade routes
• Photographs and illustrations

These are the items Wikipedia lists among the museum's displays.

Other sites on the slave route

A travel account by Ahaoma Kanu on the COAST Project website describes several other sites in Badagry. The account is undated, so treat these descriptions as a guide rather than a current listing.

• Chief Mobee's Royal Family Slave Relics Museum, which the account says holds chains, mouth bits and a water pot
• The jetty where captives were reportedly taken by boat
• The Point of No Return monument, with two slanted pillars facing the ocean
• White route markers along the old footpath

These sites are described in that account. We have not confirmed their current condition.

Visiting

Opening times, fees, guides and the condition of sites change and are not confirmed here, so check before you go.

This is a memorial to people who suffered, so visit respectfully.

Lagos is not named in the UK Foreign Office's advice against travel to parts of Nigeria (page updated 22 Oct 2026). For the wider picture, read is Nigeria safe to visit?

In Lagos, you can also visit Freedom Park, the former Broad Street Prison, or take a boat to Tarkwa Bay. Planning a holiday trip? See Detty December in Lagos.