Unearthing Silence: The Forgotten Slave Tunnel Of Akassa

I haven’t been to Akassa, not yet. But in learning about it, I feel like I’ve touched a part of Nigeria’s history that often goes unheard. Somewhere in the quiet town where the Nun River meets the Atlantic, there’s a buried passageway—a slave tunnel—that once carried human lives into darkness.

This blog is my way of telling a story I’ve only begun to understand. One day, I hope to walk those paths. Until then, I write.

Tucked away at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean in Bayelsa State, Nigeria, lies the coastal town of Akassa, a serene community where the sea breeze carries stories of survival, sorrow, and silence. It’s here that a slave tunnel, long buried beneath soil and memory, tells one of the Niger Delta’s lesser-known tales from the transatlantic slave trade.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, Akassa served as a strategic port, drawing the interest of British and Portuguese slave traders. Oral accounts passed down through generations speak of a tunnel used to discreetly transport enslaved people from inland to waiting ships at the coast, it was a tool of secrecy and control. European slave traders, mostly the British and Portuguese, used it to move enslaved people from inland holding areas directly to the coast, away from prying eyes. The tunnel’s purpose was simple but sinister: keep the trade hidden, keep it moving, and keep the enslaved silent.

Let that sink in for a second.

Unlike Badagry or Calabar, Akassa’s role in this history is rarely highlighted in national conversations or history books. The tunnel, though physically neglected, remains a powerful metaphor for the many untold stories in Nigerian history, covered up, but not erased.

Symbolic image representing the fading memory of slave tunnels like the one in Akassa.

These weren’t just tunnels. They were final corridors. The last stretch of home. Imagine walking through it, not knowing where you were going, only that you weren’t coming back. That image has stayed with me.

Unlike more well-known slave trade sites like Badagry, the tunnel in Akassa has remained largely undocumented and unpreserved. It still exists, but not as a tourist site or protected monument. Instead, it lies quietly beneath the earth, partially buried, overgrown, and shaped more by memory than by stone. While the tunnel did exist historically as part of the larger Akassa Slave Transit Camp in Ogbokiri (Bayelsa State) Nigeria, very little of the original structure has survived intact. Due to decades of erosion, neglect, and lack of preservation efforts, many of the physical remnants, such as the slave tunnels, administrative quarters, and holding cells, have either collapsed or are now buried beneath vegetation or sand.

According to legit.ng Senator Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo urged the Federal Government to preserve the Akassa Slave Transit Camp and Tunnel by converting it into a National Heritage Museum, warning that erosion and neglect are destroying this vital part of Nigeria’s slave trade history.

Historic black-and-white photo showing enslaved Africans, similar to what oral history recounts about the forgotten slave tunnel in Akassa

What strikes me the most is how little this story is known, even among Nigerians. We talk about history, but only the loudest parts. The celebrated victories, the marked battlefields, the places that make it onto tourism brochures. But places like Akassa? They’re left in the margins. As if the pain that happened there didn’t matter as much.

But it does. It matters a lot.

Because every name erased from a shipping ledger was someone’s mother, Someone’s brother, Someone’s father, Someone’s child, And just because the tunnel is buried doesn’t mean the story should be.

I think we owe it to ourselves, and to those who never made it back, to dig these stories up. To remember them. To talk about them. And maybe, just maybe, to visit them one day not as tourists, but as witnesses. I may not have stood there yet. I may not have run my hand along the tunnel walls or felt the ocean wind where the ships once docked. But I feel something all the same. I feel the weight of unspoken history, and the responsibility to speak it.

A haunting photograph of African men aboard a slave ship, likely moments before or after their forced transatlantic journey. Their expressions, though calm, carry the weight of suffering, resistance, and survival. Scenes like this echo the stories passed down by Akassa elders, of tunnels, trauma, and trade cloaked in silence

So here’s my small attempt to do just that.

Because sometimes, we don’t have to see a place to feel its truth. Sometimes, just knowing is enough to care.And caring? That’s where healing begins.

If you’ve ever been to Akassa, or you’re from there, I’d love to hear your stories. Maybe one day I’ll visit, walk that path, and carry those whispers back with me.

Until then, I write.

Gracelyn Jones

NOTE:All images in this post are for visual representation only. The actual slave tunnel in Akassa is currently unmarked and undocumented, preserved mainly through oral history and community memory.

If you’re new to this topic or would like to explore more about Bayelsa’s hidden historical sites, check out my previous post: Echoes of the Shore: The White Man’s Graveyard https://www.primaraldtv.com/post/echoes-of-the-shore-the-white-man-s-graveyard