HEZEKIAH ANDREW SHANU




HEZEKIAH ANDREW SHANU

He was a Yorùbá man and indigene of Lagos who was born in 1858. He was educated in Lagos at the CMS secondary school.

He was a photographer and an artist who was employed in Congo as a clerk. It was during this time, Shanu started to cover the atrocities of Leopold in Congo. He spoke against the destruction of indigenous people of Congo by Leopold and started using his photographic skills to take images of the horrors of the Belgian army and mercenaries against the Congolese people.

When the images of this evil got into many European news outlets, Belgium was isolated and chastised. 

Later, Shanu was exposed as the official responsible for the leakage of this images that created a tsunami against the Belgian government of Leopold. Shanu was forced to commit suicide  after his business was bankrupted and he lost his job because of his political activism in Congo.

Léopold's fiefdom, the Congo Free State was dismantled 3years after his death.

Rest in power, Shanu ✊🏿




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