Ghana calls on Africa to unite for reparations for slavery

The President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, on Tuesday, November 14, called on his African counterparts to come together to obtain reparations for transatlantic slavery and the damage caused during the colonial era.

“The entire African continent deserves a formal apology from European nations involved in the slave trade,” Akufo-Addo told a reparations conference of African leaders in Accra on Tuesday. “No amount of money can undo the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade and its consequences. But this is an issue that the world can no longer ignore,” he added.

However, the Ghanaian president did not specify what form financial reparations for transatlantic slavery, which organized the trade of millions of people from West and Central Africa, could take. Mr. Akufo-Addo, whose country was the first on the continent to gain independence in 1957, had already demanded compensation before the UN General Assembly in September.

Calling on Africa to work with the Caribbean to advance reparations, the Ghanaian president added that it was a “legitimate demand for justice.” Cape Coast Fort in Ghana, a former colonial trading post, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979.

“Africa’s Dark Phase”

Describing slavery and colonialism as “the dark phase of Africa,” Comoros President and African Union Chairman Azali Assoumani explained during the conference that the shadow of the colonial era “still lingers devastation to our population.” This month, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed “shame” at crimes committed during his country’s colonial period in Tanzania.

Earlier this year, the owner of the British newspaper The Guardian apologized for the role played by the media’s founders in transatlantic slavery and announced a “ten-year restorative justice program.”

Recently, some Western heads of state have begun to recognize the wrongs committed during this era in Africa, and museums have begun to return stolen African treasures and art.

Nigeria is in the process of recovering thousands of metal plaques, sculptures and objects from the 16th to 18th centuries that were looted from the ancient kingdom of Benin and ended up in museums and with art collectors in the United States and Europe. Benin, neighboring Nigeria, inaugurated in 2022 an exhibition of its works of art and its treasures returned by France after two years of negotiations.