By: Henrietta Afful
President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has again, made a strong case on the need for financial reparations for historical injustices committed during the slavery and colonial era.
Urging African and Caribbean leaders to unite in demanding reparations, President Akufo-Addo stressed that “Reparations for Africa and the African diaspora are long overdue.”
He said that Africa was owed reparations by countries that participated in slavery as the practice had stifled the progress of Africa.
“No amount of money can restore the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade and its consequences. But surely, this is a matter that the world must confront and can no longer ignore,” President Akufo-Addo said.
He made the statement on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 when he addressed the Accra Reparations Summit held under the theme “Building a United Front to Advance the Cause of Justice and the Payment of Reparations to Africans”.
Sharing tit-bits of the conference attended by leaders from African and Caribbean nations on Facebook, this is what the Ghanaian President said; “On Tuesday, 14th November 2023, I addressed the Accra Reparations Summit, which is being held on the theme “Building a United Front to Advance the Cause of Justice and the Payment of Reparations to Africans”.
Reparations for Africa and the African diaspora are long overdue. Predictably, the question of reparations becomes a debate only when it comes to Africa and Africans. When the British ended slavery, all the owners of enslaved Africans received reparations to the tune of twenty million pounds sterling, the equivalent today of twenty billion pounds sterling, but enslaved Africans themselves did not receive a penny. Likewise in the United States, owners of slaves received three hundred dollars for every slave they owned; the slaves themselves received nothing. Take the case of Haiti, which had to pay reparations amounting to twenty-one billion dollars ($21 billion) to French slaveholders in 1825 for the victory of the great Haitian Revolution, the first in the Americas and the Caribbean which freed the slaves. It was a payment made under duress that impoverished Haiti throughout the 19th century till today.
No amount of money can restore the damage caused by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and its consequences, which have spanned many centuries. Surely, this is a matter that the world must confront, and can no longer ignore.
Let me reiterate that the call for reparations is not a plea for alms, but a valid demand for justice. If reparations can rightfully be paid to victims and descendants of the victims of the Holocaust, so can reparations also be paid to the descendants of the victims of the Slave Trade. It has been four hundred (400) years, and we want closure to this tragedy.
The subject of restitutions must go along with the matter of reparations. The initiative for the return and restitution of African cultural properties to the continent must also be a major issue of concern for all Africans. We must call for the return of African cultural properties that were illegally and shamelessly transported from the continent.”
President Akufo-Addo has been vocal in pushing for apologies and reparations from countries that participated in slavery and colonialism.
He told the United Nations General Assembly in September, 2023 that “no amount of money would ever make up for the horrors, but it would make the point that evil was perpetrated”.
