President John Dramani Mahama has strongly rejected arguments that the involvement of some Africans in the transatlantic slave trade should weaken or completely end the campaign for reparations.
Speaking during a presidential dialogue with civil society organisations on March 30, 2026, Mahama criticised attempts to dismiss Ghana’s historic push for reparatory justice, describing some of the arguments being advanced against the initiative as “infantile.”
According to the President, the participation of individual African intermediaries does not erase the organised, commercial and international system that drove the enslavement and forced transportation of millions of Africans.
Mahama stressed that the transatlantic slave trade was supported by powerful financial and business networks. Ships used to transport enslaved Africans were insured, while shipowners, merchants and other institutions accumulated enormous wealth from the brutal system.
He argued that focusing only on the role played by certain Africans ignores the larger machinery that financed, protected and profited from the trade.
The President also highlighted what he described as one of history’s most painful injustices: slave owners were compensated after abolition for the loss of people they had treated as property, while the enslaved victims and their descendants received nothing.
Mahama maintained that the reparations campaign is not intended to create hostility or reopen old wounds. Instead, he said it seeks truth, accountability, healing and recognition of the lasting social and economic damage caused by centuries of enslavement.
His remarks followed the adoption of a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution championed by Ghana. The resolution declared the trafficking and racialised enslavement of Africans the gravest crime against humanity and called for serious discussions on reparatory justice.
The motion received 123 votes in favour, while Argentina, Israel and the United States opposed it. Fifty-two countries abstained, including the United Kingdom and members of the European Union.
The resolution encourages measures including formal apologies, restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, institutional reforms and the return of cultural objects to their countries of origin.
Mahama said Ghana’s campaign is also meant to preserve the true history of the slave trade and honour the memory of the millions of Africans who suffered, died or were permanently separated from their families and homeland.
For the Ghanaian leader, African involvement cannot be used as an excuse to deny victims justice or shield the powerful international institutions that designed, expanded and profited from one of humanity’s darkest chapters.
