President Nana Akufo-Addo has stated that the call by Africans and Africans in the diaspora for the payment of reparations by European nations who carried out the transatlantic slave trade some 400 years is not a plea for alms but a demand for justice.
According to him, the demand for reparatory justice must go hand in hand with the subject of restitution.
“The call for reparation is not a plea for alms but a valid demand for justice. If reparations can rightly be paid to victims and the descendants of 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 years, and we want to bring closure to this tragedy,” he said.
Speaking at the maiden edition of the Accra Reparations Conference (ARC 2023) held at the Kempinski Hotel, Gold Coast City, on Tuesday, 14 November 2023, President Akufo-Addo said reparations for African and Africans are long overdue.
He indicated that, the restitution should be executed through the return of all cultural properties of African nations that were illegitimately and barefacedly taken from Africa and transported to European countries.
“While at it, let me point out that the subject of reparations must go along with the subject of restitution. The initiative for the return of African cultural properties to the continent must also be an issue of major concern for all Africans. We must call for the return of African cultural properties that were illegally and shamelessly transported from the continent,” he stated.
“The identity and personality of Africans were brutally assaulted, and the imprints of colonialism and imperialism woven deeply into the fabric of our lives. The effects of the slave trade have been devastating to the African continent and to the African diaspora. The entire period of slavery meant that our progress economically, culturally, and psychologically was stifled,” he added.
In his statement, President Akufo-Addo traced the history of the payment of reparations to victims of historical injustices such as the holocaust and even those who owned slaves when the slave trade was finally abolished.
To this end, President Akufo-Addo noted that there must be no reason why the payment of reparations to Africans who suffered from the devastating effects of the transatlantic slave trade should be questioned.
“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 some 20 million pounds sterling, the equivalent to some 20 billion pounds sterling but enslaved Africans themselves did not receive a penny.
President Akufo-Addo also called on Africa’s “slave master” to render a formal apology to the entire continent for carrying out the slave trade “crime.”
The conference was organized by Ghana in close collaboration with the African Union (AU) Commission.
In her solidarity statement, her Excellency, Dr Monique Nsanzabaganwa, Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission, said the demand for reparations is not an attempt to rewrite history or to continue the cycle of victimization but, it is a call to recognize the undeniable truth and right the wrongs that have gone unpunished for far too long and continues to thrive presently.
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