Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is the former president of Ghana
Following the passage of a resolution on reparatory justice by the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, declaring the transatlantic slave trade a grave crime against humanity, an old video of former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has resurfaced online.
The video, which has since become a major topic of discussion, captures the former president speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2023.
According to the footage and an earlier report by GhanaWeb, Akufo-Addo called for the payment of reparations to countries affected by the transatlantic slave trade.
The statement was made when the former president addressed the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York.
Akufo-Addo renews calls for appropriate slave trade reparations
Read the original article on GhanaWeb, published on September 21, 2023:
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has demanded the payment of reparations for the countries affected by the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
He stated that, while no amount of money could compensate for the tragedies of the time, the point would be made that evil was perpetrated against Africans.
“No amount of money will ever make up for the horrors, but it would make the point that evil was perpetrated, that millions of productive Africans were snatched from the embrace of our continent and put to work in the Americas and the Caribbean without compensation for their labour,” he told the Assembly.
The President made the demand when he took his turn at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York.
World leaders and representatives gathered at UN Headquarters for the high-level debate, which ran through September 26, 2023.
President Akufo-Addo noted that the time had come for Europe and the United States of America to acknowledge that the vast wealth they enjoy was harvested from the sweat, tears, blood, and horrors of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the centuries of colonial exploitation.
“Maybe we should also admit that it cannot be easy to build confident and prosperous societies from nations that, for centuries, had their natural resources looted and their peoples traded as commodities,” he added.
The President pointed out that the world had been unwilling and unable to confront the realities of the consequences of the slave trade.
He said it was time to bring the subject of reparations firmly to the fore.
“Granted that current generations are not the ones that engaged in the slave trade, but that grand inhuman enterprise was state-sponsored and deliberate, and its benefits are clearly interwoven with the present-day economic architecture of the nations that designed and executed it.
“If there are any hesitations in some minds about the payment of reparations, it is worth considering the fact that, when slavery was abolished, the slave owners were compensated for the loss of the slaves, because human beings were labelled as property, deemed to be commodities.
“Surely, this is a matter that the world must confront and can no longer ignore. The AU has authorised Ghana to hold a global conference on the issue in November in Accra,” he stated.
President Akufo-Addo also referred to the report of the panel chaired by former South African President Thabo Mbeki on the illicit flow of funds from Africa, which states that Africa lost more than $88 billion annually through illicit outflows.
“Yes, those monies too must be returned to the continent. It is difficult to understand why the recipient countries are comfortable retaining such funds and are happy to call those countries from whom the monies are taken corrupt,” he indicated.
The President insisted that a joint task force of the African Union Commission and the OECD Secretariat, under the auspices of the UN, should be charged with finding ways of stopping the damaging outflows.
On the matter of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the President stated that, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ghana, like many other parts of the world, was making progress with the 17 SDGs.
“Today, the picture we have of our performance is not very bright. Most of the 21 targets designated for achievement by 2020 have not been met, and we are not on track to achieve many other targets by 2030,” he said.
Africans deserve reparations for slave trade just as other injustices in human history - Akufo-Addo
According to the 2023 SDG report, just 12 per cent of the targets are on track to be achieved.
“Progress on fifty per cent of the targets is weak. The most disappointing part is that we have stalled or retrogressed on more than thirty per cent of the targets.
“We need to accelerate action on the entire project,” the President stated.
JHM/BAI
End of an Era: Kotoka Airport renamed Accra International Airport
Copyright © 1994 - 2026 GhanaWeb. All rights reserved.
