President Mahama challenges historical terminology on slavery at UN event

President John Mahama has said the transatlantic slave trade was designed to strip Africans of their humanity.

According to him, it was founded on the false notion that one race is superior to another.

Speaking at a High-Level Special Event on Reparatory Justice at the United Nations Headquarters on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, he stressed the need to rethink how history has framed the slave trade.

“The entire transatlantic slave trade was designed to deny African people their humanity; there is no such thing as a slave. There were human beings who were trafficked and then enslaved,” he said.

President Mahama to address UN General Assembly on March 25

“The injustices born of slavery and carried forward into successive social systems occurred because those persons were considered objects, not human beings,” he remarked.

President Mahama emphasised that conversations on the slave trade must start with restoring the dignity of Africans and recognising the humanity of those who suffered under the system.

“When discussing slavery and its consequences, we must always start by reclaiming the dignity of Africans, the humanity of our ancestors who were enslaved, and, as a matter of course, our own humanity,” he said.

President Mahama is a leading advocate for African reparations, demanding justice for the legacies of slavery and colonialism.

As the African Union’s appointed Champion for Reparations, he is driving a unified continental effort to pursue restitution from Western nations, framing it as a moral imperative for dignity, truth, and economic development, rather than just a financial transaction.

JKB/MA

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