Ghana has announced its intention to lobby the African Union (AU) to garner backing for a pan-continental initiative aimed at bolstering the call for reparations related to the transatlantic slave trade.
President Akufo-Addo emphasized the importance of building bridges and fostering unity within the community to address the reparations issue effectively.
He underscored the need to create a powerful and unified voice that would compel action and lead to consequential decisions.
“It is time that the Caribbean and those of us on the other side of the Atlantic get together on this matter because it is a common fight,” he stated while addressing the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Keith Rowley, at the Jubilee House, Accra.
The President stressed the need to work towards a strategy that would compel the perpetrators of the trans-Atlantic slave trade “to be able to sit down across the table with us and talk about how we can achieve our goals.”
As part of his visit to Ghana, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley paid a courtesy call on the President. His visit coincided with the invitation to celebrate the 25th anniversary of His Royal Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II’s ascension to the throne as the Asantehene of the Asante Kingdom.
Dr. Rowley, known for his advocacy for an international entity like an AU-Caribbean body, seeks to promote reparations for African people affected by the slave trade’s atrocities.
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) reports that approximately 13 million Africans were kidnapped and trafficked across the Atlantic to the Americas, including British, French, and Spanish colonies, between 1501 and 1867. Tragically, about two million individuals are believed to have perished during the horrific Middle Passage.
“Kidnapping, trafficking, abusing, and dehumanising African people and their descendants was as lucrative for Europeans and white Americans as it was traumatising for black people.
“The trans-Atlantic slave trade enriched many white people across occupations and industries—from early European colonists to priests and popes, shipbuilders to rum and textile producers, bankers to insurers—and generated the capital used to build some of America’s greatest cities and most successful companies,” says the EJI.
Despite the enduring benefits that many European and American families, businesses, and institutions derive from the immense wealth generated by enslavement, African communities still bear the burdens of inequality, injustice, poverty, and diminished self-worth.
President Akufo-Addo expressed support for the concept of an international body to streamline the processes involved in securing reparations for the atrocities of the slave trade, stating, “We welcome this idea and will collaborate to make it a reality.”
“I think the people in Addis Ababa, the AU, will be very happy to hear this initiative, especially because of the decisions that have been taken in this last year or two along the same lines.
“It is extremely important for us, for all of us, for our self-confidence and self-worth that this matter is dealt with, if possible, in our lifetimes.
“The people were taken from here and dumped across on the other side of the ocean. So, we have a direct interest,” he told Dr Rowley.
President Akufo-Addo has been pushing the AU leadership for some time to seriously explore the issue of reparations.
“If people can be compensated for the Holocaust, Africans can be compensated for slavery,” he told participants at a recent forum in Ghana’s capital, Accra.
He insisted that the atrocities committed during the slave trade should not be repeated and that Africans would never again allow such evil to be perpetuated against them.
Dr. Rowley praised Ghana’s government for playing a key role in generating public support for reparations to Africans.
“We the descendants of the enslaved would want to be emancipated from that inhumanity, and we have been fighting it with Africa.
“And, we think the time has come for an international body to put this conversation, this narrative to the Western world so that some sort of rectifications could come our way,” the Prime Minister appealed.