'We came to seek healing, not division' - Prez Mahama justifies call for reparations at 81st UNGA

Mahama has justified his long-standing call for reparations for Africa, insisting that the demand is about healing and justice, not vengeance.

Speaking at the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 24, 2026, President Mahama said although some have criticised the call, he believes it remains a worthy endeavour.

“Some cautioned that we were reopening old wounds. But we came not to provoke division or render empty judgment. We came to seek healing,” President Mahama stated.

The address marks a continuation of a campaign he began at the 80th Session of the Assembly in September last year. Background:

On September 25, 2025, at the 80th UNGA, President Mahama, in his capacity as the African Union Champion for Advancing the Cause of Justice and the Payment of Reparations, electrified the Assembly when he declared the transatlantic slave trade “the greatest crime against humanity”.

In that speech, he noted that more than 12.5 million Africans were forcibly taken from their homelands to build the wealth of Western nations, and condemned the historical paradox where former slave owners were compensated for loss of “property” while the enslaved received nothing.

He announced then that Ghana would table a formal motion at the UN recognizing the scale and brutality of the slave trade and demanding restitution — not only for slavery and colonization but also for the continued theft of Africa’s natural resources and cultural heritage.

“We must demand reparations for the enslavement of our people and the colonization of our land that resulted in the theft of natural resources, as well as the looting of artifacts,” he told world leaders.

The call built on earlier advocacy by former President Nana Akufo-Addo at the 78th UNGA in 2023, and was adopted as part of the African Union's agenda when the AU declared 2025 as the Year of Justice for Africans through Reparations.

In February 2026, at the 39th AU Assembly of Heads of State in Addis Ababa, Mahama announced that his draft UN resolution seeking recognition of the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity had been adopted by the AU, paving the way for its presentation to the UN in March 2026.

He has consistently argued that “Reparatory justice is not about pity. It is about recognition, responsibility, and restitution” and that it must include restitution, rehabilitation and guarantees of non-repetition.

His remarks today seek to address critics who argue the campaign could strain relations with former colonial powers, framing it instead as a moral clarification of history necessary for global healing.