President John Dramani Mahama
President John Dramani Mahama has indicated that today’s generation bears no guilt for slavery but has a duty to dismantle the inequalities it left behind.
Speaking at the opening of the Next Steps Conference on Reparatory Justice at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra, President Mahama told heads of state, foreign ministers, scholars, and diaspora leaders that no one alive today built slave ships or wrote laws that commodified humans.
“History does not ask us to inherit guilt, but it asks us to inherit responsibility,” he said.
The test, he argued, is not guilt over the past but willingness to confront its lasting consequences. He noted a growing global readiness among governments and institutions to face slavery’s history openly.
To move from recognition to implementation, President Mahama announced three panels to anchor the next phase of international efforts.
The first is a Global Advisory Panel on Reparatory Justice made up of heads of state and government, eminent leaders, and public figures. It will provide strategic guidance to advance international dialogue and cooperation.
The second is an Expert Panel on the Restitution of Cultural Artefacts, which will support efforts to return cultural properties, archives, sacred objects, and historical treasures taken during the colonial and slavery eras to their communities of origin.
The third is a Global Legal Panel on Reparatory Justice, bringing together jurists and legal scholars to develop approaches grounded in international law, human dignity, and justice.
President Mahama stressed the panels will not replace governments or existing institutions.
“Rather, they are intended to strengthen that work by providing intellectual, technical and policy support,” he said.
A Daily Guide Report