President Mahama Heads to UN to Champion Reparatory Justice for Africa

Photo via Presidency Communications

By Accra Evening News

 President John Dramani Mahama departed Accra on Monday for New York and Pennsylvania, leading Ghana’s delegation on a visit that officials have described as historic — one devoted to advancing international debate on reparatory justice and the enduring legacy of the transatlantic slave trade.

The centrepiece of the visit will be a High-Level Special Event at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Tuesday, which President Mahama will convene and address as keynote speaker. The event, themed around the trafficking and racialised enslavement of Africans, is expected to draw heads of state and senior officials from across the world to examine the moral and legal case for reparations.

On Wednesday, the President will address the United Nations General Assembly as part of proceedings marking the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. He will present a resolution, adopted by the African Union, that seeks to formally declare the trafficking and chattel enslavement of Africans the gravest crime against humanity in recorded history.

The visit opens with a wreath-laying ceremony at the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York, where President Mahama will pay solemn tribute to the countless enslaved Africans interred there.

Beyond the United Nations, the President’s itinerary includes a keynote address at Lincoln University, one of America’s oldest historically Black universities, as well as a meeting with members of the Ghanaian community at Temple University in Pennsylvania.