Ghana’s president said his country is talking to several western nations over securing reparations for the consequences of the transatlantic slave trade, including through the return of stolen African artefacts.
John Mahama told the FT’s Africa Summit on Wednesday that Ghana’s efforts were focused not simply on financial compensation but also on the repatriation of artefacts to the countries they were originally from.
“We have had approaches from Germany, from France, from several countries to have a discussion,” Mahama said. “I do not think that a simple pay-off is what we demand for years of slavery,” he said, adding that “there many other ways of repairing”.
Ghana, which was ruled by Britain until 1957, has spearheaded a campaign for compensation for the four centuries-long enslavement and transport of millions of Africans to the Americas.
It hosted a summit of African and Caribbean states in Accra in the summer that adopted a framework calling on countries to take steps towards providing compensation, the return of cultural and historical artefacts, and looking towards efforts including debt relief to address the long-term consequences of enslavement and colonialism.
France and Germany co-sponsored a sideline event about the campaign alongside Ghana at the UN last month. Ghanaian foreign minister Samuel Ablakwa told the event the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal had said they were supportive.
Ghana also sponsored a nonbinding resolution at the UN in March that resolved the transatlantic slave trade was the “gravest crime against humanity”. The resolution passed, though the UK and EU countries abstained while the US voted against it.
“Since that vote was taken, several countries have opened up to dialogue,” Mahama said. “It is not [that] anybody is going to force anybody into writing a cheque.”
“But we can begin by looking at how to make conditions better for global south prosperity.”
Commonwealth nations are expected to raise the issue of reparations at a summit in Antigua and Barbuda next month.
At least 12.5mn Africans were kidnapped and transported to the Americas between 1501 and 1866, according to estimates produced by the academic database Slave Voyages.
Portugal and the UK were responsible for transporting the majority of Africans taken from the continent during the transatlantic trade. What is now Ghana was among the major points of departure for enslaved Africans.
Thousands of cultural and historical artefacts were also taken during the centuries of the slave trade and colonialism and are now held by museums and collectors outside the continent.
Mahama said the “dialogue is on” to secure their return. France adopted a law in May that would more easily allow Paris to approve the restitution of artefacts, rather than requiring a specific law in each case.
The Netherlands and Germany, which have agreed to return over 2,000 objects taken from Ghana during the colonial era, have both set up structures to facilitate returns.
The Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum returned dozens of artefacts to Ghana on a long-term loan in 2024. The items, which included a gold peace pipe and a sword of state, were looted from the kingdom of Asante by British soldiers during the 19th century.
In his wide-ranging interview with the FT, Mahama also outlined his economic plans for Ghana, a major producer of gold and cocoa. He said the west African country was seeking to ban the raw export of its materials by 2030 as part of an effort to increase local processing.
“We cannot continue to be the exporter of raw materials for the rest of the world,” Mahama said. “We must bring part of that process in value addition into Africa to create jobs.”
He said Ghana was already refining 70 per cent of its gold before export and was looking to process half its cocoa crop domestically this year.
Mahama also urged western investors to take a more open attitude to investing in Africa.
“The Indians are there. The Chinese are there. Everybody is coming,” he said. “I know the typical western investor comes with a notebook and asks: ‘Do they have an independent judiciary? Is the media free?’ By the time you get to the fifth point, China has already invested.”