Accra, Dec. 19, – Renowned U.S. civil rights lawyer and social justice campaigner, Mr Benjamin Crump, has commended President John Dramani Mahama for what he characterised as exceptional and courageous moral leadership on reparative justice.
He stated that Ghana had demonstrated to the world the essence of principled leadership in the international movement for reparations.
Delivering remarks at the opening of the Diaspora Summit 2025 in Accra, Mr Crump said President Mahama’s strong advocacy for reparations and historical accountability had brought clarity and conviction at a time when many world leaders chose silence or avoidance.
The Diaspora Summit 2025 is being hosted in Ghana against the backdrop of renewed global discussions on reparative justice, Pan-African cooperation and formal mechanisms for engaging the African diaspora.
With the theme, “Resetting Ghana: The Diaspora as the 17th Region”, the two-day conference seeks to recognise the diaspora as a core partner in Ghana’s national development effort while advancing Africa’s broader pursuit of justice and healing.
Mr Crump observed that Ghana’s stance had helped shift reparations from the margins into mainstream global dialogue.
“You have shown the world what moral leadership looks like,” he said, referring to President Mahama’s address to the United Nations General Assembly in which Ghana announced plans to submit a motion declaring the transatlantic slave trade the greatest crime against humanity.
The U.S. attorney, who has represented families affected by racial injustice in several high-profile cases, said standing on Ghanaian soil was deeply personal to him.
He said he considered himself family rather than a visitor, carrying in his own heritage the history of Africans who endured the transatlantic slave trade.
Recounting a visit to Cape Coast Castle the previous day with a team of American lawyers, he spoke of walking the same paths enslaved Africans were forced to take, touching the walls of the dungeons and standing before the “Door of No Return”.
Unlike his ancestors, he noted, he was able to walk back through the Door of Return and be welcomed home.
“That was not symbolism, it was truth,” Mr Crump stressed, adding that Africans in the diaspora were not lost from Africa; they were taken from it, and Africa never left them.
He said reparations were not acts of charity or symbolic gestures, but a legal and moral responsibility stemming from centuries of stolen labour, land, resources, lives and opportunities. Truth, he added, was essential to healing, and reconciliation without repair was incomplete.
According to him, the Diaspora Summit represents a decisive moment when Africa and its diaspora have stopped waiting for justice and are instead mobilising to claim it.
He pledged to dedicate his voice and professional efforts to advancing reparative justice for Africans and people of African descent worldwide.
Responding, President Mahama said Mr Crump’s comments captured the core purpose of the Summit: reclaiming Africa’s narrative and restoring dignity to African peoples.
He said the African story had too often been told by others, overlooking those who bore the deepest scars of injustice.
The President recalled that Ghana’s forts and castles were tangible reminders of a shared history, noting that millions of Africans were transported through Ghana’s shores into enslavement.
He described the Atlantic Ocean as a burial ground for countless African ancestors and said Africa could not afford to erase that memory.
President Mahama stated that divisions among Africans—whether rooted in colonial borders, ethnicity, social class or stereotypes—were intentionally created to sustain domination.
He called on Africans everywhere to pursue unity with even greater determination than the forces that engineered division.
On reparative justice, he emphasised that it extended beyond monetary compensation, encompassing acknowledgement of wrongdoing, institutional reforms, debt cancellation, restitution of stolen cultural artefacts and transformative investment.
He also underscored the need to address intergenerational trauma arising from slavery and colonialism through processes of healing and reconciliation.
Mr Faure Gnassingbé, President of the Council of Ministers of the Togolese Republic, described the Summit as forward-looking and transformational.
He said the reparations agenda was not about dwelling on the past but correcting structural inequities that still shape the global order to Africa’s disadvantage.
According to him, slavery and colonialism produced enduring disparities in productivity, trade, technology and institutions that continue to define today’s global system.
Reparations, he noted, were therefore fundamental to Africa’s development and global stability rather than merely a moral plea.
He described the diaspora as a strategic lever for African sovereignty and stated that Africa’s destiny is equally influenced by cities in the Americas and Europe as by those on the continent.
He called for joint Africa–diaspora arrangements to mobilise capital, expertise and influence to advance justice and development.
Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, African Union High Representative for “Silencing the Guns”, said the AU had taken concrete steps to institutionalise reparative justice within continental legal and development frameworks.
He said the Accra Summit was aligned with the AU’s agenda to deepen Africa-Caribbean relations and formalise diaspora engagement, adding that reparations must be transformative and intergenerational, especially for Africa’s youth.
GHBUSS
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