President John Dramani Mahama has described the transatlantic slave trade as ‘the greatest crime against humanity’.

He has called on the United Nations and its leaders to recognise it as such formally.

Addressing the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, September 25, 2025, President Mahama announced Ghana’s plans to champion calls for a motion recognising the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity.

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He said, “Madame President, the slave trade must be recognised as the greatest crime against humanity. As the African champion on reparations, Ghana intends to introduce a motion in this August body to that effect.”

According to him, the slave trade took away the freedom of millions of people who were forced to leave their countries and made to create wealth for others in the Western world.

President Mahama, on that note, called for reparations to be made to address the devastating effects of the slave trade on Africans and the continent, including the depletion of its natural resources.

“More than 12.5 million Africans were forcibly taken against their will and transported to create wealth for the powerful Western nations. We must demand reparations for the enslavement of our people and the colonization of our land that resulted in the theft of our natural resources as well as the looting of artifacts and other items of cultural heritage that have yet to be returned in total,” he continued.

Mahama further criticised the historical injustice of slave-owning families being compensated by their governments, while formerly enslaved people and their descendants received nothing.

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“We recognise the value of our land and the value of our lives, as did our colonizers as well as the governments that happily paid reparations to former slave owners as compensation for the loss of their property in quotes, And that property for which they received compensation paid, referred to as slave people who had been freed.”

MAG/EB

Also, watch some videos from the NPP’s protest below: