Africa could be due more than $2 trillion in reparations should the West honour the calls for reparative justice for the centuries of slavery and other injustices it handed to Africa.

The figure, calculated in contemporary terms, is a modest estimate of the cost of labour and other factors across a modest 10-year period.

Indeed, various scholars and economists have referenced different factors in their estimation of the true value of reparation that Africa deserves.

Kwesi Pratt Jnr, who is a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Pan-African Progressive Front (PPF), estimates in his book on reparations that 12.5 million Africans were forcibly taken during the transatlantic slave trade spanning the 15th to 19th centuries: «at least 2 million perished in the Middle Passage. They were enslaved in the Caribbean and the Americas if they survived».

He then argued that, if 12.5 million Africans worked an average of 10 years without pay and earned a modest historical wage equivalent of $5/day, the amount is over $2 trillion.

This estimation, he said, did not take into account relevant factors such as inflation and compound interest.

Others such as Lynsey Chutel of the New York Times also wrote on “What is Africa owed” that: “Approximately 12.5 million people were enslaved and taken from Africa, according to a widely accepted figure from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, but some estimates argue that as many as 20 million people were enslaved”.

Indeed, economist Utsa Patnaik argues that Britain extracted $45 trillion from India between 1765 and 1938.

Marchal, the Belgian scholar, also estimates that in Congo under King Leopold II, 10 million people died between 1885 and 1908, while Belgium's profit from this period amounted to $1.1 billion in today's value.

But Africa is yet to receive its due for suffering slavery, colonization and other injustices.

Interestingly, Germany has paid out $89 billion in reparations for the Holocaust (since 1952), while the United States has paid $1.6 billion to Japanese Americans interned during the Second World War.

It is well known how France compelled 14 African countries to hold – in CFA franc – 50 per cent of their reserves totaling $500 billion in Paris.

While some attempts have been made towards reparations to Africa, the volume of it has been negligible when compared to what the continent actually deserves.

For example, Germany agreed to pay €1.1 billion to Namibia for the genocidal atrocities on the Herero and Nama people through their descendants in 2021 in existing aid programmes to be delivered across 30 years, while the UK gave £20 million to Kenya for victims of the Mau Mau uprising.

Then again, these sums are insignificant for Africa. For example, £20 million for Kenya translates to just £3,500 per survivor.

Why is it taking so long to deal fairly with Africa on the issue of reparation when the world has seen similar efforts at restitution long settled?

In a May 2025 article published by the United Nations, Cristina Duarte, a Cabo Verdean former Minister of Finance, Planning and Public Administration who now serves as Special Advisor on Africa to the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, wrote that Africa's call for reparations is "not just for reflection, but for clarity, courage, and a strategic reframing of the reparations discourse".

She described the African Union theme for 2025, framed as: “Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations” as "a powerful and necessary theme".

She justified Africa's demand for reparative justice by emphasising that Africa has become "a net creditor to the world, losing more than $500 billion every year through illicit financial flows, unfair trade practices, exploitative investment frameworks, and debt servicing, while it is home to some of the world’s poorest populations".

For instance, she recounted, that Ghana exported $9.58 billion in gold in 2024, yet it only retained 14 per cent of the value due to the nature of multinational agreements; that the DRC produces over 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt, yet only one per cent is refined in the country before being exported; that Zimbabwe was ranked as the third-largest producer of chromium in 2023, yet most was exported in raw form; that collectively, West Africa produces 70 per cent of the world’s cocoa beans but contributes less than one per cent of the global chocolate market, while in Somalia, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by foreign fishing fleets costs the economy $300 million a year.

At the moment, Africa appears poised to exact what it is due in the wake of the profound clarion call from important personalities, including Ghana's President, John Dramani Mahama.

At the 13th AU High-Level Delegation Dialogue on Democracy, Governance and Human Rights held in Accra on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, President Mahama urged African leaders to empower the appropriate bodies and institutions with resources to pursue the reparations agenda.

Perhaps, the mode of the necessary reparations could make it easier for the West to deliver. For example, Africa could be forgiven all of its debts to give the continent a fresh slate to “start life”.

Official records say Ghana, for instance, spent up to 30 per cent of its national budget to service foreign debts instead of building schools and hospitals.

These are the some of the consequences of slavery and colonization. There should be no further delays in honouring reparations to Africa.