President John Dramani Mahama has delivered a forceful speech in Accra linking African unity, identity, and reparative justice to the continent’s future, in a direct response to derogatory remarks made by former United States President Donald Trump about African countries.
Speaking at a diaspora summit on December 19, Mahama condemned language describing African nations and people as “garbage,” “filth,” and “shithole countries,” describing such statements as racist dog whistles that Africans “do not have the luxury of forgetting or excusing.”
He framed the address not only as a rebuttal to Trump’s comments, but as a broader reflection on centuries of slavery, colonialism, and systemic racism faced by Africa and its diaspora.
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Mahama argued that the enduring challenges confronting the continent are rooted in deliberate historical divisions imposed by colonial powers, including artificial borders, ethnic hierarchies, and externally inspired coups.
He urged Africans and people of African descent worldwide to be “more intentional about our unity than they were about our division,” insisting that unity is the key to reversing inherited injustices.
The President highlighted deep and unbroken cultural ties between Africa and its diaspora, pointing to shared languages such as Akan and Yoruba, common foods like okro, cowpeas, waakye, gumbo and Hoppin’ John, as well as music, rhythms, and folklore such as Anansi stories that have survived generations of separation.
He described these connections as evidence that Africa’s identity was never erased despite enslavement and displacement.
Drawing inspiration from Pan-Africanist figures, Mahama referenced Dr Kwame Nkrumah‘s belief that Africa’s liberation was inseparable from global Black freedom, as well as Marcus Garvey’s influence on Ghana‘s Black Star. He also invoked pre-colonial empires such as Mali, Songhai, Ghana, and Mutapa to challenge narratives portraying Africa as historically inferior.
Central to the speech was a strong demand for reparative justice.
Mahama called for global recognition of slavery, colonialism, genocide, and apartheid as crimes against humanity, announcing that Ghana would move a motion at the United Nations General Assembly to formally recognise the transatlantic slave trade as the greatest crime against humanity.
He outlined reparations as including debt cancellation, monetary compensation, the return of stolen African artefacts, institutional reform, and transformative economic redress.
He further cited epigenetics to argue that trauma from historical injustices has lasting, transgenerational effects on people of African descent, deepening the moral case for reparations.
Concluding on a forward-looking note, Mahama echoed writer Michaela Coel, urging Africans to place fear behind them as fuel rather than in front as an obstacle.
Repeating a phrase he has previously used at the United Nations, he declared that “the future is African,” insisting that with unity between the continent and its diaspora, “there is nothing we cannot achieve.”
