Cleanse The Dirty Past

On August 1, 2022, experts from African countries and beyond met in Accra (Ghana) to discuss and examine options of reparations and racial healing. It was not the first time the complex issue was being brought up, but holding a Summit this time around under the theme: advancing justice: reparations and racial healing was of great necessity. Though under the auspices of the African Union Commission, participatants did brainstorm on how to develop a unified and participants comprehensive strategy and advocacy agenda on reparative justice, what drew much attention was the opening speech by Ghana’s President Akufo Addo, who reminded countries involved in the inhumane trade 400 years ago that the issue of reparation has “overdueds”.
His address has not only come as a wake-up bell, but as a call for African countries to put up a unified front in order to correct the wrongs of the past. This is because since the end of slave trade and colonisation, several countries and individuals have benefited from reparations, except the African continent that was hardest hit with more than 20 million of her sons and daughters bought, sold and made to work under very harsh conditions by ancestors of those who are today benefiting from the fallouts. 
This explains why some proponents of reparations have for decades argued that companies, individuals and governments that profited from slavery and the slave trade should provide various forms of restitution. This idea has been supported by the United Nations Human Rights institution whose chief Michelle Bachelet released a report that included support for reparations. Though countries like the U.S. and the United Kingdom, were notably absent from the discussion when the topic was raised during the U.N. General Assembly, the report has been seen as a pace setter towards reparation for African countries who are now d...