Ghana’s UN reparations resolution proof Nkrumah’s ideas still alive – Sir Sam Jonah

The Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Sir Samuel Esson Jonah, has linked Kwame Nkrumah’s Pan-Africanist vision to Ghana’s role in securing a historic United Nations resolution on the transatlantic trafficking and enslavement of Africans. The UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 80/250 on March 25, 2026, declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans the “gravest crime against humanity”. The resolution, spearheaded by Ghana, received 123 votes in favour, with three countries voting against and 52 abstaining.

Delivering the opening address at the 15th Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lectures, Sir Jonah said the development reflected the continuing relevance of Nkrumah’s Pan-Africanist ideas. He also highlighted the role of Kwesi Pratt Jnr and his book, Reparations: History, Struggle, Politics and Law, in the intellectual campaign surrounding reparations. “It is not often that a journalist in Ghana writes a book and the General Assembly of the United Nations changes its mind.

Kwesi Pratt’s book was published in 2025 and examines the history, politics and legal dimensions of reparations. Sir Jonah also pointed to the presence of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat in Accra as another development he believes gives renewed relevance to Nkrumah’s call for continental unity. He, however, urged students attending the lecture series to engage critically with the subject of reparations rather than simply respond to the more popular arguments surrounding it.

“Reparations for what, from whom, in what form – and what will we do with them that we have not done with what we already had? They are the questions Nkrumah himself would have asked first,” he stated. Sir Jonah also disclosed his involvement in an initiative known as “Make Africa Borderless Now”, further highlighting his interest in advancing the ideals of African integration.

The 15th Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lectures are examining aspects of Nkrumah’s political thought and legacy, including Pan-Africanism, constitutionalism and the continuing debate over reparations for slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. He described the situation as a national irony, particularly when Nkrumah’s writings continue to be studied in universities outside Ghana. He cited works including Consciencism, Africa Must Unite and Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism.

“Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, in the departments of African American Studies at American universities, Nkrumah is on the syllabus. He is read, assigned, examined and argued over.” Sir Jonah noted that Nkrumah was educated at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and said it was ironic that his works could be more consistently encountered in American classrooms than in Ghana. “The American student meets Nkrumah as a thinker.