President John Dramani Mahama has rejected suggestions that the involvement of some Africans in the transatlantic slave trade diminishes its gravity or absolves those who conceived, financed and institutionalised the system.

Speaking at a high-level dialogue on reparations at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica during his state visit, President Mahama said the role played by some Africans as intermediaries did not change the fact that the transatlantic slave trade was "the gravest crime against humanity."

Drawing a parallel with the Holocaust, he argued that the participation of some Jewish individuals in assisting Nazi operations did not erase the reality of the genocide or lessen its status as a crime against humanity.

"The Holocaust occurred, and I believe that there was a Holocaust and six million Jews were killed. Some of the most brutal prison guards were Jews. Some of those who went into the communities and showed where Jews were hiding and delivered them to the Nazis to be exterminated were Jews," he said.

"But it doesn't mean the Holocaust didn't happen and that the Holocaust wasn't a crime against humanity."

"So even the argument that Africans were involved in enslaving Africans does not stop it from being the gravest crime against humanity," he asserted.

Mahama said the transatlantic slave trade was sustained by a sophisticated legal and commercial system.

"You must look at all the legal underpinnings. You must look at everything that was established to support the slave trade in terms of the insurance of the cargo, the auctions, and all that," he said.

"It was a very systematic trade, and so you cannot wish it away just by saying that some agents whom you use as agents to bring you slaves as commodities participated in it, and because they were Africans, then it means that the slave trade didn't happen."

"No, we reject that," he stressed.

The president also called for a more complete account of the slave trade to be taught to future generations.

"We are now independent. We should be able to tell our children the truth," he said.

He noted: "When I was growing up in primary school, the abolitionists were put as the most important thing that happened in the slave trade." 

"We were taught about the slave trade. The gravity of what happened in the slave trade was never really spelled out. It was the bravery of the abolitionists and how they were the knights in shiny armour who came and stopped it and saved Africans."

"So all these people who were involved in the abolition movement were lionised in our history books. Now we can begin to tell our children the truth," he underscored.

Mahama said international discussions on reparations were helping to deepen public understanding of the historical injustice. 

"I think that since the resolution was passed on the General Assembly, it's piqued interest in trying to understand and know what exactly happened," he said.

"I believe that awareness is being created. People are aware of what happened. And it helps for you to know where we have come from, because that informs where we are going."

The remarks come months after President Mahama, in his capacity as the African Union Champion for Reparations, led Ghana's push at the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly for the formal recognition of the transatlantic slave trade as "the gravest crime against humanity." The resolution, which Ghana spearheaded, was adopted by the UN General Assembly in March 2026 with 123 member states voting in favour. It calls for reparatory justice measures, including formal apologies, restitution, compensation and the return of cultural artefacts, although it is not legally binding.