The Head of the Pan African Progressive Front (PPF), Humphrey Quaye has declared that Africa's debt crisis is not an accident but a continuation of centuries of plunder through slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism.

Delivering the opening address at the Youth Forum on Debt and Reparations in Accra on Friday, under the theme "Youth of Africa; Africa's Freedom is in our Hands!!!", Mr. Quaye said the continent must move from demanding aid to demanding justice.

"For 400 years, they took our know-how without due credit and our labour for free. For 100 years, they took our lands, minerals and other resources for free. Now, they lend us our own stolen wealth at interest, and call us debtors," he told the gathering.

Mr. Quaye said it was befitting that the forum was held in Accra, the city Kwame Nkrumah made the heartbeat of Pan-African struggle, recalling Nkrumah's declaration that Ghana's independence is meaningless unless linked to the total liberation of Africa.

He noted that the demand for reparative justice is at the core of the existence of the PPF, which he described not as an NGO but as a united front of progressive political parties, trade unions, youth and women's movements, peasant associations and mass organisations from across Africa, the Caribbean and the Black Diaspora.

Outlining progress in the last 18 months, Mr. Quaye disclosed that the PPF opened its international headquarters in Accra on June 30, 2025, and has built unity among over 60 Pan-African formations from 32 countries.

He highlighted the PPF's International Conference of Progressive Pan-African Forces held on November 18-19, 2025 at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the 5th Pan-African Congress of Manchester 1945.

According to him, the conference, opened by President John Dramani Mahama who is the “African Union Champion for Reparations” and attended by over 200 delegates from 57 countries, produced concrete instruments for liberation.

These include the Accra Declaration for Resource Sovereignty and Industrialization, the Special Accra Declaration on Reparations which declares reparations an inalienable right, and proposals for a joint institute for the assessment of colonial damage and a Pan-African Reparations Justice Fund as well as the demand for the return of stolen cultural artifacts.

Charging the youth, Mr. Quaye linked their current struggles, unemployment, and IMF control of national budgets directly to the debt trap, saying reparations is the key to breaking it.

He therefore tasked the forum with three actions namely to formulate a youth chapter of the Accra Declaration focusing on climate justice and tech sovereignty, to organize in every campus, community and digital space, and to prepare for a continental campaign for national and regional reparations bodies.

"The 5th Pan-African Congress told the colonial powers: We are coming, and indeed they came winning political independence. Today, you the youth of Africa must tell the creditors and the former colonizers: We are here to collect and collect we shall!" he stated.