The Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, has thanked Ghana’s President, John Dramani Mahama, for hosting a wreath-laying ceremony in honour of enslaved Africans at the African Burial Ground National Monument in Lower Manhattan.

Addressing the audience, Mr Mamdani said Ghana “holds deep meaning” for him, noting that he was named Kwame after Ghana’s first President and Pan-African icon, Kwame Nkrumah.

He explained that his father gave him the name Kwame, which he described as a name for a male born on a Saturday and also the traditional name for God in Akan.

He eulogised Nkrumah as “a leader who fought for freedom.”

The ceremony forms part of Ghana’s engagements in New York ahead of a resolution at the United Nations (UN) seeking to recognise the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity.

The resolution is aimed at affirming the historical realities of the slave trade and advancing calls for justice and recognition of its impact on Africans and the diaspora.