Full text: Mahama’s speech at high-level side event on return and restitution of cultural properties and heritage

Excellencies, Distinguished Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Imagine, for a moment, Africa before the distant galleries of London, Paris, Berlin, and New York became the main repositories of our history. Imagine a continent where history was not locked behind glass across oceans, but lived among the people. History was carved into sacred wood. Cast in royal bronze. Forged in iron. Woven into Kente. Written in manuscripts. And embodied in sacred objects through which generations remembered who they were. Then imagine those treasures torn from their homes. Seized in punitive expeditions. Stripped from royal compounds. Carried away after conquest. And scattered across the globe. For generations, Africa’s history, memory, and identity have been held far from the hands that created them.

This is not a story about static objects in museum cases. It is a story about people. It is a story about dignity. It is a story about an unfinished journey toward justice. Ghana knows this pain intimately. In 1874, British forces destroyed Kumasi, looting the palace of the Asantehene. A century and a half later, in 2024, a portion of that heritage returned, including the sacred Mpomponsuo sword. Its return reminded us that these are not mere relics of a bygone era. They belong to living traditions, active institutions, and communities that are still here. We see this across our continent. We saw it in 1897 in Benin City.

We saw it at Maqdala in Ethiopia, and in Abomey in Benin. And we see it in its most heartbreaking form: the removal of the physical remains of our ancestors. In 1838, King Badu Bonsu II of Ahanta rebelled against Dutch colonial domination. The Dutch authorities executed him by hanging and after decapitated him. His head was sent to Netherlands for phrenology studies and was preserved in a jar of formaldehyde for 170 years. Rediscovered by a Dutch journalist in 2002, the head was finally returned to Ghana in 2009. And this is where I say, ladies and genetlemen, Human remains are not collectibles. They are not specimens. They are our ancestors. They are our fathers, mothers, kings, and elders. Restoring them is not a matter of legal ownership; it is a fundamental test of our shared human dignity.

Excellencies, on 25th March this year, the UN General Assembly took a historic step. By adopting Resolution 80/250, 123 Member States declared the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity and called for the prompt and unhindered restitution of our cultural property, sacred artefacts, and national archives. That resolution was an indispensable moment of global truth. But truth is not the destination. Truth is the starting line. In June, Ghana convened the High-Level Consultative Conference in Accra. Leaders from Africa, the Caribbean, and around the world gathered to answer one fundamental question: What comes next? Our answer was clear: We must move from acknowledgement to action, from commitments to implementation. The adoption of the Accra Next Steps Commitments on Reparatory Justice provided the blueprint.

Today, on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly, I present to you the three pillars of our NEXT STEPS to transform this vision into global reality. First, we acknowledge and salute the progress made. We thank the Netherlands for cataloguing 2,000 Ghanaian artefacts for return. We acknowledge Germany’s engagement with our Kpando traditional area, France’s legislative frameworks, and the return of the Djidji Ayokwe talking drum to Côte d’Ivoire. But moral justice cannot rely on piecemeal generosity or isolated acts of goodwill. Our NEXT STEP is to build a permanent, institutionalised global system. We call on the United Nations and holding nations to establish clear, standardised legal and diplomatic mechanisms that streamline provenance research, make archives transparent, and lower legal barriers to unconditional restitution, starting immediately with the unconditional return of all human remains.

Second, too often, we hear the argument that restitution must wait until African nations build modern facilities to secure their heritage. Let us reject this narrative. Capacity constraints must never be used as a justification for continued possession. Capacity must serve as a bridge to return, not a barrier to justice. Africa is already building the infrastructure of the future. Through the African Union’s flagship Agenda 2063 project, we are advancing the Great African Museum. Through the AU-EU Museum Partnership, we are deepening technical collaboration. In Ghana, we are constructing state-of-the-art national and traditional institutions to preserve, research, and exhibit our returning treasures. Where gaps in technology, digitisation, or conservation exist, the solution is simple: Invest in them through genuine multilateral partnership. And third, cultural heritage is not a luxury item to be addressed after economic development. Heritage is an engine of development.

Properly preserved and showcased, it fuels education, identity, international tourism, and the booming creative economy. Today, I make a direct call to multilateral development banks, international financial institutions, global foundations, and private sector partners: Invest deliberately in Africa’s cultural infrastructure. We must channel development finance into regional archives, conservation laboratories, digitisation initiatives, and professional training for a new generation of African curators and historians.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, ultimately, this work is about the children who will inherit our world in Kumasi, Benin City, Addis Ababa, London, Kingston, and New York. When a young African child enters a museum on her own continent and touches the tangible proof of her ancestors’ brilliance, she learns that her history did not begin with subjugation. She learns that her ancestors built empires, mastered metallurgy, engineered complex political systems, and created sublime art. Our young people must inherit more than the story of what Africa lost. They must inherit the story of what Africa created. There is an old Ghanaian proverb that says: “The fact that your child drowned in water does not mean you should never drink water again.” It reminds us that past trauma must not sentence us to permanent estrangement. We cannot rewrite the history of conquest. But we possess the absolute power to write how we heal from it. Ghana does not come to this hall to assign guilt for the past. We come to forge a partnership with the present to repair the future.

The story of Africa’s cultural heritage cannot end with its removal. It must continue with its return. Let this UN General Assembly be remembered not as the place where we agreed on the past, but as the moment we built the future together. I thank you.