Colonial borders divided us, history must reunite us – Mahama to Diaspora

President John Dramani Mahama has called for a conscious effort to reunite Africans and the diaspora, arguing that colonial borders and historical distortions fractured a shared identity.

Delivering a keynote address at the Diaspora Summit 2025 in Accra on Friday, President Mahama said Ghana’s national story remains incomplete without fully integrating the experiences and journeys of Africans dispersed through the transatlantic slave trade.

“Have you ever wondered why the story of Ghana never included the story of the diaspora?” he asked, urging a broader and more honest historical narrative.

The President rejected accounts that begin Ghana’s history with colonial rule, insisting that the collective story of the people predates the formation of the Gold Coast.

“That’s inaccurate, because the collective story of our people predates the existence of any colony on this African continent,” he said.

Reflecting on the transatlantic slave trade, President Mahama described the Atlantic Ocean as a resting place for millions of African ancestors.

“The Gulf of Guinea and the waters of the Atlantic beyond it became a graveyard of our ancestors,” he said, recounting the deaths of those who perished during the Middle Passage or chose to jump into the sea rather than remain enslaved.

He noted that Ghana’s coastline, which hosts more than 70 slave forts and castles, served as a major transit point for enslaved Africans from across the sub-region.

“What followed for each and every one of those individuals is as much a part of Ghana’s story as what followed for those of us who remained here,” the President stated.

President Mahama argued that division has been the most effective tool of domination. “What divides us ultimately is that division, and that’s precisely why it’s the perfect way to conquer,” he said, calling on Africans to abandon artificial lines drawn by colonialism. “We have to stop drawing those lines of demarcation that say, ‘I end here, and you begin there.’”

He also criticised stereotypes and narratives imposed during and after colonial rule, including colorism and the portrayal of Africans and people of African descent as inferior.

“They believe that anything black is negative or inferior, and proximity to whiteness is more desirable,” he said, urging Africans to reclaim their stories and strip false narratives of their power.

“This summit is about reclamation,” President Mahama declared. “By finding and owning the stories of our past that were suppressed, we gain the power to write ourselves truthfully into the future of humanity.”

The event was attended by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Deputy Foreign Minister James Gyakye Quayson, members of the diplomatic corps, traditional leaders, senior government officials, and several Ghanaians from the diaspora, whom the President warmly welcomed home.