Ghana’s President Mahama Says Western Wealth Still Built on “Stolen” African Labour and Resources from Slavery and Colonialism.
In a widely shared exclusive interview with RT India, Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama has argued that the extraction of African labour through the transatlantic slave trade and the extraction of raw materials under colonialism remain foundational to the wealth of advanced Western economies today — and that this continues to shape global inequalities.
Mahama stated that the extraction of labour and raw materials “is what has built some of these Western advanced economies today.” He noted that companies involved in the slave trade participated in that process, and he rejected the idea that the passage of time or succession of generations erases the original injustice.
Using a direct analogy, he said:
“Don’t tell me that if I stole your watch and later passed it on to my heir [or successor], it’s no longer a stolen item simply because the heir didn’t physically commit the theft. It remains stolen property.”
He concluded that the slave trade and colonialism “are responsible for some of the inequalities in the world today.”