Kukah backs reparations for slavery but says finances must not become distraction

A recent gathering of African and Caribbean leaders in the Ghanaian capital Accra drafted a 19-point global framework for reparatory justice, including demands for financial compensation.

A Nigerian bishop backed campaigns for compensation for slavery but warned they must not distract from the deeper moral and spiritual imperative of restoring human dignity.

Speaking in the wake of a United Nations resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the “gravest crime against humanity” and a landmark Accra meeting demanding reparations, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto said the campaign had a basis in Catholic moral theology.

He described chattel enslavement as “the highest expression of human depravity” and “the evil that manifests the consequences of fallen man”.

“Any culture or law that diminishes the human person, made in the image and likeness of God falls within this category,” Bishop Kukah told the online outlet Crux.

He affirmed that the transatlantic slave trade – in which between 12-15 million African men, women and children were captured and trafficked to the Americas to work as slaves between the fifteenth and the nineteenth century – unequivocally qualifies as the gravest sin against humanity.

Bishop Kukah’s comments came amid renewed calls for restorative justice, including at a recent gathering of African and Caribbean leaders in the Ghanaian capital Accra.

The meeting drafted a 19-point global framework for reparatory justice, including demands for financial compensation, the return of cultural artefacts and human remains, and multilateral measures to address the crushing sovereign debt burdens of Global South nations.

While Kukah praised the Accra initiative, crediting Ghana’s President John Mahama and the Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley for reviving a conversation that “faded away” since the 1990s. However, he urged caution regarding the focus on financial payouts.

“The issues of compensation especially in financial terms can easily become a distraction,” Kukah said. “Let’s all focus on the key issues of human dignity with each of us taking responsibility. Let us focus on a proper narration and context, ensuring that we avoid a repeat of the same mistakes that created the conditions for the exploitation of the time.” 

Addressing the return of African artefacts – many of which are held by European museums, and some by Church institutions and missionary orders – Kukah argued that the Catholic Church “is not a latecomer” to the quest for human dignity.

He pointed to John Paul II’s call for the “purification of memory” leading up to the third millennium and said that Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV have demonstrated a commitment to returning artefacts. He also noted the complexities of restitution, pointing to recent debates in Nigeria over the curation and custody of returned Benin Bronzes.

“It is hoped that our countries will take the issue of preservation seriously given how poorly our museums are often treated,” he said.

Kukah drew a direct line between the historical extraction of wealth during slavery and the modern debt crises facing African nations, but placed a significant portion of the blame on current African leadership.

“The timelines of history may have changed, but our insatiable appetite and greed have remained the same,” he said. “The cynics might even argue that we have proved to be more irresponsible in our exploitation and mismanagement of our resources than the colonialists.”

Kukah noted that while colonialists extracted resources to build their own nations, African elites are guilty of “prebendal, primitive accumulation”, citing the billions of dollars in illegal financial flows out of the continent. He said his native Nigeria, despite achieving full debt forgiveness 20 years ago, has since descended into heavy debt and extreme poverty.

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