By Chido Onumah
Kwesi Pratt Jnr. is an interesting author and a history-conscious son of Africa. The latter identity is particularly important because Pratt Jnr. has chosen a struggle that is guaranteed to be lifelong, frustrating, sparsely rewarding, if at all, and largely unsung. His latest book, Reparations: History, Struggle, Politics and Law is a historical and ideological tour de force.
Background
In Reparations: History, Struggle, Politics and Law, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. arrives with the weight of a particular intellectual inheritance, one rooted in radical politics and Pan-African thought and a refusal to treat the global order as though it were a neutral arrangement of accidents.
Full disclosure: I have known Kwesi Pratt Jnr., or KP as he is fondly called by family and friends, for three decades. For three and half years, I lived with and worked under him as associate editor of the Insight newspaper, the radical, progressive and left-leaning newspaper focused on promoting the struggles of the working people in Ghana. I first met him in November 1996 when I arrived Accra, Ghana, as one of the many journalists and pro-democracy activists that left Nigeria at the height of the brutal military dictatorship of Gen. Sani Abacha.
A journalist friend of his whom I met when I visited the headquarters of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) had placed a call to him and asked if he could meet with me. He asked me to come over immediately. It turned out that he knew a number of the Nigerian journalists and political activists in exile. We spoke about journalism, politics, the pro-democracy struggle of Nigeria and Pan-Africanism. He offered me a job as his deputy immediately without any questions asked and gave me a place to stay. He would support and play a prominent role in the pro-democracy struggles of Nigerians both on the continent and outside.
Since that November meeting thirty years ago, we have kept in touch and collaborated on a number of initiatives, including the West African Human Rights Committee (WAHRC) which documented human rights violations in West Africa, campaigned for media rights, and mobilized public support for detained journalists and political detainees in West Africa in the late 90s, and the Amilcar Cabral Ideological School (ACIS), a global political education initiative launched in 2005, focused on training working-class activists from progressive movements in Marxism-Leninism, anti-imperialism, and socialist construction. It was, therefore, a great pleasure when he informed me late last year that he had published a new book and wanted me to review it. I had missed the public presentation in Accra on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, because of prior engagements. I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity of sharing my opinion about the book.
Reparations: History, Struggle, Politics and Law is not a polite academic survey. It is not a technocratic policy memo drafted for the consumption of distant bureaucrats. It is a historical, political intervention. And from its opening pages, it makes an unmistakable claim: reparations are not charity. They are not aid. They are not benevolence extended by a guilty conscience. They are debt settlement. Most importantly, they are overdue justice. And in the final analysis of the geopolitical imbalance of the haves and the have-nots, they are inseparable from the fundamental reorganisation of power between those who took and those who were taken from.
I. Reparations as Historical Continuum
Pratt’s foundational argument situates reparations within what the French would call the longue durée of exploitation. He traces a single, unbroken line from transatlantic enslavement through colonial extraction, through neo-colonial financial dependency, through the structural inequities that govern our present. These are not discrete episodes to be studied in isolation. They are phases of a single, interconnected system designed to transfer wealth from one part of the world to another and to keep it there.
As Pratt states in the Introduction: “Africa’s present is not a blank slate. It is the product of centuries of extraction, slavery, and colonialism, a legacy that continues to shape its economic system, political institutions, and social hierarchies.”
He immediately expands the definition of reparations beyond the narrow ledger of financial compensation. The demand, he insists, is for something larger:
“The book argues that reparations are not just about money; they are about attention, dignity, language, memory, and sovereignty. They are about transforming global systems built on the theft of natural resources, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation.”
II. The Foreword: Presidential Authority
The Foreword by Ghanaian President, John Dramani Mahama, provides crucial political context, anchoring the book in the real world of statecraft and continental ambition:
“With piercing clarity, Kwesi Pratt Jnr exposes the global double standards that continue to deny reparative justice to Africa and its diaspora. He reminds us that a world which found the resources to rebuild Europe after World War II, to compensate Israel for the Holocaust, and to reconstruct Japan after Hiroshima has yet to meaningfully reckon with the historic and ongoing injustices committed against African people.”
Mahama connects the book to the broader Pan-African struggle, the unfinished business of liberation:
“Africa does not seek sympathy or aid. We demand fairness, a just global system, equitable trade, and the freedom to build our societies with dignity. That vision cannot be realised without reparations.”
Interestingly, President Mahama is not just putting words on paper. In December 2025, just months after contributing this foreword, his government hosted a global reparations delegation that urged him to rally other African leaders to “choose courage over comfort” in supporting the movement.
The delegation presented Mahama with priority actions under the African Union’s reparations agenda, and his administration is actively preparing a United Nations resolution to formally recognise the transatlantic slave trade as one of the “gravest crimes against humanity.” The foreword, it turns out, was not a ceremonial gesture but a policy signal.
III. The Religious and Legal Foundations of Empire
In Chapter 1, Section 1.1, Pratt performs an essential excavation. He traces the origins of colonial violence not to the industrial age, not to the engines of capitalism alone, but to 15th-century papal decrees that sanctioned the enslavement of non-Christian peoples. The language is juridical, precise, and damning:
“These papal bulls authorized King Alfonso V of Portugal to ‘invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever,’ and to ‘reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.’ Such language is not symbolic; these are juridical.”
He connects these decrees to the Doctrine of Discovery, which proclaimed non-Christian lands “empty” and available for conquest, a doctrine that shaped international law for centuries and whose echoes still reverberate in property regimes and territorial claims. Pratt writes:
“Before race science gave empire its pseudoscientific rationale, these papal bulls encoded a metaphysical racism… This was white Christian supremacy in its earliest legal-theological form.”
IV. The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Genocide and Underdevelopment
In Section 1.3, Pratt turns to the scale and system of the slave trade. The numbers are recited not to numb but to insist on recognition:
“Over four centuries, no fewer than 12.5 million Africans were taken from their native lands… At least 2 million perished in the Middle Passage.”
He emphasises that this was not haphazard, not a series of unfortunate accidents, but a deliberate construction:
“It was no one institution but a complex system involving European states, African middlemen, plantation economies, and an emerging global capitalist order.”
Pratt draws on Walter Rodney’s thesis, which remains as urgent today as when it was first articulated:
“Europe was developed because Africa was underdeveloped. Slavery wealth extracted from Africa was not spent on the continent. Instead, it was spent to build imperial metropoles. European roads, schools, and hospitals were built using African capital.”
Particularly worthy of note, Pratt introduces a crucial gendered analysis, one often missing from these discussions:
“Women were generally selected for sex by traders and plantation owners. Their reproductive labour was commodified. Yet African women resisted… Reparations will have to include a gendered consideration that accounts for these compounding injustices.”
Equally unmissable, Pratt names what many would prefer to leave unnamed and tells the world who has blood on their hands:
“The Church is also complicit. Many Christian institutions blessed the slave system, and some profited directly. Money from slavery was spent on the building of cathedrals. Clergy owned human beings.”
V. Classical Colonialism: The Berlin Conference and the Partition of Africa
In Section 1.4, Pratt examines the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, that infamous gathering where Europe sat around a table and redrew a continent without a single African present:
“German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck hosted this meeting with representatives from fourteen European countries and the United States, but notably, no Africans were invited.”
The consequences were as devastating as they were predictable:
“After the conference, borders across Africa were drastically redrawn… between 1880 and 1914, nearly 90 per cent of Africa was under European control, divided into more than 50 colonies. Many of these borders disregarded ethnic and cultural groups, setting the stage for conflicts later on.”
Pratt documents the violence with unsparing clarity: “In Namibia, the Germans carried out genocide against the Herero and Nama people… In the Congo, millions died from forced labour and disease under Belgian rule.”
VI. African Resistance: Restoring Agency
Chapter 2 provides a crucial counterbalance. It restores African agency to a narrative that too often reduces the continent to passive victimhood. To his credit, Pratt documents centuries of resistance, reminding us that the taken did not go quietly.
In Section 2.1: “The first recorded resistances go back to the Portuguese conquests along the coast of West Africa in the 15th century. The Kingdom of Benin, for instance, carefully managed its relationship with Portuguese traders, restricting exports of slaves and controlling diplomatic interactions.”
He highlights the diplomatic resistance of King Alfonso I of Kongo: “He famously wrote a series of letters to King João III of Portugal in the early 1500s, pleading for the cessation of the illegal enslavement of his people.”
In recounting the resistance struggle, Pratt elevates Queen Nzinga Mbande of Ndongo (part of present-day Angola) as a towering figure: “She was both a warrior and diplomat, employing Christianity as a strategic tool while keeping indigenous religious systems intact. Nzinga led warfare operations, forged alliances with other African kingdoms, and even negotiated with Portuguese officials. Her reign is one of the most mythical instances of pre-colonial female anti-colonial resistance in the history of Africa.”
Pratt also addresses religious and cultural resistance, the less visible but equally vital forms of refusal:
“Traditional priests and religious leaders often took leading roles in organizing citizens against missionaries and slavers… Traditional deities like Tano and Bosomuru were invoked in resistance rituals in the Gold Coast. Ancestor worship and spiritual vows provided the basis of anti-colonial cohesion.”
Pratt frames these early resistances as something larger than nationalism or cultural preservation. They were, he argues:
“Early movement of resistance is not nationalist or cultural resistance merely, but class resistance to the expanding capitalist world system. European traders and slavers were pro-capitalist agents seeking to integrate Africa into an unequal-exchange international economy.”
VII. The Asante Resistance
In Section 2.4, Pratt examines the Asante resistance, one of the longest and most legendary in African history:
“Situated at the heart of contemporary Ghana, the Asante Empire was, between the 18th and the early 20th centuries, a prevailing political, military, and cultural force. Its opposition to British imperialism was fuelled by a strong tradition of centralized government, economic autonomy, religious independence, and warrior culture.”
He highlights Yaa Asantewaa’s leadership, noting that:
“She was determined to fight for the rights of her people… She was a symbol of resistance against colonialism. She was a role model for other African women.”
Pratt connects these resistance histories to the contemporary demand for reparations:
“Reparations must fund educational curricula that honour these struggles, invest in economic ventures that bring their visions to life, and build institutions that reflect their principles.”
VIII. The Moral and Political Justification
Chapter 3 builds the affirmative case for reparations. In Section 3.1, Pratt articulates the moral foundation with a simplicity that disarms complexity:
“On a moral level, it is pretty straightforward: the transatlantic slave trade led to the kidnapping and forced labor of over 12 million Africans, along with countless deaths. After that, colonies, stealing resources, destroying cultures, and mass actions by governments and institutions looking to profit off African lives.”
He invokes international precedent, reminding us that the world has found resources for justice before:
“There are examples of reparations working elsewhere, like Germany compensating Jewish survivors of the Holocaust or the United States compensating Japanese Americans during World War II.”
Pratt addresses the question of recognition, which is itself a form of repair:
“At the heart of the argument for reparations is the need for recognition. For too long, the suffering of African people has been ignored or justified. Defending slavery as civilizing or colonialism as helpful are lies that need to be addressed. Making reparations is a way of telling the truth.”
He responds to critics who cite African corruption as a reason to withhold: “Another concern is that corrupt African governments might mishandle reparations. This viewpoint is patronizing and overlooks the capabilities of African communities. Corruption happens globally, so it should not block efforts for justice. Instead, reparations should come with clear rules, accountability, and community involvement.”
IX. Economic and Legal Foundations
In Section 3.2, Pratt grounds the argument in international law, moving from morality to jurisprudence:
“Legally, the precedents for reparations are already set in international law. The transatlantic slave trade and colonialism constitute crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg Principles, the Geneva Conventions, and subsequent legal development set out that crimes against humanity impose obligations of redress.”
He cites specific precedents that should be better known:
“In 2021, Germany formally recognized the Herero and Nama genocide (1904-1908) in Namibia and offered development aid as reparations. Belgium has faced increasing pressure to provide compensation to the Congolese for the brutal atrocities committed during King Leopold’s rule. Britain has been sued in court for its brutalities during the Mau Mau Uprising.”
Pratt quantifies the economic magnitude, though he acknowledges the difficulty:
“Scholars have estimated that Britain alone took over $45 trillion from India between 1765 and 1938. Comparable statistics for Africa are difficult to calculate due to the systematic destruction and hiding of colonial archives, but available studies point to the same orders of extraction.”
He explains the methodology behind the figures, demystifying the numbers:
“One way of estimating reparations is to calculate the value of stolen labour. Economists have attempted to calculate the hours of stolen labour under slavery, multiply them by historical wages, and compound them with interest. The estimates are in trillions of dollars.”
X. Who Owes and Who Is Owed?
Section 3.3 provides a detailed accounting of responsible parties, complete with a comprehensive table. Pratt writes with the precision of a prosecutor:
“Reparations debtors are not anonymous. They are states, corporations, religious orders and wealthy families whose fortunes are built on the backs of enslaved Africans, colonized people, and pillaged resources. Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy were the main European colonial powers in Africa.”
He names corporate actors, those entities that outlived the formal empires: “There were also colonial companies such as the Royal Niger Company, British South Africa Company, and German East Africa Company that acted as proto-states. They had their own armies, printed money, and legislated. Aristocrats, politicians, and clergy were their shareholders. Their successor corporations today are many and still reap profits from mineral extraction, agribusiness, and financial speculation.”
Pratt includes private families, the dynasties that continue to benefit: “There are reparations due from some private families. Dynasties established on the basis of plantation riches and colonial concessions still enjoy generationally accrued privilege. Most of them still exercise political power and cultural capital.”
The table he provides lists states including Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, and the United States, alongside corporations such as Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, Royal Dutch Shell, Unilever, and the Church of England.
XI. Models of Reparations
Section 3.4 outlines concrete mechanisms. Pratt emphasises that reparations cannot be a single cheque, a single gesture:
“Reparations models vary in context, type of harm, perpetrators and victims and objectives. For Africa, where the legacy of slavery and colonialism spans centuries and continents, reparations must be multi-faceted, systemic, and long-term.”
He discusses direct monetary compensation, debt cancellation, infrastructure investment, cultural reparations, educational reparations, technological reparations, environmental reparations, and symbolic reparations. On the last, he is careful:
“Symbolic reparations are useful. Apologies, memorials, national holidays, and truth commissions help to build collective memory and moral difference. They do express recognition and regret. Symbolic reparations also need to be accompanied by material action. A plaque is not justice unless it is backed up by policy.”
Pratt Jnr. cites the CARICOM Ten Point Plan as a template worth adapting:
“It includes requests for formal apology, repatriation programmes, Indigenous health initiatives, cultural centers, education restructuring, psychological rehabilitation, and debt cancellation. African nations are able to adopt and adapt this template, in solidarity with Caribbean and diaspora players.”
XII. Reparations as Systemic Redistribution
Section 3.5 articulates the book’s most ambitious claim: reparations must transform global structures, not merely transfer wealth within them.
“Reparations should be more than just symbolic gestures or one-time payments. They need to focus on changing the systems that keep injustice alive, redistributing power, resources, knowledge, and dignity. This means tackling the root causes of inequality instead of just putting a band-aid on the problems. We have to break down the structures of racial capitalism and imperialism that slavery and colonialism built, which still benefit the Global North today.”
Pratt specifies what redistribution entails in practice: “Redistribution means giving back land, restructuring debts, and changing international trade rules to dismantle neo-colonial power.”
He addresses the global financial architecture, that labyrinth of rules designed by the powerful for the powerful:
“Right now, African countries often export raw materials cheaply while paying a lot for finished goods. They are stuck in a cycle of debt and extraction. Policies from the 1980s and 90s stripped away essential services and rushed market liberalization, which only reinforced colonial-era inequalities.”
XIII. Reparations as a Vision for Liberation
Chapter 4 presents the positive vision, the world that reparations might build. In Section 4.1, Pratt addresses underdevelopment not as a condition but as a process:
“One of the lasting impacts of slavery and colonialism in Africa is underdevelopment. This is not just about poor management, geographic issues, or cultural setbacks; it is a situation created by centuries of exploitation and economic control.”
He invokes Walter Rodney again, whose shadow falls across this book with generative force:
“Walter Rodney’s idea in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa makes it clear: Europe’s growth came at Africa’s expense. The extraction of resources, both people and materials, from Africa helped build Europe’s industries.”
In Section 4.2, Pratt outlines investments in education, healthcare, and green infrastructure, not as charity but as repair:
“Colonialism disrupted not just land and bodies but also the way knowledge was shared. It left behind a fractured education system and neglected public health. Reparations need to rebuild what was lost and create new opportunities.”
XIV. A People-Centered Development Model
Section 4.5 articulates the principles that must guide any reparative development worth the name:
“A people-centered development model is one that prioritizes the collective well-being, involvement and empowerment of the population over elite enrichment and foreign dependency. In a reparations framework, such a model is required to reverse the tendencies of top-down, externally driven, and too frequently exploitative approaches that defined both colonialism and neoliberal development models.”
To ensure the success of his proposed development model, Pratt specifies four guiding principles:
“The initial principle is participation. People must be involved in the decisions that govern their own lives… The second is equity. Reparative development must address historical and structural inequalities… The third principle is sustainability. Long-term effect must guide short-term action… The fourth principle is cultural integrity. Development must affirm, not erase, African identity.”
He concludes with an insistence on accountability: “The answer is accountability. Reparative development must include social audits, citizens’ report cards and public hearings. Corruption, capture and exclusion must be actively resisted.”
XV. Visual Data: Making Theft Visible
Chapter 5 provides empirical grounding through tables and infographics that translate argument into evidence. A table on colonial revenue allocation reveals the priorities of empire: “As shown, a significant portion of tax revenue went to administration, salaries of colonial officers, infrastructure for control, not to education, healthcare, or public welfare. These figures illustrate that colonization was not development, but a system of structured theft.”
An infographic comparing aid to outflows tells a story that should be emblazoned on every policymaker’s wall:
“Foreign Aid to Africa: $40 billion; Illicit Financial Flows: $88 billion; Debt Repayments: $32 billion; Corporate Profit Repatriation: $25 billion.”
In the light of this information, Pratt comments: “This infographic starkly shows that Africa is a net creditor to the world. It sends out more wealth than it receives. The structure of global finance perpetuates this imbalance. Reparations must reverse these flows, stop the bleeding, and support African sovereignty.”
The final table presents various reparation instruments as follows:
1. Unpaid Slave Labour Compensation
– Estimated value: 2-3 trillion USD
– Recipient type: Diaspora communities
– Delivery mechanism: Trust funds and direct payments
2. Colonial Extraction Restitution
– Estimated value: 4-6 trillion USD
– Recipient Type: African states
– Delivery mechanism: Development funds and joint commissions
3. Debt Cancellation
– Estimated value: 500 billion USD
– Recipient type: African states
– Delivery mechanism: Multilateral agreements
4. Artifact Repatriation
– Estimated value: 50 billion USD and above
– Recipient type: Museums and cultural institutions
– Delivery method: Restitution and endowments
5. Climate Reparations (Adaptation)
– Estimated value: 1 trillion USD
– Recipient type: Communities in impact zones
– Delivery mechanism: Green transition funds
Pratt notes: “These figures are indicative but not exhaustive. Reparations will need to take the form of direct compensation and structural investment. They will need to compensate for historic injustices while empowering African futures.”
XVI. Real-Time Validation of Pratt’s Thesis
Since the publication of Pratt’s book, the world has moved with a speed that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. In December 2025, Algeria’s parliament unanimously passed a law declaring France’s 132-year colonisation a “crime,” demanding an apology and reparations, and criminalising the glorification of colonialism. This was not a resolution; it was binding national legislation, a state-level assertion of exactly the legal and moral arguments Pratt constructs.
Then, in February 2026, the African Union concluded its 38th Ordinary Session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by adopting a landmark resolution that officially classifies slavery, forced deportation, and colonialism as “crimes against humanity and genocide” against African peoples.
The resolution, introduced by the Republic of Togo, represents a unified continental stance intended to strengthen legal and diplomatic frameworks for reparations. As part of this historic move, member states agreed to designate November 30 as the “African Day of Tribute to African Martyrs and Victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Colonization, and Apartheid.”
By framing colonialism as a genocidal act rather than merely a period of political administration, the AU aims to elevate the issue to the United Nations General Assembly, precisely the forum where Ghana, with President Mahama’s leadership, has already signalled its intent to seek global recognition. Again, to Pratt’s credit, the architecture he describes, the legal foundations he excavates, the unified political will he calls for, seem to be materialising in real time.
XVII. Strengths and Critical Tensions
The strengths of Pratt’s book are considerable. There is moral clarity, a rhetorical force that carries the reader through dense material. There is an integration of history, economics, and law that respects the complexity of the subject without losing sight of its urgency. There is the reframing of reparations as structural transformation, which lifts the debate above the usual quibbles about feasibility. There is a gendered analysis woven throughout, attending to the specific injuries inflicted on African women. There is the explicit naming of institutional complicity, from states to corporations to churches. There is the restoration of African agency through detailed resistance narratives. There are concrete models and mechanisms. There is empirical grounding through visual data.
But there are also points of tension, questions that linger after the book is closed.
First, methodological transparency: while Pratt provides figures, the underlying calculations could be more fully explained. The reader is asked to trust, but trust in these matters is precisely what has been broken.
Second, historical omissions: the Arab slave trade, which operated for over a millennium and predated the transatlantic system, is not addressed. This silence is notable in a book otherwise committed to comprehensive accounting.
Third, African complicity: while Pratt acknowledges the African middlemen and kingdoms that profited from slave-raiding and selling, he does not fully grapple with the moral implications. Does this complicate the claim to collective victimhood? Can a continent be both perpetrator and victim within the same historical process? These questions deserve deeper engagement.
Fourth, legal enforceability: the pathway from moral imperative to binding international law remains unclear. Pratt cites precedents, which is useful, but the mechanisms for translating those precedents into enforceable claims against sovereign states are not fully elaborated. It is worth noting that the AU’s recent classification of slavery and colonialism as genocide begins to address this gap, providing the juridical language that Pratt’s argument requires, but the question of enforcement against unwilling states remains.
Fifth, accountability mechanisms: Pratt insists on community oversight and social audits, which is admirable. But specific enforcement mechanisms, the teeth that would give these assurances bite, could be elaborated further.
Sixth, strategic feasibility: can African states sustain a unified campaign for reparations without facing economic retaliation from powerful nations? Pratt’s answer lies in continental unity and global South solidarity. These are necessary conditions. Whether they are sufficient remains an open question. Nevertheless, the AU’s unified resolution and Algeria’s unilateral action suggest that the political will is hardening on the continent, but the response of European powers remains the unanswered variable.
XVIII. Conclusion: The Larger Significance
Whether one agrees fully with Pratt’s conclusions or not, the book performs an important civic function. It refuses historical amnesia. It challenges the comfort of incrementalism. It insists that Africa’s developmental predicament cannot be analysed without confronting the architecture of its dispossession. In doing so, Reparations: History, Struggle, Politics and Law becomes more than a policy argument. It is part of an ideological reawakening that treats sovereignty not as a flag or anthem but as economic self-determination.
And now, quite remarkably, the argument has escaped from the pages of Pratt’s. It sits in parliamentary chambers in Algiers, in the African Union’s headquarters in Addis Ababa, in the diplomatic briefings of a Ghanaian president preparing a UN resolution.
Pratt’s intervention, once a contribution to a long and frustrating struggle, now reads as something else entirely: a blueprint for a movement that is, against considerable odds, beginning to gather momentum.
The debate over reparations will continue, provoking resistance, negotiation, scepticism, and perhaps gradual concession. Pratt’s contribution not only cements his place in the struggle; it ensures that the conversation is not merely academic, but politically charged and morally anchored. In the end, the book asks a question that transcends finance: if justice delayed is justice denied, how long can a continent be expected to wait?
The answer, if the events of the past months are any indication, may finally be: not forever.
Onumah, PhD., journalist and co-founder of MILID Foundation, is the author of We Are All Biafrans, among other books.
