The United Nations was never designed for Africa. In 1945, when the world’s victors carved out a new order, only four African nations were allowed in the room. The rest of us were still shackled under colonialism. Eighty years on, we are told to be grateful that we have been allowed to join the club. But the price of membership has been silence, submission, and a seat in the gallery, never at the high table.
John Dramani Mahama did not travel to New York this September to clap politely. He went to call the bluff. His message was raw: the future is African, and if the UN refuses to recognise it, the UN, not Africa, will become irrelevant.
For nearly two years, world leaders have tiptoed around Gaza with euphemisms, as if language could bleach away blood. Mahama said what others fear: if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. The duck in Gaza is genocide. The duck is a collective punishment. The duck is the systematic erasure of a people. And yet, the same West that lectures us about democracy and human rights writes billion-dollar cheques to bankroll the duck. They scold Africa for not falling in line. But Pan-Africanism remembers. Our independence was not won by nodding in silence. Ghana stood with South Africa when others called Mandela a terrorist. Today, we stand with Palestine even as the so-called champions of freedom turn their faces away.
Mahama also struck a nerve with Cuba. He demanded an end to the economic blockade, a blockade maintained by nations that claim to love liberty but punish Havana for daring to be sovereign. Cuba’s soldiers fought and died in Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa. They asked nothing in return except that apartheid fall. How dare Africa now abandon Cuba in its hour of need? The Pan-African position is not neutrality. It is loyalty to those who were loyal when it mattered most. If the UN cannot stomach that, then perhaps it is not Africa that needs resetting, but the institution itself.
Ghana’s Reset Agenda at home is not just about currency stabilisation or lowering inflation. It is about breaking the spell of dependency. Ghana, once written off as a basket case, now boasts the best-performing currency in the world. If Ghana can recalibrate, why not Africa? If Africa can recalibrate, why not the UN? The uncomfortable truth is this: the Security Council is a colonial relic in blue helmets. Five nations clutch veto power like hereditary chiefs guarding a stool, while a continent of 1.4 billion has no voice. That is not sovereign equality. That is 21st-century apartheid.
Mahama’s call for reparations was also a direct confrontation. Twelve million Africans were ripped from their homes to build Europe’s cathedrals of wealth. Western governments paid reparations, but to slave owners, not to the enslaved. Museums in London, Paris, and Berlin still hoard our looted bronzes like trophies of theft. If this is the rules-based order, then the rules are written in hypocrisy.
Here is the controversy. Africa does not need the UN more than the UN needs Africa. Our demographics, our resources, and our youth are the pulse of the future. The West is ageing. Africa is rising. If the UN refuses us permanent seats, refuses to reform its financial order, refuses to reckon with slavery, then Africa must ask: why keep showing up to be insulted? Pan-Africanism is not asking for favours. It is serving notice. If the UN continues to reward might over right, then the global square is already broken. And perhaps it is time for Africa to build its own square.
Mahama’s speech was not diplomatic pageantry. It was a warning shot. Africa will not sit quietly while ducks commit crimes in Gaza, while Cuba is strangled for defiance, while our stolen past funds someone else’s future. Another world is not only possible, as Arundhati Roy said, she is on her way. But if the UN refuses to listen, Africa may build itself without them.
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