Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration has been appointed the seventh Secretary-General of the 56-nation Commonwealth. She succeeds another woman, Baroness Patricia Scotland, a British diplomat, at the post since 2015.

A journalist and politician, Botchway, 61, was a Member of Parliament from 2013 to 2021 and had served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and a Minister of State at the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing under former President John Kufuor, before she was appointed Foreign Minister in 2017 by current Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo.

Three African candidates, including Lesotho’s former Trade and Finance Minister Joshua Setipa, and Gambia’s former Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara vied for the top position at the Commonwealth’s Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which ended at Apia, Samoa on Saturday.

Botchway, who steered Ghana’s two-year tenure on the UN Security Council, that ended in December 2023, is the second African to occupy the top Commonwealth post after Chief Emeka Anyaoku of Nigeria from 1990-2000.

“Truly humbled by the overwhelming support of the Commonwealth Heads of Government in selecting me as the incoming Secretary-General of the Commonwealth,” she posted on social media handle, adding: “The work indeed lies ahead!”

The Apia CHOGM was overshadowed by the debate over reparations for the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which was officially abolished by Britain in 1807 but carried on until 1870.

European slave owners were compensated, but the countries from where an estimated 15 million Africans were uprooted and shipped to sugarcane, cotton, tobacco and rice plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean have been clamouring for reparations Slave Trade: Enough Sorrow, Time For Reparations.

The three African candidates for the Commonwealth top post all back the call for Britain to address the legacy of its colonial and slavery past.

A report co-authored by a UN judge concluded that Britain should pay an estimated18.8 trillion British pounds as slavery reparations to 14 countries.
Speaking in London earlier this year, Botchway said: “Financial reparations is good.”

Many African, Caribbean and Pacific nations have joined the call on Britain and other European powers to pay financial compensation for slavery, or at least make political amends.

But the British government has been avoiding financial commitment for a trade, which former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, head of Anglican Church, once described as “an offence to human dignity and freedom” and “the greatest cause of grief to God’s spirit.”

The British royal family and other high-profile slave trade beneficiaries have faced uncomfortable calls to apologise.

It was the first British King Charles III, the new head of the Commonwealth following his coronation in May 2023 after the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II.

Addressing CHOGM on Friday, the British monarch also fell short of an apology for slave trade, but instead, urging delegates to “reject the language of division”.

“I understand, from listening to people across the Commonwealth, how the most painful aspects of our past continue to resonate,” he said, adding: “None of us can change the past. But we can commit, with all our hearts, to learning its lessons and to finding creative ways to right inequalities that endure.”

The debate could intensify, with the push from the Caribbean and now that an African is again assuming the mantle of leadership at the London-based organisation.

The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of sovereign states mostly former British colonies. It promotes democratic governance, cooperation in trade, education and culture, climate advocacy and the transparency of financial systems.

The Secretary General’s role is rotated among the body’s four geographical blocs: the Pacific, Asia, Europe, and Africa. It was now Africa’s turn.

Attendance at the Apia CHOGM was low with the Heads of State of Canada, India, Nigeria and South Africa conspicuous in their absence.

Ejime Is A Global Affairs Analyst And Consultant On Peace & Security, And Governance Communications