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President urges African diaspora to help make Africa place for investment & prosperity
• President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has urged the African diaspora to help change the African narrative, which has been characterised largely by a concentration on disease, hunger, poverty and illegal mass migration.
Speaking at the Young African and Diasporan Leaders’ Summit, held on the sidelines of the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit, in Washington D.C, on Tuesday, November 13, 2022, President Akufo-Addo stated that “the urgent responsibility we face is to make our countries and our continent attractive for our people to see them as places of opportunities.”
According to President Akufo-Addo, history is replete with several examples of the positive impact of diasporan communities on the growth and development of countries, through increased trade activities, rising investments, and the transfer of skills and knowledge.
Citing the example of China, with an émigré population of 60 million, the President told the gathering, which included the US Vice President, Kamala Harris, that the Chinese Diaspora is said to be the 25th largest country in the world, who, according to the Nikkei Asian Review, own assets worth $2.5 trillion.
“When foreign companies, in the late 1970s, reduced their investments in China, it was the Chinese Diaspora that shored up the economy. According to the Washington D.C. based Migration Policy Institute (MPI), half of the foreign direct investment, i.e. $26 billion, that transformed China into a manufacturing powerhouse in the 1990s, originated from the Chinese Diaspora,” he added.
That, the President noted, is the rationale of Ghana’s initiative of “Beyond the Return”, which, he explained, is building on the considerable success of the “Year of Return”, and the renewed enthusiasm around building Africa together.
He, thus, urged young African and Diasporan leaders to help change the African narrative, which has been characterised largely by a concentration on disease, hunger, poverty and illegal mass migration.
“Let us all remember that the destiny of all black people, no matter where they are in the world, is bound up with Africa. We should never forget that famous admonition of the celebrated Jamaican reggae star, Peter Tosh, when he said: ‘Don’t care where you come from. As long as you’re a black man, you’re an African’,” President Akufo-Addo said.
He continued, “We must help make Africa the place for investment, progress and prosperity, and not from where our youth flee in the hope of accessing the mirage of a better life in Europe, Asia or the Americas. That is what “Beyond the Return” seeks to do, so we can derive maximum dividends from our relations with the diaspora in mutually beneficial co-operation, and as partners for shared growth and development.”
With the second half of the 20th century witnessing a great blow for human freedom and progress, when the African peoples, in the wake of Ghana’s shining example, liberated themselves from the colonial and imperialist yoke and the racist ideology of apartheid, the President was confident that the first half of the 21st century will consolidate this development, and see the growth of modern, prosperous, technologically-advanced nations, within a united Africa, which would make a reality of the dream of the 21st century as the African century, and bring dignity and respect to black people all over the world.
“We have done enough talking, and, dare I say, we have had enough conferences and workshops. We know what we need to do. It is time just to do it. We have run out of excuses for the state of our continent. We have the manpower, we should have the political will, it is time to make Africa work,” he added.
Source: U.S. State Department
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
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