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Vice President Alhaji Dr Mahamud Bawumia interacting with guests at the ceremony
Vice President Alhaji Dr Mahamud Bawumia interacting with guests at the ceremony

Help change economic situation of your countries - Veep urges Africans in Diaspora

The Vice-President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has urged Ghanaians and other Africans in the Diaspora to help change the economic situation of their countries.

That, he explained, would help change the perceptions held about them and their countries.

“No matter what we do out there in the Diaspora, we are always going to be seen against the backdrop of Africa,” he said, saying that Africa would gain the needed respect, everywhere in the world, when it became independent and self-dependent.

He was delivering an address at the opening of a two-day African Diaspora Homecoming Conference in Accra yesterday which was organised by the Heritage and Cultural Society of Africa as part of activities marking the country’s 60th anniversary of independence.

Dr Bawumia said perceptions of China and Japan evolved due to their economic achievements carved out of independence and self-reliance.

Perceptions and realities

In Africa, he said, the time had come to understand that the perceptions held about Africans both on the continent and in the Diaspora, were much linked and the “underlying link” was the “economic development” of Africa.

“We have to make sure we combine our resources and our energies to make sure that Africa becomes developed economically, and self-reliant,” he stressed.

That way, he said, irrespective of where Africans and people of African descent found themselves in the world, they would be accorded the needed respect in view of the economic standards that pertained in their countries of origin.

For Ghana, he stated, “we want to move beyond aid and dependency and that is key. That is why when we are looking at how to manage our economies, the issue of building self-sustaining, independent economies is so key for all of us and I think we cannot do it alone within our individual countries.”

He stressed the need to come together, saying local resources and that provided from those in the Diaspora needed to be put together.

Independence spirit

The Vice-President said the country was evoking the spirit of 1957 as it celebrated its Diamond Anniversary, saying it was a very important spirit to evoke.

He recounted that 1957 was a year of optimism, and a year where the country had finally made it, quoting Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s famous words that “at long last, the battle has ended and Ghana, our beloved country is free forever.”

He said there was jubilation and optimism because Ghanaians wanted to show the world that “the black man is capable of managing his own affairs.”

Vice-President Bawumia said the country, over the past 60 years, had gone through ups and downs through military coup d’etats, economic stagnation, revival and others.

“Notwithstanding our challenges, we are still standing together as a country, a very peaceful country and a country that is on the map as a stable democracy and one of the key democracies in Africa. We have a lot to be proud of and something that we should cherish. Of course, we could have done better, especially where economic performance is concerned,” he observed.

Unshakable remnants

Notwithstanding all the ups and downs, the Veep said, what had remained unshakable was the country’s heritage and culture.

He said: “This is one thing that we really have to be very grateful for, and normally in economics, you tend to ignore issues like heritage and culture, when you formulate policy; but we do that at our peril because heritage and culture is invaluable asset that nobody around the world can compete with you for.”

He described heritage and culture as “unique commodity” and something that “we have to hold very dearly and make sure that it shines through our economic struggle.”

Towards that end, he said, the country’s link to the Diaspora was very key to development because “we are all part of the same family.”

He said, “if we are able to tap the human, investment, trade, science and technology resources that our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora can bring on board, it is very clear that we can make a lot of strides and make-up for that separation that took place during the slavery and colonialism  period.”

 

Writer’s email: [email protected]

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