Ghana grants citizenship to 126 diasporans
One hundred and twenty-six
descendants of enslaved Africans
received a belated welcome
reception recently in
Ghana when the president conferred
them citizens of their
ancestral African home.
Many of them had adopted
the homeland for many years
and only last month were celebrated,
regaled and regally
greeted by Ghana-born nationals
who declared 2019 the Year
of Return to all Africans from
the diaspora.
The “Year of Return” is a
major landmark marketing
campaign targeting the African
American and Caribbean
market to mark 400 years of the
first enslaved African arriving
in the West.
During a ceremony at Jubilee
House in Accra — the nation’s
capital — President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo Addo officially
declared the individuals worthy
of Ghanaian citizenship.
Speaking after the conferment
ceremony recently, he
said, “I am glad you have decided
to make Ghana your home,
and thereby, join several generations
of Diasporans who committed
their lives to us.”
He added that Trinidad and
Tobago journalist, George Padmore,
Jamaican singer and
entrepreneur, Rita Marley and
America-born historian, sociologist,
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Caribbean L 14 ife, DECEMBER 6-12, 2019
author and editor,
W.E.B. DuBois were a few of the
Diasporans who boldly accepted
citizenship in Ghana.
Regarded to being the gateway
to slavery, Ghana formerly
known as the gold coast housed
more than 72 slave dungeons
of which 37 still stands as a
reminder to the atrocities committed
and the edifice marked by
a door promising “no return.”
Since the abolition of slavery,
thousands of descendants have
defied the ominous marker to
walk back in freedom.
In 2000, the west African
country became the only country
in the 21st century to offer
resettlement possibilities to
Africans throughout the world.
Its Right to Abode law permitted
diasporans to apply and
ultimately granted indefinite
stay.
In addition, a relaxed visa
enactment also invited willing
repatriates.
By 2014, approximately 3,000
Africans from foreign lands
repatriated there.
In 2016 alone 34 Caribbean
nationals of African descent
reportedly chose to reside in
Ghana and were granted citizenships.
In order to qualify one must
reside there for five years and
after agreeing to the oath of
acceptance must learn one of
the many indigenous languages
as a way of “reintegration” and
reclaim the heritage denied by
the slave trade.
Annually, emigration figures
have escalated with diasporans
settling in Accra, Kumasi, Cape
Coast and in many of the lesser
known provinces Marcus Mosiah
Garvey envisioned to be the
flagship destination for all displaced
Africans.
Throughout his storied Pan-
African activism the Jamaican
native adopted the African banner
naming his newspaper The
Black Star, his ship The Black
Star Liner and often identifying
with the first English-speaking
African nation to demand independence
from Britain.
Soon after the historic 1957
statement to the world, Prime
Minister Kwame Nkrumah
invited all Africans to live in his
freed nation.
From then on, descendants
of the slave trade have been
choosing Ghana as the preferred
home to repatriate from
the West.
The thrust to implement a
Year of the Return was instituted
the “Joseph Project” with
an “aim to reconcile and unite
the African peoples, on the
continent and in the Diaspora,
and to release their energies to
help build Africa and the Caribbean.”
Expectations are high that
one million new citizens —
from the United States and the
Caribbean where 400 years ago
slave ships transported their
ancestors through the Middle
Passages to be sold into servitude
as property to the highest
bidders — will be officially welcomed
with the word Akwaba!
Catch You On The Inside!
The national fl ag of Ghana.
Inside Life
By Vinette K. Pryce
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