President John Dramani Mahama says the world may not transform overnight because of speeches delivered at the United Nations. However, he asserts history will faithfully record what leaders choose to say or keep silent about.
He says Ghana’s national anthem inspires him to be bold, fearless and honest when addressing the global town hall.
Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday, September 24, 2026, President Mahama said the Assembly may not change the world overnight, but what is said there matters for history.
“The world may not transform overnight because of the speeches delivered in this August Assembly. But history faithfully records the truth we choose to speak, and the silence we choose to keep, when we are granted the privilege of addressing this global town hall,” he said.
He said Ghana’s anthem contains a profound petition that asks God to make citizens bold to defend freedom, a call he believes gives him and his compatriots courage to uphold Ghana’s Pan-African heritage.
“Those words give my compatriots and I the courage to uphold the Pan-African and anti-colonial heritage bequeathed to us by our forebears,” he noted.
He added that a portion of the anthem that asks God to fill hearts with humility and cherish fearless honesty inspires him to follow the course of his ancestors.
“That prayer inspires me today to follow in the footsteps of Kwame Nkrumah, Haile Selassie, Nelson Mandela, and the global icons who have stood at this podium before me and spoken boldly and fearlessly about the state of affairs in our world,” he stated.
President Mahama used the opportunity to reintroduce himself to the Assembly, beyond what is known by every
He said he wants to reintroduce himself to the Assembly beyond his title. “Allow me, therefore, to begin by reintroducing myself to the General Assembly. I stand before you as President of the Republic of Ghana,” he said.
“Yet, we too often ascend these heights draped only in the robes of our titles, forgetting that alongside each of us stands a history, a people, and a legacy,” he added.
President Mahama said he was born in Damongo and belongs to his parents and forebears. “I was born in Damongo, then a modest town in northern Ghana and now the capital of the Savannah Region. I belong to them,” he said.
“I belong to the foremothers and forefathers who birthed them, who named them, nurtured them, and passed down the enduring values by which I live,” he noted.
He said he grew up at the crossroads of several Ghanaian cultures and speaks multiple Ghanaian languages. “I speak Gonja, a Guan language. I speak Akan and Ga. I am fluent in Hausa, spoken across the West African savannah and Sahel,” he said.
“In a very real sense, I belong to all these peoples because their tongues have become my tongue,” he stated.
President Mahama, by his words, explained to the global leadership that his presence at the UN is not just as Ghana’s President, but as a product of his ancestry, diverse Ghanaian cultures and languages, and Pan-African heritage, emboldened by Ghana’s anthem to speak fearlessly and truthfully while history records what leaders say or fail to say.
Full text: President Mahama’s address to 81st UN General Assembly
