President John Dramani Mahama has called on African countries to unite as a strong force to resist Western forces and influences.
The President said through unity, African countries can make their own narrative and eliminate the narrative of their oppressors which has haunted the continent for years.
Speaking at the Diaspora Summit 2025 in Accra on Friday, December 19, President Mahama said “We have to stop drawing those lines of demarcation that say I end here and you begin there.”
The summit was held under the theme “Resetting Ghana: The Diaspora as the 17th Region.”
“By finding and owning the stories of our past, the ones that have been suppressed, we are able to truly know ourselves. And with that knowledge of self comes the power to ride ourselves truthfully, respectfully into not only our future but the future of all humanity.
“And that is why we are gathered here today at this Diaspora summit to begin the process of reclamation in earnest. To begin the process of writing our own story and moving full steam ahead. That’s right. We are reclaiming everything that was ours,” President Mahama emphasised.
Addressing participants, many of whom were Ghanaians living abroad and people of African descent, the President noted that Africans must be intentional about their unity.
He stressed that achieving unity must be the Continent’s priority no matter how divided Africans are.
“Let’s take the narrative of those who oppressed us and work it. In fact, let’s take their entire modus operandi and flip it and reverse it.
“So, I urge you my brothers and sisters, let’s be more intentional about our unity than they were about our division. It will not be a difficult goal to achieve, no matter how we have been divided, we have always tried to find our way back to one another,” he added.
The Diaspora Summit is a high-level convening of global Ghanaian and Pan-African diaspora communities, policymakers, private sector actors, and development stakeholders.
The summit is designed to institutionalize diaspora engagement as a strategic pillar of national development, positioning the diaspora not merely as contributors of remittances but as active partners in governance, investment, innovation, and cultural promotion.
