The Director of Diaspora Affairs at the Office of the President, Akwasi Awuah Ababio, has announced that President Nana Akufo-Addo will be granting up to 200 Africans in the Diaspora, Ghanaian citizenship this year.
He said this in an interview with Citi TV after a press briefing on The Year of Return at the Accra Information Tourist Centre last week.
This comes on the back a similar exercise which was executed by former President John Dramani Mahama in 2016 when he also granted Ghanaian citizenship to 30 Africans in the Diaspora.
The Year of Return is an initiative by the government to celebrate 400 years of the slave trade.
The event which started in January 2019 has seen a lot of personalities visit the country. Celebrities like Mutabaruka, Deborah Cox, AJ Johnson, Samuel L Jackson, Danny Glover, Steve Harvey have all been in the country.
The celebration hits its crescendo in December 2019 where a litany of programmes have been tabled for the celebration.
African Diasporans and Ghanaians will enjoy programmes like Decemba 2 Remember, AfroNation, Detty Rave, Kiddafest, Asante Bonwire Kente Festival, Gold Coast experience, among others.
From January this year, events like Fuse ODG’s TINA Festival, African Culture & Wellness Festival, Kwahu Paragliding, Jagafest, among others, have been held.
The arrival of enslaved Africans marked a sordid and sad period when Africa’s kith and kin were forcefully taken away from Africa into years of deprivation, humiliation and torture.
While August 2019 marks 400 years since enslaved Africans arrived in the United States, “The Year of Return, Ghana 2019” celebrates the cumulative resilience of all the victims of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade who were scattered and displaced through the world in North America, South America, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia.
Source:Fiilafmonline/CitiNews
