The Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II is
optimistic Africa can overcome its obstacles and build a better democratic
outcomes and engineer economic transformation.
Speaking
to members of both Houses of the British Parliament, the diplomatic community,
faculty of universities and a select number of Ghanaians that included former
Ghana President, John Agyekum Kufuor at Westminster, London, the Ashanti King
also paid glowing tribute to the fledgling democracy on the continent.
He
was speaking on the topic, Africa’s Democratic Path and the Search for Economic
Transformation.
He
explained that the stability and planning for development predicated by 16
presidential and parliamentary elections in Africa alone this year is an
encouraging step for consolidating peace .
The
Asantehene also touted outreach programmes and sensitization, safe-guarding of
electoral processes as well as the emergence of reforms in telecommunication
and associated multi-media, and how that have created a knowledge-based economy
that did not exist in many parts of Africa two decades ago.
These
innovations he explained, should lead to better ways of doing things in Africa
and hopefully a better strategy of less dependence on multi-donor budget
support and financing.
With many of Africa,
growing into middle income economies which have come with withdrawal of
subsidies, the Asantehene said the time has come for Africans to be all the
more thorough in the economic policies they implement.
Though the journey to development is on course, the
challenges could be daunting as he dwelt on the dangers that South Sudan finds
itself, the Asantehene noted.
He also referred to infractions by politicians and
their surrogates in Kenya where some members of Parliament had to be arrested
by the police for ethnic incitement and in Ghana where radio presenters
threatened murder on the Lady Chief Justice and some Members of the judiciary.
Lord Paul Boateng of the House of Lords and of Ghanaian
descent praised the Asantehene for his traditional leadership which he said
fits so well into modern democratic governance.
He also applauded Asantehene's commitment to
education and agriculture, saying, the two sectors have served Africa well
in the past, without which many elite individuals would not be where they were
today.
Unfortunately, he said, Africa’s agriculture is suffering
from all fronts a situation which affects millions of dependants.
The event was also a literary fanfare which saw the
launch of two books- May Their Shadows Never Shrink- Wole Soyinka and the Oxford
Professorship of Poetry edited
by Ivor Agyeman-Duah, a Ghanaian author and Lucy Newlyn, a professor of English
Language and Literature at the University of Oxford and All the Good Things Around Us-
An Anthology of African Short Stories edited by Agyeman-Duah and which was
described by Dr. Augustus Casely-Hayford the British cultural historian who
launched them as brewed in centuries of traditional creativity which brings
together “some of our most eloquent and able voices….the imaginations to
capture this moment of critical cultural shift…..”
Agyeman-Duah who described the Asantehene Otumfuo
Osei Tutu II and the Nigerian Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka (who was the
Guest of Honour) as Keeper of Heritage and our Cultural Antiphonist
respectively, spoke about the relevance of better economic choices in
both the creation and consumption of literary arts in Africa.
Hon. Diane Abbott, Shadow Secretary of Health and MP for
North Hackney and Stoke Newington who chaired the event spoke about
cultural knowledge and understanding especially literature which leads to
identity confidence and better economic diagnosis.
Prof. Soyinka disclosed to the audience that all is not
lost in Africa notwithstanding challenges of nation-building and difficult
economic situation some of which lead to violence.
He spoke about the current violence in the Delta region
of Nigeria and the blowing of oil installation by some militants as an example
of such economic frustration and a feeling of inequality with people who suffer
most from the effect of extractive economies.
An international observatory post of which he would
be involved have had preliminary discussions with President Buhuari and the
leadership of the militants and that further consultation with the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, Some members of the British
Parliament, the Asantehene, Osei Tutu II would be pursued as an international
mediation effort to help bring peace to the afflicted region..
It is some of these issues and conditions, Prof. Soyinka
explained which unfortunately serve as themes on contemporary literary
production in Nigeria and parts.
Source:myjoyonline.com
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