Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin with the team from PAWA
• The Speaker of Parliament hosted executives of the Pan African Writers Association Thursday
• During the meeting, he charged them to champion a unique identity for the people of Africa
• The group was there to make an intervention for action to be expedited on the relevant provisions of the agreement between the Government of Ghana and their Association
The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin, has charged African countries to seriously focus on developing and appreciating an identity that is linked to their heritage, instead of the attempts to forcibly take on alien identities.
According to him, the continent is losing out among the comity of nations mainly because it hasn’t been able to clearly define its priorities and pursue an agenda that is unique to its heritage.
The Speaker was addressing a delegation from the Pan African Writers Association led by its Secretary-General, Dr. Wale Okediran, when they paid a courtesy call on him in Parliament, a statement from his office said.
The Pan African Writers Association called on the Speaker to make an intervention for action to be expedited on the relevant provisions of the agreement between the Government of Ghana and their Association.
The agreement which was signed in November 1992, stipulates among other things, the provision of some facilities which should enable PAWA to effectively perform her roles.
However no major move has been made in honoring the agreement on the part of government.
The Speaker, who assured the Association of Parliament’s support, charged them to develop programmes tailored at re-orienting not only African youth but leaders as well on the need to place premium on their cultural identity.
He said the foundation theme at the inaugural congress of the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA) in 1989, which is “African Unity, A liberation of the mind”, is still very relevant in today’s African as was before.
“The biggest challenge in Africa today is the mind, we must be able to liberate this mind by using instruments like PAWA which is made up of 52 associations encompassing the whole continent”, he added.
For his part, the Secretary General of the Association, Dr. Wale Okeridan, commended Ghana for hosting the secretariat of the Association since it was founded in 1989 and paid tribute to the memory of its founding Secretary General, Prof. Atukwei Okai, of blessed memory.
He also urged Members of Parliament to make an effort to write down their memoirs to serve as a guideline for the generations that will come after them.