Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu Adjare
The 18th Emancipation Day celebration has been marked in Ghana, with a call on Africans to fully see themselves as emancipated and liberate their minds from Western idealism.
Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, said it was important that Africans worked together in the fight for emancipation and overcome barriers that seek to impede this course.
This year’s event was on the theme: ‘Emancipation, Our Heritage, Our Strength’, with the sub-theme: ‘Empowering the African Youth Through Pan-African Culture’.
The celebration started with wreath laying ceremonies at the Dubois Centre, George Padmore Library and the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park.
The wreath laying ceremony, in memory of the three astute personalities who championed Black emancipation, brought together traditional rulers, participants from the Diaspora and students.
“It is, therefore, ironic that a people who have been traumatised by slavery and suffered discrimination because of racial differences should easily forget their common bond of brotherhood and tragically tear each other apart in the name of religious extremism, different political ideologies or ethnic differences,” she said.
Nana Kobina Nketia V, Omanhene of Essikado Traditional Area, who was the guest speaker, said the African fight for total emancipation would amount to nothing if the mind was not liberated and skewed towards Western idealism.
At the Palava Hall of the Cape Coast Castle, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the Executive Governor of Osun State, Nigeria, charged Africans to speed up their efforts towards complete emancipation in every sphere of their life.
He said the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonisation had created a 400-year gap between Africa and the rest of the world for which there was the need for a “catching-up.”
Activities to climax the celebration include a procession by the seven Asafo Companies from Mfantsipim Junction to the Chapel Square, the reenactment of the crossing of River Pra and a grand durbar of chiefs and people of Assin Praso.
The reverential night was held on the eve of the declaration of Emancipation Day celebration at the forecourt of the Cape Coast Castle.
Osabarima Kwesi Atta II, the Paramount Chief of the Oguaa Traditional Area, said Emancipation Day celebrations should go beyond ceremonial events to putting structures in place that would bond Africans.