President Akufo-Addo with Prime Minister of Norway and Emir of Kano on the Island of Svalbard
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday visited one of the coldest places on earth, the Norwegian archipelago in Svalbard, which is very close to the North Pole.
This was at the invitation of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, to witness the deposit of some 60,000 new seed samples into the Svalbard Seed Vault.
The place, which has more polar bears than humans, is situated in-between continental Norway and the North Pole.
The Svalbard seed vault is an attempt to save against the loss of seeds in other gene-banks during large-scale regional or global crises.
Tuesday’s deposit was the first big deposit to the Arctic facility, taking the total number of seeds in the vault to more than a million.
The President was in the area with prominent personalities like the Emir of Kano and the former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
Members of the President’s delegation to the historical site included Deputy Chief of Staff, Samuel Abu Jinapor; Secretary to the President, Nana Bediatuo Asante; Environment, Science and Technology Minister, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng; Director of Communications at the Presidency, Eugene Arhin; Director of State Protocol, Ahmed Hassan, and a few others.
They wore specially made clothes to avoid the freezing effect of the weather which was -19 degrees Celsius.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Oslo, Norway