President Akufo-Addo yesterday conferred Ghanaian citizenship on the ace American musician, producer and songwriter, Stevie Wonder.
Wonder, who is currently in Ghana with his family, will now hold dual citizenship.
At a brief conferment ceremony at the Jubilee House (presidency), President Akufo-Addo was full of praise for the musician whose name he said is synonymous with creativity.
“I am glad he has decided to make Ghana his home, and thereby join several generations of African diasporans who committed their lives to us – missionaries, policemen, lawyers, doctors, health workers, writers, artists, musicians – and the likes of George Padmore, close associate of our first President, Kwame Nkrumah.
“Bob Marley’s widow, Rita, who has found a home with us in Aburi; Maya Angelou, a contemporary of mine at the University of Ghana, Legon, the celebrated writer who spent a considerable part of her youth with us; and W E B DuBois, the great scholar who also found a home in Ghana, and is buried here,” he said.
An obviously elated Wonder could not help thanking God, saying, “I first of all give all praise to God. Since I was a little boy, I always believed in my heart that there was nothing impossible, that the Spirit of Our God is the highest.”
“And for years since about 1972, I have talked about coming to Ghana to work on tsetsefly and sleeping blindness … I have talked about Ghana throughout my years…and for now over 50 years I have talked about being a citizen of this country,” he said to an applause from the gathering.
Stevie Wonder, who is a multiple-Grammy-winning artist, first announced plans to relocate to Ghana permanently in February 2021.
He told the popular talk show host, Oprah Winfrey on Apple TV+ that he made the decision because he does not ever want to be in a position where his grandchildren will crave his indulgence to be valued and respected.
The multiple platinum-selling musician also stressed his desire to “see America smile again.”
“I promise you if you do the right thing, I will give this song, I will give it to you, you can have it. Because I want [to] see this nation smile again, and I want to see it before I leave to … move to Ghana, because I am going to do that,” he told Americans, speaking from his home by video link.
This got a curious Oprah to ask almost spontaneously “you’re going to move permanently to Ghana?”, with Wonder replying “Yes, I am, because I don’t want to see my children’s children’s children have to say, ‘Oh, please like me, please, please respect me, please know that I’m important, please value me.’ What kind of ** is that?”
His decision to become partly Ghanaian comes at a time when thousands of African Americans have expressed their interest to relocate to Ghana after President Akufo-Addo’s declaration of the ‘Year of Return’.
The multi-talented Stevie Wonder lost his sight as a newborn when he came into the world six weeks early with retinopathy of prematurity, an eye disorder caused by abnormal blood vessels throughout the retina. Receiving too much oxygen in the incubator probably made the condition worse for the baby, leaving him blind.
Even though he has not been able to see for most of this life, Wonder (born as Stevland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950) has long had vision. From his breakthrough as a Motown child prodigy to becoming a 2019 inductee to the R‘n’B Hall of Fame, the Michigan-born performer has been one of the best-loved American musicians throughout his decades-long career.
Even as a child, Wonder never let his vision disorder hold him back. Aged five, he reportedly told his mother, “Don’t worry about me being blind, because I’m happy.”
Asked by Oprah about this remark, he acknowledged saying it. “It bothered me that my mother was crying all the time,” Wonder explained. “She thought God might be punishing her for something. She lived during a time when things were particularly difficult for a woman in her circumstances.”
His eyesight wasn’t the family’s only challenge. Living in poverty, they often faced hunger and, as Wonder’s mother said in a 2002 biography, Blind Faith: The Miraculous Journey of Lula Hardaway, Stevie Wonder’s Mother, his father drank, abused her and forced her into prostitution.
Eventually, Wonder’s mother moved the family to Detroit, where he taught himself how to play instruments, including the piano, harmonica and drums, by the age of ten. His talents caught the attention of Ronnie White of the band the Miracle, which led to an audition with the founder of Motown Records, Berry Gordy Jr.
That set him on course to becoming a household name, famous for a string of much-loved hit songs, including “Superstition”, “Higher Ground”, “I Just Called to Say I Love You” and “My Cherie Amour”.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent