Prof. Amina Mama takes over Kwame Nkrumah Chair
The University of Ghana has installed Professor Amina Mama as the fourth occupant of the Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African Studies.
She is the first female to occupy that position since the chair was established.
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She takes over from Prof. Horace Campbell.
At a ceremony held at the Great Hall of the University of Ghana last Wednesday, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, and the Director of the Institute of African Studies, Prof. Dzodzi Tsikata, conferred the position on Prof. Mama, amid drumming and singing.
In attendance were lecturers, members of the University Council, fellows of the Institute of African Studies (AIS), staff and students of the university.
The Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African studies was established to deepen research and learning on the history, trajectories and current concerns of Africa and its Diasporas.
The chair seeks to, among other things, honour Ghana's first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, in recognition of his foresight and commitment to academic excellence in Ghana and Africa.
Acceptance Speech
Prof. Mama expressed her gratitude to the university for the honour done her to serve as the Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African Studies at the university.
She observed that the true African stories were distorted by non-Africans with the use of social media.
She charged the youth to take ownership of the continent’s businesses, economies and cultural production through digital platforms and leverage that to tell the true African stories.
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“Can we re-shape our consumer appetites and desires to build up a Pan-African cultural economy with the infrastructure and resources to unlock African talents and direct them to the advancement of Africans?” she queried.
According to her, the present situation called for much more trans-generational collaboration, more transnational collaborations and Pan-African collaborations that included all social strata, all genders, languages and cultures.
Prof. Mama further called for equitable respect for both sexes, saying that was one of the values upheld by President Nkrumah.
For his part, the Managing Director, AngloGold Ashanti Limited, Mr Eric Asubonteng, underscored the need for gender equity at all levels of society, including industry.