President John Dramani Mahama has issued a stern call for a fundamental reset of the United Nations (UN) and the global financial architecture, declaring that Africa’s role in shaping the future global order will be “huge and consequential”.
Addressing the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday [Sept 25], President Mahama stated that with projections indicating that over 25 per cent of the world’s population and a third of its youth would be African by 2050, the continent could no longer be sidelined in critical international decision-making.
Citing the fast-paced global transformation, he said the UN could not continue to run on the same structures and protocols that defined its formative years.
“Eighty years on, in today’s world, 100,000 commercial flights take off and land every day; libraries have been digitised so that volumes of literature can exist on a device small enough to fit inside your pocket.
This is a world of cryptocurrency, Artificial Intelligence, social media, the Internet, and its dark, hidden dungeon — the dark web — all of which carry a potential threat to global peace and security,” he said, adding that “the UN founding charter is outdated when it comes to representation.”
Buttress
Citing his own experience as a second non-consecutive term as President, President Mahama said between his first term, which ended in January 2017, and now, the world had changed with such ferocity, saying “my first days in office felt as though I’d just awakened from a Rip Van Winkle-style slumber.”
Considering that it was after only eight years; he asked the UN member states to imagine, then, “what it would be like after 80 years?”
President Mahama stressed that Africa had come of age and must be accorded the appropriate courtesies on the global stage.
“The future is African,” President Mahama declared emphatically, repeating the phrase for emphasis.
“Allow me to say this once again, a little louder for the people in the back.
The future is African,” he said.
The President’s speech, delivered at the landmark 80th session, was a bold articulation of Africa’s rising significance and a critique of a global system he described as “outdated” and “rigged” against the continent.
UN Recalibration
Drawing parallels with his government’s “Reset Agenda” that had stabilised the Ghana cedi and reduced inflation, President Mahama challenged the UN to embark on its own “serious recalibration”.
He pointed out that the UN Charter’s principle of the “sovereign equality of all its members” had been betrayed by a Security Council structure that continued to deny Africa a permanent seat with veto power.
“If this were truly the case, a continent as large as Africa with its numerous UN member states would have at least one permanent seat on the Security Council,” he argued.
Questioning the absolute power of the veto, he asked, “If not now, then when would Africa’s long-standing request, first echoed by Nelson Mandela 30 years ago, be fulfilled”?
Gaza, Sudan, Cuba
To demonstrate Africa’s fast growing global influence, President Mahama did not shy away from addressing ongoing global conflicts.
On the situation in Gaza, he departed from what he called the General Assembly’s habit of “playing hide-and-seek with language”.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it; if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, well then it must be a duck.
The crimes in Gaza must stop,” he stated, advocating a two-state solution as a reprieve for innocent Palestinians.
He also drew attention to the crisis in Sudan, describing the millions displaced as “climate refugees” often unfairly stigmatised.
Quoting renowned poet, Warsan Shire, he humanised the migrant experience, stating: “We cannot normalise cruelty.
We cannot normalise hatred”.
President Mahama further called for the removal of the blockade on Cuba, emphasising Cuba’s generous relations with less-endowed nations.
“As Dr Kwame Nkrumah, our nation’s founder, famously said, ‘We seek to be friends of all and enemies to none’.
The Cuban people shed their blood on African soil in the fight against apartheid.
Indeed, Cuba has been, and continues to be, a faithful friend to Africa,” he said, a reference apparently directed at Cuba’s generous offer of vital technical services to Africa.
Reparations, equity
President Mahama announced Ghana’s intention, as the African Champion on Reparations, to introduce a motion at the UN, formally recognising the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade as “the greatest crime against humanity”.
The move is expected to escalate the global campaign for reparations for Africa and Africans.
He demanded reparations for enslavement and colonisation, which resulted in the theft of natural resources and cultural artefacts.
“We recognise the value of our land and the value of our lives,” he said, underscoring the irony of Western governments having paid compensation to slave owners for their lost “property”.
The President further called for an end to the economic exploitation of the continent, declaring that “the days of parcelling out vast concession areas to foreign interests for exploitation must come to an end”.
He said that Africa would welcome foreign investment but would negotiate for a bigger share of its own resources.
New world is possible
Closing on a note of hope, President Mahama echoed Indian author and Booker Prize winner, Suzanna Arundhati Roy, saying: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way”.
The President expressed a personal hope that this new world would be a place of safety and equality for women and girls, citing the election of Ghana’s first female Vice-President, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, as a beacon of inspiration.
He also congratulated the President of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock, a German diplomat and politician, on her election, and said he looked forward to the future appointment of a woman as Secretary-General.
