BACK TO AFRICA - Mahama revives right of return to motherland with Ghana citizenship proposal for Diaspora

Two noted advocates have welcomed a proposal by President John Mahama of the Republic of Ghana to create a pathway to citizenship for people of African descent, describing it as a major step toward the long-sought right of return to Africa.

Reviving the decades-old issue of repatriation, Mahama announced yesterday that his government is considering legislation to establish a pathway to citizenship for members of the global African family.

The proposal has resonated with Professor Verene A. Shepherd, historian and professor of social history at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and longtime Rastafari advocate Ras Iyah V.

They say it reflects the Rastafari movement’s longstanding call for repatriation to Africa – the ancestral homeland from which their forebears were forcibly taken and enslaved in the Caribbean.

Not an act of charity

Addressing a joint sitting of the Houses of Parliament at George William Gordon House on Tuesday, Mahama said the right of people of African descent in the diaspora to return to the African continent was not an act of charity or compassion.

“Repatriation is not an act of kindness. Repatriation is a right of all persons of African descent to return to the mother continent and settle or reside if they wish,” he said to strong applause from legislators.

He told parliamentarians that while Ghana enacted the Right of Abode Act in 2000, the government is now considering a new Homeland and Return Bill that would establish clear residency and citizenship pathways for people of African descent who wish to return and settle in Ghana.

The West African leader said he intends to champion the initiative next year when he assumes the chairmanship of the African Union, the continental body representing the 55 member states of Africa.

“This is one of the articles of the manifesto I wish to push, when I become the African Union chairman, that all African nations must have a right of return for all members of the global African family,” he emphasised.

Shepherd told The Gleaner yesterday she was pleased that Mahama placed repatriation back on the table because Rastafari had been “calling for this forever”.

Arguing that the right to return to Africa is both just and fundamental, Shepherd noted that many Jamaicans are descendants of Africans who were forcibly captured, trafficked across the Atlantic, and brought to the island through the transatlantic slave trade.

The history professor said those who were responsible for forcibly removing Africans to enslave them should fund the repatriation to their descendants.

“The financial obligation for repatriation must come from Britain and other colonial powers who participated in the trafficking and this crime against humanity,” she said.

According to the respected historian, close to 300,000 of the Africans captured and forced to settle in Jamaica were from Ghana. She said that number would have multiplied because “of course, we have families, and those who were originally from Ghana, after Emancipation, they have settled and had children, so the percentage of people of African descent would be quite a significant percentage”.

She said Ghana and Nigeria were the major sources of Africans taken to Jamaica.

Shepherd told The Gleaner that repatriation and resettlement form the second pillar of the CARICOM Ten-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice, underscoring the regional body’s recognition of the right of people of African descent to return to their ancestral homeland.

“Everything is aligned with the thinking of Rastafari. It is aligned with the thinking of reparationists, and it is aligned now not just with Ghana but other countries in Africa who understand that their people were forcibly exported, so now making that bold statement supporting repatriation is very good,” Shepherd reasoned.

Ras Iyah V said he was delighted that Mahama signalled plans to embrace people of African descent through repatriation, noting that the fight for independence in Ghana was inspired by Kwame Nkrumah, the country’s first president, who was highly influenced by Jamaica’s Marcus Garvey.

“It is good for John Mahama to come and say that because that is what I and I as Rastafari have been calling for over these decades and none of these governments under the PNP or JLP has paid us any mind,” he said, referring to the opposition People’s National Party and the governing Jamaica Labour Party.

The Rastafarian elder lamented the actions of the European enslavers who, through their transatlantic slave trade, carried out what is considered one of the greatest crimes against humanity.

“We did not have a choice, so if we now come and recognise ourselves for who we are as a people and say, ‘We want to go home to our ancestral land’, that’s our right,” he said.

Ras Iyah V said the descendants of Africans who were enslaved “are entitled to reparation also because our people were forced to work as slaves for Europe”.

The Ghanaian president is on a four-day state visit to Jamaica and has had bilateral talks with the Jamaican Government.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com