Asantehene, Soyinka optimistic about Africa’s future

The Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II is optimistic Africa can overcome its obstacles and build a better democratic outcomes and engineer economic transformation.

Speaking to members of both Houses of the British Parliament, the diplomatic community, faculty of universities and a select number of Ghanaians that included former Ghana President, John Agyekum Kufuor at Westminster, London, the Ashanti King also paid glowing tribute to the fledgling democracy on the continent.

He was speaking on the topic, Africa’s Democratic Path and the Search for Economic Transformation.

He explained that the stability and planning for development predicated by 16 presidential and parliamentary elections in Africa alone this year is an encouraging step for consolidating peace .

The Asantehene also touted outreach programmes and sensitization, safe-guarding of electoral processes as well as the emergence of reforms in telecommunication and associated multi-media, and how that have created a knowledge-based economy that did not exist in many parts of Africa two decades ago. 

These innovations he explained, should lead to better ways of doing things in Africa and hopefully a  better strategy of less dependence on multi-donor budget support and financing. 

With many of Africa, growing into middle income economies which have come with withdrawal of subsidies, the Asantehene said the time has come for Africans to be all the more thorough in the economic policies they implement.

Though the journey to development is on course, the challenges could be daunting as he dwelt on the dangers that South Sudan finds itself, the Asantehene noted.

He also referred to infractions by politicians and their surrogates in Kenya where some members of Parliament had to be arrested by the police for ethnic incitement and in Ghana where radio presenters threatened murder on the Lady Chief Justice and some Members of the judiciary.

Lord Paul Boateng of the House of Lords and of Ghanaian descent praised the Asantehene for his traditional leadership which he said fits so well into modern democratic governance.

He also applauded Asantehene's commitment to education and agriculture, saying, the two sectors have served Africa well in the past, without which many elite individuals would not be where they were today.

Unfortunately, he said, Africa’s agriculture is suffering from all fronts a situation which affects millions of dependants.

The event was also a literary fanfare which saw the launch of two books- May Their Shadows Never Shrink- Wole Soyinka and the Oxford Professorship of Poetry edited  by Ivor Agyeman-Duah, a Ghanaian author and Lucy Newlyn, a professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford and All the Good Things Around Us- An Anthology of African Short Storiesedited by Agyeman-Duah and which was described by Dr. Augustus Casely-Hayford the British cultural historian who launched them as  brewed in centuries of traditional creativity which brings together “some of our most eloquent and able voices….the imaginations to capture this moment of critical cultural shift…..” 

Agyeman-Duah who described the Asantehene  Otumfuo Osei Tutu II and the Nigerian Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka (who was the Guest of Honour) as Keeper of Heritage and our Cultural Antiphonist respectively, spoke about the relevance of  better economic choices in both the creation and consumption of  literary arts in Africa.

Hon. Diane Abbott, Shadow Secretary of Health and MP for North Hackney and Stoke Newington who chaired the event spoke about  cultural knowledge and understanding especially literature which leads to identity confidence  and  better economic diagnosis.

Prof. Soyinka disclosed to the audience that all is not lost in Africa notwithstanding challenges of nation-building and difficult economic situation some of which lead to violence.

He spoke about the current violence in the Delta region of Nigeria and the blowing of oil installation by some militants as an example of such economic frustration and a feeling of inequality with people who suffer most from the effect of extractive economies.

 An international observatory post of which he would be involved have had preliminary discussions with President Buhuari and the leadership of the militants and that further consultation  with the Archbishop of Canterbury,  Justin Welby, Some members of the British Parliament, the Asantehene, Osei Tutu II would be pursued as an international mediation effort to help bring peace to the afflicted region..

It is some of these issues and conditions, Prof. Soyinka explained which unfortunately serve as themes on contemporary literary production in Nigeria and parts.