Nigerian’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Prof. Tijjani Bande, has challenged people of African descent to reconnect with their African root.
Bande, who is Chair, African Group at the UN, made the call while delivering a statement at the UN headquarters in New York as part of activities in Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
The Nigerian envoy said the African leaders also urged the people of African descent to make 2019 a year of reconnection and re-engagement with their African identities and collective interests.
He urged the people of African descent to “forge practical and ambitious initiatives that would build unity and offer prosperity to the people of Africa, both on the continent and in the diaspora”.
Accordingly to him, several activities have been planned by the diaspora and the African Union for the year.
“Celebrating the ‘Year of Our Return’ with initiatives such as the ‘Door of Return’, the AU places special emphasis on the diaspora and its contribution to development in Africa.
He paid tribute to the role of the civil rights movement in shaping the continent in the struggle for liberation and independence during the early 1960s, when the founding fathers set forth to create the defunct Organisation of African Unity.
“The objective of the Door of Return initiative, spearheaded by Ghana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, is to advance African economic development in areas of tourism, infrastructure and renewable energy.
“Accordingly, monuments are being built as symbols of Africa’s openness to the Diaspora.
“The first of many such ‘Door of Return’ monuments was erected by Nigeria on 24th August, 2017 as part of the Diaspora Festival in Badagry, Nigeria,” Bande said.
According to him, the year 2019 should be a galvanising moment for the philosophical, historical, spiritual, cultural backdrop, that will propel a surge of energy, and lead people of African descent to reconnect with mother Africa, and vice versa. (NAN)
