This article was written by Richard Yarrow and Chiamaka Obilo.
Nana Akufo-Addo is the president of Ghana. He campaigned against Ghana’s military dictatorship in the 1970s, formed a civil rights organization in the 1990s, and first ran for the presidency of Ghana in 1998. He was elected president in December 2016, defeating incumbent president John Mahama, and was sworn in the following month. As president, Akufo-Addo has focused on youth empowerment, education access, and sustainable foreign investment.
Harvard Political Review: You spoke at the Harvard Institute of Politics recently about welcoming Africans who have lived in the West. What advice do you have for first-generation Africans who want to go back and develop their home countries?
Nana Akufo-Addo: The most important thing is persistence and knowing the society they’re there for. If you are prepared to persevere and make a genuine contribution, then … one day the society will recognize it, and accept it.
HPR: Kwame Nkrumah strove for Ghana to present a larger vision or a model for pan-African unity across the continent during an era of decolonization. What kind of vision or model do you think Ghana can present for the continent in the 21st century?
NAA: I think that model for pan-African unity is the model that we are trying to work on. First of all, we are an actively functioning democracy, a country where the traditional freedoms are respected. That’s the base. It is our view that, without that, subsequent development would come to be distorted.
At the same time, we have the commitment to the pan-African project: a sustainable continent, a continent where the countries working together would be able to pursue and find specific goals, like the establishment of the continental free trade area. There’s a tremendous persistency and consistency in Ghanaian policy. The president who mooted the idea of the trade area was my predecessor, Professor Mills, at the African Union summit in 2012. He was the one who brought the motion for the whole idea of the continental free trade. It has come in my time, and it shows you this consistency of outlook there has been in Ghana towards the pan-African project. So for us, the substance of what Nkrumah was saying has not changed: that we see the best development of our country within the larger African polity. It is very much a part of Ghanaian policy, and [is a value for] everything we are doing as a nation, both in the region and on the wider African continent.
HPR: You also have said that you want to see Ghana move beyond any dependence on foreign aid, and that you would also like to see other African nations move similarly. What do you think are the key steps for moving in that direction?
NAA: They are those steps that would allow our economies to stand on their own feet. What are they? The proper management of the economies, plugging the loopholes for flight of capital, plugging the loopholes for evasion of tax, and domestic resource utilization. Then, put those aspects together — disciplined economic management, plugging the loopholes for the flight of capital in Ghana and from the continent.
The figures on flight of capital that have been bandied about — assuming that they are only even 70 to 80 percent accurate — are large sums of money, and money that is leaving the continent. If, therefore, we can find a way to retain that money, then obviously the means for financing our own development are there. It’s just that so far, we have not been particularly skillful or concerned about making sure that the capital stays in the continent.
Then, of course, domestically, we must do what can be done to raise resources ourselves. The whole idea behind that is not just a question of economics and statistics. It’s also a sense of self, a sense of self-worth and dignity as a person. As a human being, you don’t particularly want to be spoon-fed. You are an adult. Once you become an adult, you want to be able to stand on your own feet and pay your own way around the world, through your life, not dependent on others.
I think the same should be of nations — not to be dependent on the generosity of foreign taxpayers to fund your education, to fund your health, and so on. You can stand up and do these things yourself. In our situation, it should be more than possible. Because, of the continents of the world, Africa is the richest, and it’s not right that Africa’s people are also the poorest. There’s something fundamental wrong about that equation. The whole cry about an “Africa beyond aid,” a “Ghana beyond aid,” is to wake up the consciousness and to sharpen the consciousness of our people, to realize that where we are is not the proper place. And we can do something about it. And let us do something about it.
HPR: How are you able to prioritize funding free secondary education, especially given the financial situation handed to you at the start of your term?
NAA: We have done so because we have become more disciplined in the way in which we handle public finances. We have seen much less corruption, flight of capital, and mismanagement of resources, and so there’s been more in the basket than there was two or three years ago. Having determined that education is so significant, obviously we’re in a position to give it the prioritization that we are now talking about.
Take, for instance, public procurement in Ghana. In the three years in which we have been in office, we have made savings well in excess of two billion dollars, compared to what we made before. Those are all steps taken towards more disciplined and more honest management of our public finances, which has then of course turned more money into the arena for dealing with issues of priority like education.
HPR: Aside from public finances, I would like to ask about relations with China. There have recently been controversies over environmental harm from mines in Ghana, as well as controversies over possible espionage elsewhere in Africa. How do you think African leaders have navigated recent challenges of diplomacy with China? What concerns have weighed most heavily for you in Ghana-China relations?
NAA: As far as I imagine, there are no real issues of diplomacy. There are Chinese who are very prominent in the illegal mining — what we call ‘Galamsey’, which is what you were referring to. But we’re dealing with this as criminal activity, and as far as we are concerned, people are caught. People perpetuating crime in Ghana face our law, like [Ghanaians perpetuating crime] would do in China. When I was there [in Beijing] in September, this matter came up, and I indicated to the Chinese president that, if he was to hear that Ghana’s law enforcement agencies targeted Chinese in this industry, it is not because we have some anti-Chinese policy. It is because these people are doing wrong. Just as you would expect Ghanaians in China to be law-abiding, we are expecting Chinese in Ghana to be the same. He was very, very receptive to the statement of these ideas — of every right to enforce the law. All he hopes is that those Chinese would have legitimate rights. And those rights are preserved.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Image Credit: Flickr/GovernmentZA.
