GHANA, on Friday honoured Guyana’s President, Dr. Irfaan Ali with the Global African Leadership Award in recognition of his strong and transformational leadership since being elected to office in August of 2020.

The following is the full text of the introduction of President Ali:

“The very final award tonight is a global Africa Leadership Award. It acknowledges a leader who has demonstrated exceptional leadership qualities in addressing key challenges, particularly in this case, in protecting his country from an outrageous and a very aggressive attempt at neo-colonisation.

“In addition to the protection of his country, from unwarranted foreign aggression. Tonight, the global Africa Leadership Award goes to a man who has demonstrated an unwavering dedication to promoting inclusive development in his homeland, Guyana, through the “One Guyana” political philosophy, which seeks to foster unity within his nation.”

The following is the full text of the speech by President Ali after receiving the prestigious award:

“I want to say how pleased I am to be here. And I accept this award on behalf of all our great ancestors, who came from Africa, and lay their bones on our shores in the name of freedom, just to realise human dignity, just to achieve freedom from the worst system the world has ever seen, that is a system of slavery. And I ask all of us to applaud our ancestors and what they have done to create a better world for us.

“I come from a very small country of six different people, six different ethnic groups. A country that was divided by external forces, forces that sought their own selfish interests and used what is the greatest asset of humanity. That is our differences or ethnicity as a tool of division. But today, I’m proud to lead a country where the people elected a minority. I am from the minority religion of Islam, and the people of that country elected me as their President.

“That is where, that is how we have grown. I accept this honour, as we now seek, to emancipate ourselves as Bob Marley said, completely from mental slavery and create one system, one country, one environment in which all the people must prosper, in which prosperity must come to every single home. I will not leave the stage without saying this to all of us tonight. 40 per cent of all the gold reserves in the world is in Africa, who set the price for gold. 30 per cent of all the mineral reserves is in Africa and 65 per cent of all arable land is here. The next two decades belong to Africa. It is up to ourselves to ensure it happens.”