Dozens from the Diaspora Given Ghanaian Citizenship

As part of Ghana's celebration of the "year of return", the country has granted citizenship to 126 people from the diaspora who have been living in Ghana for many years, a statement from the presidency says.

Marking 300 years since the first African was sold in a slave market in America, Ghana - a major hub during the transatlantic slave trade - declared 2019 the year of return for people in the diaspora.

At the ceremony on Wednesday evening, President Nana Akufo-Addo told the new citizens: "You have the responsibility of preserving and promoting the image of a country whose 

reputation, amongst the comity of nations, is, today, high."

He said that development in the country was not a matter of relying on external assistance, which "is a mind-set that I wish us to discard, a mind-set of dependency and living on handouts".