President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s remarks at a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron have left many praising him.

Find below 12 of the statements he made at last Thursday’s meeting.

1. “We can no longer continue to make policies for ourselves in our country, our region or our continent on the basis of whatever support the Western world, or France or the European Union can give us, it will not work”

2. “It is not right for a country like Ghana, 60 years after independence to still have its health and education budget being financed on the basis of the generosity and charity of European tax payers.”

3. “By now we should be able to finance our basic needs ourselves”

4. “The African continent should be giving money to other places.”

5. “We need to have a mindset that says, we can do it because others have done it”

6. “Our perspective is not to be what the French tax payer decides to do with whatever services they have in France.”

7. “This continent with all that has happened is still today the repository of at least 30% of the most important minerals in the world”

8. “Africa is a continent of vast fertile land with the youngest population with energy and dynamism.”

9. “We want young Africans to stay in Africa.”

10. “We have to get away from this mindset of dependence, this mindset about ‘what can France do for us?”

11. “We should be concerned with what we need to do in this 21st century to move Africa ahead from being cup in hand and begging for aid, charity and hand-outs.”

12. “We want to build a Ghana beyond aid, a Ghana which is independent, which is self sufficient and is capable of standing on its own feet and building its own life, we can do it if we have the correct mindset to do so”