Diaspora News of Saturday, 13 January 2007

Source: emmanuel k. asiedu

Commending Ghana Embassy in Madrid

Professionalism, receptive, and good counseling blended in true love for fellow nationals, is what could be use to describe the Ghana Embassy in Madrid, Spain.

The Ghana Embassy in Madrid has indeed proven to be a leading example for the most needed cordial relationship between citizens of Ghana and their missions abroad.

I reckoned this during a visit with my younger brother, Isaac Johnson and his family to the Embassy on January 5, 2007. It was on a Friday noon, we have spent the morning at the Nigerian Consulate getting a letter of identification for my brother’s wife to enable her get a new Nigerian passport.

We were not spared the usual pomposity and the disrespect that most African Missions abroad are known to shown to their citizens abroad at the Nigerian consulate. But when we got to the Ghana Embassy, it was a different world and a different atmosphere altogether. The notice on the entrance door indicates that, Consular services are conducted from Monday to Thursday, yet on that Friday noon, I witness about 15 Ghanaians attended to with the most courtesy due to every respected citizen of a nation. Isaac Johnson, my younger brother, who had traveled most European capitals commented, when he came out from an interview with Embassy staff that, he wish all Ghanaian Embassies worldwide are as kind and respective as the embassy in Madrid.

I witnessed a similar incident in Beirut, Lebanon, a few months back, when H.E. Akiwumi O. Akilaja, The Ghana Ambassador to Egypt, visited Lebanon to present his credentials to the Lebanese government and had a side meeting with the Ghanaian community. His words of encouragement and advice were that of a caring father counseling his loved children.

The attitude of these Ghanaian Missions, and others which are not yet known to us toward their nationals, is a clear indication that, Ghana, has heeded to the cry of its nationals abroad to commission true patriotic citizens as Ambassadors who will not only oversee smooth commerce and governmental transactions, but also the welfare of its nationals, who are the souls of the nation.

God bless all Ghanaians, who believe that, the development and gains of one person is meaningless, unless it is link up with the total development and success of the entire nation! And God bless Ghana.