Professor Akilakpa Sawyer, a member of the Council of State, has called for the re-examination of the role of the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ghana, in the present global circumstances.

“The question is not about whether African studies is still relevant or not. It is about our ability to re-examine African studies and its role in the world today.”

Professor Akilakpa Sawyer, who is also a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, said this when he launched the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Institute of African Studies-University of Ghana, Legon, in Accra.

He said Ghana’s Founding President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, opened the institute with the noble aim of promoting African emancipation and progress, adding that, there was the need to re-examine the role of the Institute “after 50 years, how do we re-rejuvenate the relevance of the institute?”

Prof. Akilakpa Sawyer said, to keep the purpose for which the institute was established alive, it was important to bear in mind challenges that the African continent faced in the present world and also, to find a way of empowering the institute to help in dealing with these challenges.

Prof Ernest Aryeetey, Vice Chancellor, University of Ghana, said developmental issues such as hunger, under-developed technology and illiteracy, comprised the major problems of the continent now.

“Is it possible for us Africans to come up with projects that seek to redress some of our major problems?”

Prof Aryeetey said in future, the Institute would have to work with experts such as scientists and economists, in order to come up with appropriate solutions based on deeper understanding of the problems that bedeviled the continent.

Prof Kwaw Ansah, Chairman of TV Africa, who was also Chairman of the occasion, said with modernization and the influx of foreign cultures through media such as the internet, the Institute had a strong role to play in inculcating in Africans, the values and traditions of the continent.

He said “we have so far not entirely succeeded in getting our younger ones at the early stages of their intellectual development, to avail themselves of the early orientation, necessary to face the world, feeling confident in themselves as Ghanaians and Africans.”

Prof Kwaw Ansah said, it was unfortunate that in some basic schools in Ghana, children got punished for speaking their mother tongues and other indigenous languages adding “in the name of Religious and Moral Education, our children get brainwashed about our indigenous religions and cultures”.

He said, although the world had become a global village, it was still possible for a people to preserve some key tenets of their identity, adding that, parents and guardians should root the development of their children in strong African values.

“African studies must be the foundation of each course, programme and activity of all our institutions of learning.”

Prof Kwaw Ansah said, once this was established, Africans would be confident about their own culture no matter where they found themselves, and would not easily feel the need to blindly copy other people’s cultures.

“We may yet in this manner achieve a more relevant African orientation,” he said.

Some activities to mark the celebration include an exhibition and fashion show on cultural dressing, a series of lectures by Ghanaian and other African scholars, an international conference on Africanists among others.*