Stevie Wonder: becoming Ghanaian on my birthday is amazing

Flanked by his family and donning a scarf made of traditional kente cloth, Wonder was visibly delighted to have finally become Ghanaian.

Ghana has long prided itself on being a bastion of pan-Africanism – its founding leader, Kwame Nkrumah, called the West African state a “Black Mecca”.

Wonder is just the latest African-American icon to celebrate this message – writer W E B Du Bois moved to Ghana and was buried there in 1963, while Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali all paid high-profile visits to the country to reconnect with their African roots.

In 2001, Ghana became the first nation on the continent to give the descendants of Africans the right to stay.

Since then, Africans in the diaspora have been able to live and work in Ghana without renewing their visas or work permits.

And in 2019 the Ghanaian government launched the “year of return” initiative to encourage Africans in the diaspora to relocate there.

More than 300 Africans in diaspora have been granted Ghanaian citizenship since.

In a statement, Ghana’s interior ministry said Wonder becoming a citizen “marks a significant milestone in the country’s efforts to attract diasporan Africans and recognise outstanding contributions to the African diaspora”.

The man himself said he now plans to engage in initiatives that will create great job opportunities for Ghana’s youth, who make up roughly 38% of the population.

“The youngest generation is in Africa. We need to begin to think about how their greatness can shine,” he said.