ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
Aba, your departure has left an unbridgeable void in my life; but I take solace from the many mercies and blessings the good Lord has showered on our journey of 62 years: living long; the blessing of beautiful children; 14 splendid grandchildren; the honour of having served our nation together; the gift of loving; extended families; and a network of friends around the world.
I am so thankful to the good Lord God for giving you to me as my life partner.
Aba, you have earned your good rest and as the words of the Apostle Paul go: “You have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, you have kept the faith.
Now there is in store for you the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to you on that day – and not only to you, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.”
Fare thee well, Aba.
Adieu, my dearest love!
With hearts full of reverence, the National Democratic Congress bows today to honour a woman whose life changed the course of our nation — Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.
She was not only a First Lady.
She was boldness personified.
She was the very heartbeat of a movement that reshaped Ghana’s political, social, and democratic landscape.
From her early years at the Ghana Tourist Board and the Union Trading Company, she engaged directly with the struggles of ordinary women.
These encounters ignited in her a fierce determination to fight for dignity, justice, and opportunity — especially for women whose voices had long been ignored.
In the restless Ghana of the 1980s, she did not stand at the margins.
She stepped into the arena, not merely to support a revolution, but to define one.
Her founding of the 31st December Women’s Movement was one of the boldest acts of leadership in our national history.
What began as an idea became a nationwide transformation engine that empowered millions of women, nurtured community leadership, and restored confidence in those who had once been invisible.
Under her commanding and charismatic leadership, more than 870 early childhood centres were established across the country.
Today, thousands of adults in their 30s and 40s carry the gift of early education because Nana Konadu and her Movement walked into their communities and planted opportunities where none existed.
situs slot88 situs slot777 scatter88 Her work was practical, personal, and profoundly transformational.
Her advocacy went far beyond education.
Through literacy drives, micro-enterprise programmes, and legal reform, she helped thousands of women become informed earners and confident citizens.
Her boldness influenced the passage of the Intestate Succession Law (PNDCL 111), a watershed legislation many rightly call the “Nana Konadu Law.”
She stood between widows and injustice, fighting to ensure that no woman would be left homeless or powerless in her darkest hour.
Her fearlessness also took Ghana to the world stage.
At the 1995 Beijing Conference, she spoke for the African girl child with a clarity and authority that commanded global respect.
Above all, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings was a foundational pillar of both the PNDC and the NDC.
She did not operate from the background.
She was at the centre — organising women, building structures, shaping strategy, strengthening the grassroots, and helping give birth to a party that was not just political, but deeply connected to the people.
The history of the NDC cannot be told without her name spoken boldly and with honour.
She was not an observer of the struggle.
She was an architect of its success.
She was not a mere participant.
She was a pillar — strong, unyielding, indispensable.
Her election in 2009 as First Vice Chairperson of the NDC was a recognition of her stature as a founding mother of the Party, one whose influence could never be wished away, revised, or forgotten.
When the time came, she once again defied all limits and became the first woman to contest the presidency of the Republic of Ghana — a testament to her courage and her lifelong message that leadership is not a man’s birthright.
Today, as we mourn, we also celebrate a woman who lived with intention, who spoke her truth without fear, and who served this country with unshakeable conviction.
Her legacy lives in: • every confident girl who walks into a classroom, • every widow protected by law and dignity, • every woman who now knows she can lead, • every community where early education took root, and • every structure of our political tradition that she helped build with her own hands.
On behalf of the National Democratic Congress, we say: Thank you, Nana Konadu.
Thank you for your courage.
Thank you for the lives you uplifted.
Thank you for the foundations you laid — foundations that can never be erased from the history of the PNDC or the NDC.
Your race is run, but your legacy endures.
Your fire continues to burn in a new generation, unafraid to be bold.
May your soul rest in perfect peace.
Rest well, Mother of the Movement.
Ghana is better because you lived.
Honourable Chairperson, The Secretary-General of the ITU, Your Excellencies, Distinguished Colleagues and Delegates On behalf of the Government and people of the Republic of Ghana, I extend our sincere appreciation to the Government of Romania for hosting the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-2022) and for the warm welcome and hospitality accorded to my delegation and I, since our arrival in the beautiful city of Bucharest.
In this respect, the Government of Ghana, led by His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Co-Chair of the Group of Eminent Advocates for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, and also a firm believer in the power of digital technology to drive socio-economic development, is actively implementing our digital Ghana agenda.
They include: a) mobile money interoperability which has brought over 15 million previously unbanked persons onto the financial digital platform; b) The National Identity Card as a single purpose e ID for all digital transactions to prevent identity theft and cyber fraud.
To ensure a secure and resilient cyberspace for sustained digital transformation, utilising ITU guidelines, Ghana is actively promoting cybersecurity not only for our benefit but for the sub-region as a whole.
Your Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana; Honourable Frema Osei-Opare, Chief of Staff, Office of the President; Honourable Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration; Honourable Ministers of State; Honourable Members of Parliament; Admiral Seth Amoama, Chief of Defense Staff and Members of the Military High Command; Honourable Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Members of the Judiciary; Other Senior Government Officials; Your Excellency, Ambassador Claudia Turbay Quintero, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps; Regional Deans and other fellow diplomats; Members of the Clergy; Distinguished Friends; All Protocols respectfully observed: I’m deeply humbled to stand before you today and receive this great honour of Ghana’s Grand Medal, which I accept on behalf of my outstanding team.
I remember the fanfare when presenting my credentials more than three years ago, and could not have imagined then that I would return to Jubilee House today for such a meaningful sendoff.
I’m enormously proud of the many accomplishments we have achieved together during my service as Ambassador of the United States to the Republic of Ghana.
Thank you, Excellency, for recalling some of the highlights of my tenure.
There are so many cherished memories among them, which represent the longstanding partnership between the United States and Ghana and how we have continued to advance our shared values and common interests.
Our well-rooted partnership will endure long after my departure, thanks to the generations of diplomats, diasporans, partners, and friends who have contributed to our shared history and our interwoven ties.
Indeed, we all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors.
Just as I reaped the harvest of what Ambassador Rob Jackson sowed, I am confident that Ambassador Virginia Palmer will continue to water the seedlings we planted in my time, as well as plant new crops.
Meanwhile, the U.S.
Embassy will be in the very capable hands of my Deputy Nicole Chulick, soon to be Charge d’Affaires ad interim.
When I reflect on the past three-plus years, I’m proud: Of how we invested in people, making a major difference in the lives of thousands of Ghanaians, in public health, literacy, clean water, agribusiness, and peace and security; Of our substantial improvements to Ghana’s energy infrastructure, providing more reliable electricity to millions of Ghanaians; Of having built stronger economic and commercial ties, and helping bring American companies to Ghana, creating new jobs on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean; and Of our support for Ghana’s COVID-19 response with supplies, equipment such as ventilators and oxygen plants, training, and more than 9.6 million life-saving vaccines.
Our relationship has grown, just as Ghana’s regional and global leadership continues to grow from strength to strength.
We worked side-by-side to promote regional peace and security and supported Ghana’s positive role in West Africa under your sterling leadership, Excellency, as ECOWAS Chair for the past two years.
I look forward to seeing how the Strategy for Preventing Conflict and Promoting Stability that President Joe Biden announced just last week is implemented in Ghana, as one of the five coastal West African nations included in this ten-year regional program.
Let me also voice the United States’ deep appreciation for Ghana’s leadership at the United Nations Security Council, and throughout the UN system, defending the cause of freedom and of rights.
We have deepened both official and people-to-people ties, with reciprocal visits by U.S.
and Ghanaian officials, including the White House meeting last September between your Excellency, President Akufo-Addo, and Vice President Kamala Harris, that I was privileged to attend.
The Year of Return attracted many of my fellow Americans to connect with Ghana in person, notably Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and 13 Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including the late, great Civil Rights icon, Representative John Lewis.
We offered professional, educational, and cultural exchange programs to young Ghanaian leaders on the less official front.
We empowered hundreds of women to flourish in Ghana’s economy through entrepreneurship training and other professional development opportunities.
We trust you will continue, Excellency, to steward the economy in the face of global challenges, through enhancing the enabling environment and continuing to improve the investment climate to bring more jobs.
I’m thankful for the support the Embassy has received from people throughout the length and breadth of this beautiful country, which has made our success possible, and which lays the foundation for our future successes.
I’m profoundly grateful to count you all among the many wonderful people my husband John and I have met, and among the old and new friends, we have made here.
This group includes you, Mr President, whom I left as Attorney General in 2001, and later saw from afar become Foreign Minister and then President of the Republic.
When we returned to Ghana in December 2018, our own Year of Return, was truly a diplomatic Sankofa, coming home to a country where we had enjoyed Ghana’s legendary hospitality for four years and had the honour to be accredited by your good self!
I have come to cherish the wisdom conveyed through the many proverbs and symbols that offer guiding principles, reflect values, and highlight our common humanity.
I’m reminded of another adinkra symbol, Nkosonkonson , the chain link, which depicts how we are all connected.
I know I will continue to feel that connection long after I depart Ghana’s shores.
John and I will hold Ghana in our hearts when we leave in a few days’ time.
Thank you again for conferring on me this State honour, which is emblematic of the effective and growing partnership between Ghana and the United States.
May the United States and Ghana continue to prosper and deepen our partnership forevermore!
And before I leave the podium, allow me to thank my husband John Sullivan, who has been with me throughout, as a pillar of support.
Thank you for this great honour, and for your kind attention.
Citizens of Russia, friends, I consider it necessary today to speak again about the tragic events in Donbass and the key aspects of ensuring the security of Russia.
I will begin with what I said in my address on February 21, 2022.
I spoke about our biggest concerns and worries, and about the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year.
I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.
It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe.
In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns.
Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.
Where did this insolent manner of talking down from the height of their exceptionalism, infallibility and all-permissiveness come from?
What is the explanation for this contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely legitimate demands?
Everything is clear and obvious.
In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union grew weaker and subsequently broke apart.
That experience should serve as a good lesson for us, because it has shown us that the paralysis of power and will is the first step towards complete degradation and oblivion.
We lost confidence for only one moment, but it was enough to disrupt the balance of forces in the world.
As a result, the old treaties and agreements are no longer effective.
Entreaties and requests do not help.
Anything that does not suit the dominant state, the powers that be, is denounced as archaic, obsolete and useless.
At the same time, everything it regards as useful is presented as the ultimate truth and forced on others regardless of the cost, abusively and by any means available.
Those who refuse to comply are subjected to strong-arm tactics.
What I am saying now does not concerns only Russia, and Russia is not the only country that is worried about this.
This has to do with the entire system of international relations, and sometimes even US allies.
The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a redivision of the world, and the norms of international law that developed by that time – and the most important of them, the fundamental norms that were adopted following WWII and largely formalised its outcome – came in the way of those who declared themselves the winners of the Cold War.
Of course, practice, international relations and the rules regulating them had to take into account the changes that took place in the world and in the balance of forces.
However, this should have been done professionally, smoothly, patiently, and with due regard and respect for the interests of all states and one’s own responsibility.
Instead, we saw a state of euphoria created by the feeling of absolute superiority, a kind of modern absolutism, coupled with the low cultural standards and arrogance of those who formulated and pushed through decisions that suited only themselves.
The situation took a different turn.
There are many examples of this.
First a bloody military operation was waged against Belgrade, without the UN Security Council’s sanction but with combat aircraft and missiles used in the heart of Europe.
The bombing of peaceful cities and vital infrastructure went on for several weeks.
I have to recall these facts, because some Western colleagues prefer to forget them, and when we mentioned the event, they prefer to avoid speaking about international law, instead emphasising the circumstances which they interpret as they think necessary.
Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya and Syria.
The illegal use of military power against Libya and the distortion of all the UN Security Council decisions on Libya ruined the state, created a huge seat of international terrorism, and pushed the country towards a humanitarian catastrophe, into the vortex of a civil war, which has continued there for years.
The tragedy, which was created for hundreds of thousands and even millions of people not only in Libya but in the whole region, has led to a large-scale exodus from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe.
A similar fate was also prepared for Syria.
The combat operations conducted by the Western coalition in that country without the Syrian government’s approval or UN Security Council’s sanction can only be defined as aggression and intervention.
But the example that stands apart from the above events is, of course, the invasion of Iraq without any legal grounds.
They used the pretext of allegedly reliable information available in the United States about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
To prove that allegation, the US Secretary of State held up a vial with white power, publicly, for the whole world to see, assuring the international community that it was a chemical warfare agent created in Iraq.
It later turned out that all of that was a fake and a sham, and that Iraq did not have any chemical weapons.
Incredible and shocking but true.
We witnessed lies made at the highest state level and voiced from the high UN rostrum.
As a result we see a tremendous loss in human life, damage, destruction, and a colossal upsurge of terrorism.
Overall, it appears that nearly everywhere, in many regions of the world where the United States brought its law and order, this created bloody, non-healing wounds and the curse of international terrorism and extremism.
I have only mentioned the most glaring but far from only examples of disregard for international law.
This array includes promises not to expand NATO eastwards even by an inch.
To reiterate: they have deceived us, or, to put it simply, they have played us.
Sure, one often hears that politics is a dirty business.
It could be, but it shouldn’t be as dirty as it is now, not to such an extent.
This type of con-artist behaviour is contrary not only to the principles of international relations but also and above all to the generally accepted norms of morality and ethics.
Where is justice and truth here?
Just lies and hypocrisy all around.
Incidentally, US politicians, political scientists and journalists write and say that a veritable “empire of lies” has been created inside the United States in recent years.
It is hard to disagree with this – it is really so.
But one should not be modest about it: the United States is still a great country and a system-forming power.
All its satellites not only humbly and obediently say yes to and parrot it at the slightest pretext but also imitate its behaviour and enthusiastically accept the rules it is offering them.
Therefore, one can say with good reason and confidence that the whole so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and likeness is, in its entirety, the very same “empire of lies.”
As for our country, after the disintegration of the USSR, given the entire unprecedented openness of the new, modern Russia, its readiness to work honestly with the United States and other Western partners, and its practically unilateral disarmament, they immediately tried to put the final squeeze on us, finish us off, and utterly destroy us.
This is how it was in the 1990s and the early 2000s, when the so-called collective West was actively supporting separatism and gangs of mercenaries in southern Russia.
What victims, what losses we had to sustain and what trials we had to go through at that time before we broke the back of international terrorism in the Caucasus!
We remember this and will never forget.
Properly speaking, the attempts to use us in their own interests never ceased until quite recently: they sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature.
No one has ever succeeded in doing this, nor will they succeed now.
Despite all that, in December 2021, we made yet another attempt to reach agreement with the United States and its allies on the principles of European security and NATO’s non-expansion.
Our efforts were in vain.
The United States has not changed its position.
It does not believe it necessary to agree with Russia on a matter that is critical for us.
The United States is pursuing its own objectives, while neglecting our interests.
Of course, this situation begs a question: what next, what are we to expect?
If history is any guide, we know that in 1940 and early 1941 the Soviet Union went to great lengths to prevent war or at least delay its outbreak.
To this end, the USSR sought not to provoke the potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself from an imminent attack.
When it finally acted, it was too late.
As a result, the country was not prepared to counter the invasion by Nazi Germany, which attacked our Motherland on June 22, 1941, without declaring war.
The country stopped the enemy and went on to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost.
The attempt to appease the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake which came at a high cost for our people.
In the first months after the hostilities broke out, we lost vast territories of strategic importance, as well as millions of lives.
We will not make this mistake the second time.
We have no right to do so.
Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as their enemy.
They did so with impunity.
Make no mistake, they had no reason to act this way.
It is true that they have considerable financial, scientific, technological, and military capabilities.
We are aware of this and have an objective view of the economic threats we have been hearing, just as our ability to counter this brash and never-ending blackmail.
Let me reiterate that we have no illusions in this regard and are extremely realistic in our assessments.
As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today’s Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states.
Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons.
In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country.
At the same time, technology, including in the defence sector, is changing rapidly.
One day there is one leader, and tomorrow another, but a military presence in territories bordering on Russia, if we permit it to go ahead, will stay for decades to come or maybe forever, creating an ever mounting and totally unacceptable threat for Russia.
Even now, with NATO’s eastward expansion the situation for Russia has been becoming worse and more dangerous by the year.
Moreover, these past days NATO leadership has been blunt in its statements that they need to accelerate and step up efforts to bring the alliance’s infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders.
In other words, they have been toughening their position.
We cannot stay idle and passively observe these developments.
This would be an absolutely irresponsible thing to do for us.
Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us.
Of course, the question is not about NATO itself.
It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy.