PAWA holds 4th Annual Lecture

Vice President of the Pan African Writers Association Femi Osofisan, has called on African leaders to move beyond meetings and summits on the proposed one African state.

According him, African unity is not a platform for African leaders to meet and party over cocktails, instead, there should be pragmatic and realistic steps towards cultural, economic and political integration among African states.

Prof Osofisan made the observations at the 4th PAWA Annual Lecture on the 15th International African Writers' Day held recently at PAWA House, in Accra.

Speaking on "Shifting the gains of the glass: The African Dictator and the making of African Unity”, Prof Osofisan, took on African writers and the media for not researching enough to expose the rot and negatives in the policies of African governments.

He noted that, though some African governments prosecute and harass some writers for expressing dissenting views on policies, writers must muster courage and continue to expose the negatives in policies in order to develop the African continent.

Akilagpa Sawyerr, Secretary-General of the Association of African Universities commended the efforts of PAWA on their creative quality of mirroring universal truths, and further charged them to “create ideas that would change other existing ideas”. Such literary works, according to him, when well packaged would bring about the desired change the African continent was crying for.

Atukwei Okai, Secretary-General of PAWA indicated that, the 4th PAWA Annual Lecture was instituted as part of efforts to “sensitise the African people to the basic truism of their common destiny through literature.

In answer to a question on what PAWA intended doing on the infamous statement by the Nobel Laureate in medicine, George Watson, proclaiming that the African was genetically inferior in intelligence and in every other sphere of life to the White man, Festus Iyayi, Programmes Development Advisor for PAWA debunked Dr Watson's assertion saying, “nothing can prove this rabid racist talk more wrong than what we (Africans) have achieved”.

By Scholastica Nyarko