[Ghanaian and African revolutionary leader Kwame Nkrumah with Chinese revolutionary, Mao]
Interview: Ghanaian official hail Africa-China relations
ACCRA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- A senior Ghanaian official has hailed the friendship between African countries and China, saying that the relations had brought benefit to the whole African continent.
In an interview with Xinhua here on Monday, Martha Pobee, Director for Information and Public Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, said that the huge headquarters of the African Union (AU), donated by the Chinese government, showed that the ties between Ghana and China since the west African nation attained independence in 1957 had inured to the benefit of, not only Ghana, but the whole continent.
"China's role in African development today is not coincidental, nor is it coincidental that they have built the AU building with the bust of Kwame Nkrumah (the first president of independent Ghana) in the foreground, but a relationship that has been nurtured over a long time," Pobee explained.
Pobee and many other high profile Ghanaians have expressed joy for the AU to honor Ghana's founding father, Kwame Nkrumah, with a bust at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
African leaders, including Ghanaian President John Evans Atta Mills and the chairman of the AU Commission Jean Ping, unveiled a huge bronze bust of Nkrumah at the courtyard of the magnificent AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital last Saturday.
It was extremely welcome news for the country, Pobee said, adding that "Ghana, and for that matter Nkrumah, championed the decolonization of Africa and also fought hard for continental unity, and our first president linked Ghana's independence to the total liberation of Africa and so the honor being done to him today is well in place".
