81st UNGA: Mahama Preaches Against Weaponised Belonging
President John Dramani Mahama has warned the United Nations (UN) against the political manipulation of identity and belonging.
According to him, weaponising belonging by political expediency transforms into nativism, chauvinism, xenophobia and a pretext for discrimination, displacement, persecution and war.
Delivering his address at the 81st UN General Assembly in New York on September 24, 2026, President Mahama observed that world leaders too often ascend the UN heights draped only in the robes of their titles, forgetting that alongside each of them stands a history, a people and a legacy.
In a deeply personal reflection, he traced his own roots to Damongo, then a modest town in northern Ghana and now the capital of the Savannah Region, where he was born to Mr Emmanuel Adama Mahama of Bole and Madam Abiba Nnaba Suluwa of Busunu, both of blessed memory.
“I belong to them. I belong to the foremothers and forefathers who birthed them, who named them, nurtured them, and passed down the enduring values by which I live,” he said.
President Mahama said he grew up at the crossroads of several Ghanaian cultures.
“I speak Gonja, a Guan language. I speak Akan and Ga. I am fluent in Hausa, spoken across the West African savannah and Sahel. I understand some Ewe. And I speak English,” he told the Assembly.
In a very real sense, he said, he belongs to all these peoples because their tongues have become his tongue, stressing that language creates kinship regardless of the historical complexities through which the kinship was forged.
He noted that every global citizen possesses an origin and carries inherited memories, values, rich cultures and distinct identities.
According to him, belonging anchors humanity and is a vital wellspring of dignity and pride, but it also has a dark side when exploited for political gain.
“It becomes the pretext for discrimination, displacement, persecution, and war,” he cautioned.
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