Mbeki receives law doctorate

Mbeki

President Thabo Mbeki received a long-awaited honorary doctorate in law from Ghana's Cape Coast University on Wednesday, according to his office.

The university had decided to offer it to him back in 2002 but he had not had the chance the visit the country to receive it, said spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga.

He therefore made use of his current visit to the African Union summit, hosted in Ghana, to do so.

"The political and economic integration of Africa has to happen, not merely because we share the same history, populate common geographical space and exhibit identical physiological features but because our destinies are intrinsically bonded together," Mbeki said upon being conferred the doctorate by the university chancellor Dr Sam Jonah.

"It is important at all times to be part of a systematic indissoluble process of critical engagement by Africans themselves so as to arrive at the best conceivable political and economic arrangements."

Mbeki said it was important to do this while "engaging actively in the Titanic struggle of deepening democracy, of ensuring effective governance of, by and for the African people attaining peace and stability as well as accelerating development, thus helping to bring an end to the indecencies of war, conflicts, autocracy and poverty.

These factors, he said, had been the defining mark of the existence of Africans, for centuries.

The city of Cape Coast is west of Accra and the institution is Ghana's leading in university in teaching and research, according to the web site Wikipedia.

Founded in 1962, it is one of six public universities in the West African country. - Sapa