UN role in Kofi Annan burial 'touching' – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Akufo-Addo has expressed appreciation to the United Nations (UN) for the role they played in burying the late UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations died on 18 August 2018 in Bern, Switzerland and was buried on Thursday, 13 September 2018, at a private ceremony at the new military cemetery in Accra, Ghana, with full military honours and a 17-gun salute.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres attended the funeral with other UN staff to pay their final respects to the Ghanaian diplomat.

Addressing the 73rd UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, 26 September 2018, Mr Akufo-Addo said: “On behalf of the people and government of Ghana, I wish to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the United Nations Secretariat, led by the Secretary-General, His Excellency António Guterres, and the whole world community for the outpouring of grief and condolences that we received on the passing of Kofi Annan. We were deeply touched that so many world leaders and people took the trouble to come to Accra to bid him farewell”.

He added that Mr Annan’s passionate and profound belief in the United Nations, and his certainty that a better-organised and stronger UN would make the world a better place, is an ideal that should not be allowed to die.

Mr Annan was given a three-day state funeral by the government of Ghana to celebrate his life and contribution to humanity worldwide.



The final funeral rites which took place at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC) was attended by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his wife, Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and his wife, former presidents Jerry John Rawlings and his wife; John Agyekum Kufuor and John Mahama.

Also present were several world leaders including President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, George Weah of Liberia, Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire, Hage Geingob of Namibia and Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger.

Others include the Angolan Vice-President Bornito de Sousa; the former Queen of the Netherlands, Princess Beatrix; the Deputy Chief of the African Union Commission Kwesi Quartey; a former Prime Minister of Kenya, Mr Raila Odinga; the National Assembly Speaker of Kenya, Justin Muturi; South Korea’s former Ambassador to the United States, Choi Young; the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control in the United States of America, Andrea L. Thompson; former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, among others.