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The President, Nana Akufo-Addo, has charged African writers to exhibit a high sense of integrity in telling the true African story as they contribute their quota to the development of the continent.

According to him, there is nothing to be gained in trying to paint a false picture about the continent as a way of redressing the centuries of being maligned.

“When you write, what you write must have integrity. What is written about Africa by African writers must have the ultimate reference status.

“When the integrity of the writer is compromised, the library is well and truly burnt”, he noted.

The President made these statements when he addressed the 24th African Writers’ Day in Accra.

He emphasised that writers of African descent have a responsibility to be brutally frank in their writing about the continent, and not engage in vain praise singing.

“When praise singing is often used as the official assessment of government performance, then we are inflicting as much damage as those who seek to demean Africa”.

According to him, when African writers produce books, treaties, articles and dissertations that deliberately distort the truth because it serves their personal preferences, they equally discredit the continent as those who deliberately distort its true history.

He paid glowing tribute to the immense contribution of African writers to the liberation of the African continent from imperialism and setting the tone for the discourse about the African identity.

The President, however, emphasised that Africa will only be able to achieve its value and portray a shining image of itself if it is able to educate its citizens and improve its economies.

“When our young people do not see a future in their country and cross the Saharan desert on foot and drown in the Mediterranean Sea in a desperate bid to reach the mirage of a better life in Europe, no amount of beautiful lyrics will change our image,” he stressed.

He opined that when the African economies are improved, its people educated and there is increasing prosperity, people will then begin to care about the environment and the arts, and indeed the sciences will thrive as well.

“We have to get our populations educated. We have to get the skills that are required to compete in the modern economy and we have to gain the self confidence that comes from being truly independent,” he added.

He charged the writers to tell the African story truthfully and with flare. “Give praise where it has been earned and criticism where it is deserved”, he noted.