AYV News, May 26, 2025
President of Sierra Leone, Dr. Julius Maada Bio, has called on African colleagues to have the courage to challenge external demands when they do not serve their people’s interests. He was delivering a keynote address at the Oxford Africa Summit 2025 in the United Kingdom, on the theme ‘Changing Narratives: Vision, Action, and Transformation of Africa’.
President Bio said: “To our international partners, we welcome collaboration that is grounded in mutual respect and shared interests, but understand that the era of externally imposed solutions is over. Our continent, the cradle of humanity and home to ancient civilisations, bears immense cultural wealth, yet it has been reduced to simplistic narratives of dependency, conflict, and underdevelopment. These external narratives have influenced global perceptions and, more dangerously, have shaped how we view ourselves”.
President Bio expressed dismay that a continent of 1.5 billion people, with the youngest population in the world, vast natural resources, and boundless creativity, still struggles to control its narrative and shape its future. He called on colleagues to reimagine Africa not as it has been portrayed but as we know it to be. Turn to page 10 of this edition for President Bio’s full address at Oxford.
