LAGOS, Nigeria. (Voice Of Naija) Guyana’s President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali has called on all Guyanese at home and across the diaspora to build a nation defined by unity, shared prosperity and social cohesion, as the South American country marked the 188th anniversary of the abolition of slavery on Saturday with thousands gathering in Georgetown’s National Park for a day of cultural celebration, remembrance and reflection.
According to several news outlets, including Guyana Times, the President, In his official Emancipation Day 2026 address to the nation, President Ali paid tribute to the African ancestors who endured what he described as “the most abominable system ever known to mankind”, the transatlantic trade in captive Africans and the brutal machinery of chattel slavery. “Those subjected to the horrors of enslavement never relinquished their dignity, their humanity, or their quest for liberation,” Ali said in the address
The president recalled that when emancipation finally came in 1838, formerly enslaved Guyanese did not respond with bitterness. “When the long night of bondage gave way to the dawn of freedom, our forebears did not greet the morning with bitterness in their hearts,” he said. “Instead, they fixed their gaze steadily upon the future, seeking to create from their freedom a better world for themselves and for generations yet unborn.”
Ali closed his address with a direct call for national unity that carries particular significance in a country where ethnic divisions between Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese communities have historically shaped political life. “Let us continue to build a Guyana that is truly free, truly prosperous, and just for every man, woman, and child who calls this land home,” he said. “May the spirit of our African ancestors guide us. May their resilience inspire us. And may their dream of a united, dignified, and sovereign people live on in our hearts and hands today, and always.”
Mass public celebrations accompanied the formal address. According to The Guyana Chronicle, thousands of Guyanese, dressed in vibrant African prints, head wraps and handcrafted jewellery, filled the National Park in Georgetown for a festival hosted by the African Cultural and Development Association. The rhythmic beat of African drums echoed throughout the park all day, as dancers, drummers, and cultural performers captivated audiences while vendors served traditional African-inspired dishes.
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ACDA Director Chief Eric Phillips said this year’s observances were deliberately designed to help young Guyanese connect with their African roots, noting that 2026 marks 400 years of African presence in Guyana, a milestone that gave the day’s celebrations an added layer of historical weight.
Beyond the streets of Georgetown, Emancipation Day messages poured in from across Guyana’s political and institutional landscape. The People’s Progressive Party, Ali’s ruling party, extended greetings and called on all Guyanese to “draw inspiration from their courage as we work together to secure a brighter, more united, and prosperous future,” according to INews Guyana.
The Ethnic Relations Commission, a constitutional body charged with fostering harmony among Guyana’s diverse ethnic groups, described Emancipation Day as “an important occasion for reflection, education and national unity,” saying it is “in the sharing of each other’s history and heritage that tolerance is nurtured and the bonds of our nationhood are strengthened.”
The CARICOM Reparations Commission also issued a statement joining the people of the Caribbean, Africa and the global African diaspora in honouring what it described as “the courage, resistance and unyielding determination of our ancestors,” while affirming that the struggle for justice, dignity and equality “remains unfinished,”
Guyana, a small nation of approximately 800,000 people on the northeastern shoulder of South America, is one of the Caribbean Community’s most ethnically diverse societies, with populations of African, Indian, Indigenous, Chinese, Portuguese and mixed descent. Afro-Guyanese descendants of enslaved Africans make up approximately 29 per cent of the population and have shaped the country’s political, cultural, sporting and intellectual life for nearly two centuries since emancipation.
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According to Guyana Times, the country’s oil boom, driven by massive offshore discoveries by ExxonMobil, which is currently producing more than 650,000 barrels per day and expanding rapidly, has transformed Guyana’s economic prospects in ways that Ali’s government has framed as a historic opportunity to lift all communities out of poverty. ExxonMobil’s chief executive, speaking in Guyana this week, said he saw a “bright future” in the country’s offshore developments and that the company was “not done yet in Guyana,” a signal that the economic windfall that will define this generation of Guyanese leadership is still gathering pace.
Guyana’s Emancipation Day carries a resonance that crosses oceans. Nigeria is home to the largest Black population on earth and sits at the ancestral heart of the transatlantic slave trade, with historians estimating that a significant portion of the millions of Africans transported to the Americas, including to what is now Guyana, departed from ports along Nigeria’s coastline.
Emancipation Day, observed across the Caribbean on August 1 each year, is therefore not a foreign holiday but a chapter of Nigerian history one that connects the shores of the Niger Delta to the plantations of the Demerara, and the resilience of President Ali’s ancestors to the resilience of Nigeria’s own founding generations.
