Asantehene Endorses AU’s Designation of African Diaspora as its Sixth Region

The King of the Asante Kingdom, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has thrown his weight behind the designation of the African Diaspora as the sixth region of the African Union.

The move, the King observes, aligns with advocacy by famous individuals of African descent such as Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jnr, for all Africans to join a giant sovereign union of a single socio-political, economic and cultural identity.

Acknowledging the criticisms that have characterised the move, Otumfuo stated that it was an opportunity for realtime reconnection.

“We should not allow ourselves to continue to be divided. For me, this is not a mere symbolic designation; it is a living and breathing opportunity for political, economic and cultural revival,” the Asantehene said while speaking on November 12, 2025, at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies.

“We should leverage the AU designation and initiative to connect Africa and its diaspora, irrespective of where they are, when and how they got to their present location. By our calculation, this will amount to about 350 million people of African descent, which translates into the third biggest population in the world, if all the African Diaspora could be considered as living in one country.”

The AU in 2006 amended the Constitutive Act of the AU to include the African Diaspora as the Sixth Region of the continent in addition to the Central, Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western regions of Africa.

The Act defined the African Diaspora to include the people of the African region living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the AU.

The Article manifested an official recognition of the role of African Diaspora, irrespective of historical migration as either forced or voluntary (pre-slave trade, slave trade, post slave trade and modern migration) in advancing the Pan-African philosophy through the development or rebuilding of Africa and African heritage.

Story by Hajara Fuseini