July 15 - Bissau, Guinea Bissau and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Nine (9) more naturalization applications have been completed and are now ready to go before the Republic of Guinea Bissau’s Council of Ministers for final approval. Early this year, twenty people of Guinean origin, as proven by the African Ancestry dna test, were granted citizenship. Five of them have since returned to their ancestral homeland to receive their passports. Another twenty or also being processed and will be ready to go before the Council of Ministers before the end of the summer. For all this, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has praised President Umaro Sissoco Embaló.
Siphiwe Baleka, President of the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America (BBHAGSIA) and Coordinator for Guinea Bissau’s Decade of Return program stated,
“More and more people are looking to their ancestral homeland both as a place of refuge and as a place of opportunity. It is among my greatest achievements to have helped so many Afrodescendants exercise their Right to Return and repair the damage of ethnocide and loss of their identity and status in the world. Citizenshp in one’s ancestral homeland is the first reparation that African Union member statess must provide before any reparations from the enslaving nations.”
President Ibrahim Traore and the Republic of Burkina Faso is now joining Ghana, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau and Benin in granting Citizenship to Afrodescendants. Yesterday at 10:23 pm, following the Friends of President Ibrahim Traore in the West delegation’s debriefing following their succesful mission to Burkina Faso, the African Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI) announced,
The government of Burkina Faso has confirmed that our ADDI mission trip to include the conferement of Burkina Faso citizenship will take place from October 26th to November 8th, 2025. Come to our zoom meeting Saturday, July 19th at 11:00 am EST to find out more.”
According to the ADDI Website, on January 18, 2025 ADDI announced that President Traore put an executive order in place in which “The government of Burkina Faso has asked ADDI to spearhead a citizenship initiative that invites African Diaspora to apply to be citizens of Burkina Faso.
There will be two Tiers of applications.
Tier I=All those who have traced their lineage to Burkina Faso through their DNA.
Tier II=Any black Diaspora
The government of Burkina Faso has indicated that the ceremony conferring citizenship will happen in June 2025.” That ceremony has now been confirmed to take place from October 26th to November 8th.
Meanwhile, back in September, 2024, Benin’s President, Patrice Talon, passed a law in September 2024 that gives citizenship to those who can trace their lineage to the slave trade, part of an attempt by the country to reckon with their participation in the slave trade. The way the law works is that anyone over the age of 18 who does not already hold African citizenship and can provide proof that an ancestor was deported via the slave trade anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa is eligible to become a citizen of Benin. Benin’s authorities will accept a variety of materials, including DNA tests, authenticated testimonies, and family records. Applications will be vetted, applicants will receive a provisional certificate of nationality, which is valid for three years, and in order to complete the process, they must stay in Benin at least once within the three years to become a citizen.
Applications for recognition of Beninese nationality for Afro-descendants must be submitted via the https://afrodescendant.gouv.bj platform. According to the website,
“The provisional certificate of recognition of nationality is issued within one (01) month. Applications for definitive attestation of Beninese nationality by recognition are submitted to the Minister of Justice by the applicant who is physically present on the territory of the Republic of Benin.
The provisional certificate gives the beneficiary freedom of entry, residence and exit from the territory of the Republic of Benin.
Beninese nationality by way of recognition is granted by a decree issued by the Council of Ministers on a proposal from the Minister of Justice. Beninese nationality by recognition confers on the beneficiary :
- freedom to enter, reside in and leave the territory of the Republic of Benin.
- the right to a certificate of Beninese nationality by recognition and a Beninese passport.
- the right to pass on Beninese nationality to descendants.
Beneficiaries of Beninese nationality by recognition may acquire full Beninese nationality and all the rights attached thereto at any time, in accordance with the legislation on nationality.