The former First Lady of Ghana stepped in as a last-minute replacement panellist during the Second African Diaspora Heritage Trail Conference in Hamilton and spoke of the importance of family and particularly that the African-rooted tradition of community as 'family' should not be lost to descendants of that continent.

Charismatic Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings' unexpected and off-the-cuff speech was well received by the audience amidst talk of the promise of a Pan-African community.

According to Mrs Rawlings, the wife of former Ghana leader Jerry John Rawlings, agencies of "The West" such as the CIA have during history prevented African nations and the countries and communities of the African Diaspora from coming together for fear of them gaining to much power and influence.

She mentioned her husband's encouragement in 1988 to Ghana's Diaspora to return to their home and build their nation and her own work empowering Ghana women politically, socially and economically.

In the Harbourview Ballroom she talked about the importance of family, saying: "There are various ways that we can connect and reconnect. Prof. Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka (another delegate and Africa's first Nobel Prize winner for Literature) spoke about the family factor. His daughter is the same age as my youngest sister. She came to live with us, so I knew his daughter. It is a small world.

"So I'm talking about family. Please, please don't allow our family units to be broken down. The family is bigger than the 'nuclear unit'. The extended family is the real family. When I was growing up everyone in the community was your mum and dad, so let us keep the family together." At the discussion on Africa and the promise and challenges of the African Diaspora Heritage development, she was joined by Emeritus Professor of History Jacob Ade Ajayi, who said it was important and right to use the term Pan-African, and added: "We must see ourselves as being involved in a war to re-conquer our heritage."

Traditions that have been repressed or half-forgotten because of the imposition of history through the prism of colonialism, he argued, and they needed to reclaimed. And the vision for a united African continent came from the Diaspora as did the struggle against slavery and colonialism, he said.

Prof. Ajayi warned there are new colonial powers, mentioning the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, criticising their removing of funding for "our universities" because of an insistence that basic education is more important than higher education. He argued it is the other way around, saying higher education is the place where the teachers of tomorrow are created. "We have to remind ourselves about these struggles, the struggle to possess our humanity and culture," he said.