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Germany Picks Ghana As Location For West African Centre If Global Health

The German Government has picked Ghana as the location for the West African Centre for Global Health and Pandemic Prevention.

The German ambassador to Ghana, Christoph Retzlaff, made this known via a tweet.

This is coming barely one week after Twitter also chose to locate its Africa base in Ghana.

Retzlaff tweeted, “Excellent news: Germany Flag of Germany will support [the] launch of a new “German-West African Center for Global Health and Pandemic Prevention.

“It will be located in Ghana and be part of eight new centres worldwide to fight global challenges.”

Nigerians had taken to social media to make their opinions known after social networking service, Twitter, decided to make Ghana its African headquarters.

Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, revealed on Monday that it had finally set up an office in Africa and it would be in Ghana.

“Twitter is now present on the continent. Thank you Ghana and President Nana Akufo-Addo,” he tweeted.

Reacting, Ghana’s President thanked Twitter for its decision, adding that he had met with Dorsey and he was confident the move would be the beginning of new things.

Akufo-Addo tweeted, “The choice of Ghana as HQ for Twitter’s Africa operations is excellent news. The government and Ghanaians welcome very much this announcement and the confidence reposed in our country.

“As I indicated in our virtual meeting of April 7, 2021, this is the start of a beautiful partnership between Twitter and Ghana, which is critical for the development of Ghana’s hugely important tech sector. These are exciting times to be in, and to do business in Ghana.”

The development, however, caused a series of reactions on Twitter which is believed to be the most radical social network.

The regime of the Nigerian President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has in recent time sought stiffer penalties for persons who “misuse social media”.

The Senate is currently deliberating on Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill 2019 commonly known as the Anti-social media bill.

It seeks to criminalise the use of the social media in peddling false or malicious information. It was sponsored by Senator Mohammed Musa, a member of the President’s party, the All Progressives Congress.

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