The 126 swore the oath of allegiance to Ghana after receiving Ghanaian passports at a ceremony at the Jubilee House in Accra on Wednesday.

President Akufo-Addo charged the new Ghanaian citizens to abide by the country’s laws and strive to protect its image at all times.

“Your decision to be a Ghanaian citizen means that you have agreed to respect and abide by the laws of Ghana and live in accordance with the tenets of Ghana’s Constitution. You have the responsibility of preserving and promoting the image of the country whose reputation amongst the community of nations is today, high,” Akufo-Addo said.

The Director of Diaspora Affairs at the Office of the President, Akwasi Awuah Ababio, had earlier said that about 200 people were in line to be granted Ghanaian citizenship.

“For some of them, they have been in the country for so long and they deserve it,” Mr Ababio said.

In 2016, 30 Africans in the Diaspora were also granted Ghanaian citizenship.

The Year of Return is an initiative by the government to celebrate 400 years of the slave trade.

The event which started in January 2019 has seen a lot of personalities visiting the country.

Celebrities like Mutabaruka, Deborah Cox, AJ Johnson, Samuel L Jackson, Danny Glover, Steve Harvey have all been in the country.

The celebration hits its crescendo in December 2019 where a litany of programmes have been tabled for the celebration.

The “Year of Return, Ghana 2019” is a major landmark spiritual and birth-right journey inviting the Global African family, home and abroad, to mark 400 years of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia.