ACCRA, Ghana -- As Ghana prepares to receive President Barack Obama today in his first presidential visit to a sub-Saharan country, Ghanaians say the world ought to see the country for more than its political strides in achieving good governance, but also for its diversity.

Mr. Obama plans to highlight Ghana's progress as a budding democracy with stability and prosperity as an example for other African nations, many of which are prone to violence and upheaval. While Ghanaians are proud of that, they also want the world to see the country as a friendly, multi-cultural society open to new ideas.

"No matter where you come from, we will welcome you and I think that's why many West Africans are here, because they feel at home," said Samira Akaribase, a cashier who lives in English-speaking Accra, but hails from Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region of northern Ghana.

For Ghanaians who pride themselves in having a reputation as the friendliest people in Africa, the spirit of openness to the world, they say, dates back to the ideals of Kwame Nkrumah, the man who ushered Ghana to independence from the British on March 6, 1957. Mr. Nkrumah was educated at Lincoln University, near Philadelphia.

"He is the one who called on us to look at all of Africa as one. We are all Africans and we are all Ghanaians," said Justice Kojo Tsekpo, 44, general manager of the Monte Carlo Grand Café, one of the hottest nightclubs in this city's Labone Estates neighborhood.

Mr. Nkrumah, who was thrown out of power in a military coup in 1966, is specifically celebrated in Africa, not only for his leadership in the fight for independence, but also for his vision of one United States of Africa. He proposed this at a 1958 Accra summit of African leaders from independent and non-independent states.

To foster his vision, Mr. Nkrumah, who died in Romania in 1972, married an Egyptian woman as a symbol of how Africans could cross cultural and ethnic boundaries.

And even though his vision may not have materialized, his people carried forward the spirit of his dream -- that Ghana ought to be a place where all Africans, and people from all over the world, for that matter, ought to feel welcome, said Gbenga Ismail.

A Nigerian real estate developer, Mr. Ismail, 39, who lives in Lagos, said he flies into Accra almost every weekend "because of the dynamic social scene here."

"I enjoy coming to Accra because of what it has become, a city that embodies almost all of what West Africa has to offer," he said. "There is not only a big Nigerian community here, but a really good mix of people from all over."

Ghanaian immigration officials could not give specific data on how many West African nationals now live and work in Accra or other parts of the country. But on the streets of Accra, the diversity of people is hard to miss.

In a city with a rich blend of languages spoken, from English to French to Ga, the language of the Ghanaian group that settled in Accra, the language often gives away the diversity of cultures living here.

From the business district of central Accra to the expansive slum that extends along the oceanfront on the western side of the city, one is likely to hear a different kind of pidgin English or French, traceable to a specific group of people.

And more than nationalities, Ghana has a varying scale of racial ethnic groups because of its history. Initially settled by the Portuguese, then the British, Indian and Lebanese traders, the result of their intermarriages with native Africans explains why there is a range of skin colors in this country of about 28 million people.

Ghanaians range in appearance from dark black Africans to mixed race people similar to Mr. Obama, to brown and white. In fact, Ghana's longest-ruling president, Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings, who took power in a second successful coup in 1981, is the product of a Scottish white father and a black African mother.

Mr. Rawlings imposed one-party rule, basically a dictatorship, from 1981 to 1992, when he opened the country up to multi-party politics again. He was then elected as president, serving two terms until 2000, when he handed over power to former President John Kufuor.

That welcoming attitude has not always been the case in Ghana, notwithstanding Mr. Nkrumah's vision. In 1969, the country enacted the Aliens Compliance Order, which had the effect of expelling many foreign nationals, particularly Nigerians.

Ghanaians, who still discuss the effects of the Aliens Compliance Order, contend it stained the spirit of openness to foreigners that they had long cultivated.

It would be years after the creation of the Economic Community of West African States in 1975 that Ghana would start to see a flow of West Africans. That partnership was established among 16 countries to foster economic cooperation and growth in West Africa.

Mr. Tsekpo, 44, who grew up in Accra, recalled that he started seeing communities of other West Africans cropping up in the city in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Mr. Tsekpo said immigrant workers from Togo, Nigeria, Benin, Senegal and other countries settled in areas like Tudu, a city slum.

In the last decade, the civil wars that engulfed a number of Ghana's neighbors, including Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone, also saw a large number of West African nationals resettle in Accra and other parts of Ghana.

In 2007, government officials and international aid organizations estimated that about 45,000 refugees and internally displaced people from Liberia and Togo now call Ghana home.

That explains the growth of a town like Budumbura. Seated along the Atlantic Ocean between Accra and Cape Coast, it has grown into a mostly Liberian town since it was used as the staging area for Liberian refugees as they fled their country seeking new homes in Ghana and other places like the United States.

Ouro-Salim Mohamed, who recently moved to Accra from Cotocoli in Togo to seek work, said he considered going to Senegal because it is a French-speaking country, but he decided on Ghana because of the Ghanaians he had met while living in Italy years ago.

"They are just a very friendly people," Mr. Mohamed, 41, said. "I knew I wanted to come to Accra because it might be an easier place to start over."