A viral video set the ever boisterous social media buzzing with literal fire penultimate week. It was about a ‘Nigerians must go’ protest that rocked the streets of Accra, the capital of Ghana.
The news immediately revved up panic and apprehensions back home. The resultant tensions sparked were akin to those associated with the xenophobic attacks that were unleashed on Nigerians some years back in South Africa.
The protesters, many of whom were draped in the Ghanaian flag and some others in red, known to be a traditional symbol of resistance, demanded the immediate expulsion of Nigerians. They lamented repeated incidents of criminal activities and social vices in their once quiescent country, a development they blamed on non-Ghanaians, especially Nigerians.
The protesters were seen in their large numbers in the viral video, wielding placards with various inscriptions such as “Armed robbery and violent attacks must stop”; “Our health at stake due to mass prostitution”; “Who protects the right and freedom of Ghanaians?” “Nigerians are kidnapping and using people for rituals”; “Our kids are getting missing because of Igbos.”
The protesters also displayed the picture of a man alleged to have been killed by a Nigerian in the country’s capital city. One female protester, dressed in red and holding a placard, thundered that “Nigerians must go because you cannot be in someone’s country and be doing anyhow.”
Another bemoaned the health and safety risks being posed by prostitution and the growing public frustration over other social vices allegedly linked to Nigerian nationals in their country.
Mercifully, however, the swift official interventions from both countries prevented the issues from snowballing into a major crisis that could have engendered diplomatic tiff between the two important West African nations.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, immediately after the disturbing video went viral, despatched a federal delegation, led by the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mrs. Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, to Ghana to assess the situation.
Mrs Ojukwu subsequently addressed a joint press conference with her Ghanaian counterpart, Samuel Ablakwa. The interaction was punctuated by diplomatic niceties, admonitions and assurances, putting the potentially incendiary situation into a denouement.
The reaction of the Ghanaians is ordinarily understandable, because some years back, Ghana was reportedly so crime-free that you could pack your car by the main road overnight, leave all the doors ajar and with the key in the ignition. You will meet your car intact the following day! So, the slide of the country into crime is such that could make an average Ghanaian’s gorge to rise.
However, the sweeping generalization about Nigerians being responsible for the spike in crimes in Ghana is an execrable misnomer. It is grossly unfair.
We agree totally with the Nigerian government’s position on this, as enunciated by the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, that the blanket outrage against Nigerians living in Ghana and branding them as criminals is condemnable.
According to her, Nigerians are not criminals. They are good ambassadors wherever they find themselves. “Ghana and Nigeria,” Abike-Dabiri noted, via a statement signed by Abdur-Rahman Balogun, spokesman of NIDCOM, “are like Siamese twins. They are brothers and in the spirit of ECOWAS and regional integration, should continue to live in peace like brothers”.
So, rather than slamming a blanket stigmatization on Nigerians living in Ghana, what the authorities in Ghana should do from time to time is to ferret out the bad ones among the non-indigenes through intelligence network and prosecute them.
We also admonish Nigerians living in Ghana to behave well at all times and to find a way, possibly through union activities, to check and constantly isolate egregious elements among them whose excesses could foul the air of peace.
For example, one of the offending issues was the action of a man from a particular tribe in Nigeria, who allegedly purchased a large swathe of land in Ghana and declared himself a king, an impolitic move that could spark fears of a territorial ambition in another man’s territory.
There are also concerns about some Nigerians who are alleged to be trafficking young women to Ghana for prostitution, using the country as a transit route for this sordid business to Europe. These and other heinous activities should be constantly checked to avoid the resurgence of trouble with the host communities and the authorities.
The ‘Nigerians must go’ protest, as mild as it was, is a saddening turn steeped in ironic twist, one that spits sputum of shame on our face as a nation.
The protest is a throwback to 1983 when things were rosier in Nigeria, even though the nation had started experiencing an economic downturn and rising unemployment. Over two million immigrants, including about one million Ghanaians, were expelled from Nigeria.
Coined as the “Ghana Must Go” episode, the term referred to the patterned travel bags used by deported Ghanaians. Up till then, life remained in a relatively upward swing as the costs of living were manageably cheap, compared to the current realities.
Ghanaians and other African nationals and Asians, especially Indians, had found relative succour in Nigeria. They were mostly employed in the nation’s secondary schools as English Language and Mathematics teachers. There were also many artisans of Ghana origin in many Nigerian cities. They were escaping the hardship occasioned by the economic downturn back home.
Today, 42 years after, the table has turned. Things have so nosedived that Ghana now bristles with a miscellany of Nigerians. About one million Nigerians are estimated to be living in Ghana at present.
Relatively young Nigerians are believed to be flocking to Ghana in search of better educational opportunities, economic stability and a more favorable business environment. Many of them see Ghana as a destination with a perceptively better economy, a functional educational system, and a relatively stable power supply. Ghana, as a matter of fact, celebrated one year of uninterrupted power supply some years back.
However, the Ghanaian President, John Mahama, who lived in Nigeria before he assumed the position, made light of the issue. He said the viral video that caused the tensions was a decade-old one recirculated by a Nigerian resident in Ghana, which sparked protests involving fewer than 50 people.
He assured that the situation was swiftly managed and promised to protect the lives, properties, and businesses of Nigerians in Ghana, vowing that xenophobia has no place in Ghana.
The president reaffirmed Ghana’s commitment to ensuring the safety and security of Nigerian nationals and their businesses. He emphasised the shared history and brotherly relationship between Nigeria and Ghana, saying that nothing would be allowed to come in between the two countries.
President Mahama reportedly spoke when he received the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mrs. Odumegwu-Ojukwu, at the Presidential Palace, Accra. According to a statement signed by the Special Assistant on Communication and New Media in the Office of the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Magnus Eze, on Friday, Mahama urged President Bola Tinubu not to lose sleep over the incident.
The Ghanaian leader also reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) protocols, particularly those concerning the free movement of persons and goods within the region.
The ‘Japa’ syndrome, a sobriquet for Nigerians’ new-found proclivity for a desperate escape from the hardship in the country, is now so ingrained that people are looking for every available means to flee abroad, including a ghoulish expedition across the desert to Europe.
Nigerians’ ‘beautiful brides’ in this oddly mass exodus are no longer limited to America, Europe and Asian countries. They are fleeing even to ordinarily lackluster African neighbours, which used to coddle and dote on Nigeria as their proverbial ‘big brother,’ which earned the nation the moniker, the ‘Giant of Africa!’
Those were the nostalgic but tragic-comic oil boom days when it was said that our problem was not money but how to spend it! Successive military interregnums, convoluted political subterfuges and planlessness have meshed together with unbridled larceny of the treasury through ingrained corruption to sunder the ‘giant’. What a swizz!
Nigeria and Ghana have had a long history of inter-migration cooperation and camaraderie dating back to the colonial era. But that trajectory has been ruptured by diplomatic rumpus for some time.
The diplomatic ruptures began in 1969 when the Ghanaian Prime Minister then, Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia, issued the infamous Aliens Compliance Order mandating all “undocumented foreigners” to leave Ghana within two weeks.
That order resulted in the expulsion of about 140,000 Nigerians. Ghana justified the action as a necessity to preserve jobs and stabilize its economy, but it sowed seeds of distrust and triggered diplomatic face off.
When the table turned in 1983 and Nigeria also expelled over two million illegal immigrants, including an estimated one million Ghanaians, even though Nigeria justified the move on the imperative to enforce immigration laws, many saw it as retaliation for Ghana’s 1969 action.
However, by the late 1980s, the strained relations between the two countries were mended as Presidents Jerry Rawlings of Ghana and Ibrahim Babangida of Nigeria respectively pursued reconciliation.
The renewed diplomatic civilities between the two countries resulted in the establishment of a joint commission for cooperation, which paved the way for better trade, cultural exchange and conflict mediation. These efforts helped restore diplomatic balance and engendered a renewed commitment to ECOWAS principles of free movement.
Another diplomatic rupture snowballed in the 2020s over immigration issues in which Nigerian-owned businesses were targeted in enforcement sweeps. Nigeria was incensed and accused Ghana of xenophobia, but Ghana demurred, insisting on legal compliance. It was an anxious moment, but the tensions were dissipated as reason prevailed.
In the final analysis, however, we admonish the Tinubu administration to put a human face to its harsh economic policies by building enough bulwarks that cater more to the vulnerable segments of society.
The twin- policies of withdrawal of fuel subsidy and the liberalization of the foreign exchange policy foisted an unprecedented regime of poverty, hunger and misery on the unprepared Nigerians because they were suddenly implemented without putting in place adequate safeguards or cushions to protect the vulnerable population against the harsh effects.
Even though these harsh policies were hailed by economists as a necessary step to stymie fiscal collapse, the tailspin worsened the ‘Japa’ syndrome, as more Nigerians are fleeing the country, a development that exposes them to potential immigration fissures like the Ghana protest.
Therefore, the current administration owes it a duty to immediately prioritize the cushioning of the harsh effects of these policies on the vulnerable Nigerians.
In doing that, they should go beyond the tokenism like cash transfer that does not reach enough people. The administration’s experts should work at drastically bringing down inflation and making food and other prices more affordable.
Then, the state governors should redirect their spendings and reduce profligacy to ensure that the vulnerable segments in their domains feel the impact of the humongous monthly revenue allocations now streaming to them.
After all, tackling poverty among the population is supposed to be part of the reasons adduced for withdrawing fuel subsidies. But as it is now, there is little or nothing to show for the fat allocations being shelled to the states, as the people are mired deeper and deeper in poverty and misery.
If the states do not turn a new leaf, then we urge Labour and the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to start focusing their binoculars on them with a view to making them shed part of the increasing resources accruing to them for the poor.
We must start addressing some of the factors impelling Nigerians to increasingly flee the country, in the first place.
