The frosty relation between Nigeria and Ghana dates back to the colonial era, when both states were agitating for flag independence from the same colonial master, Great Britain. Each country wanted to achieve the status of unencumbered statehood before the other. Ghana ultimately won when the dominant Ahmadu Bello-led Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) insisted that it was premature for Nigeria to become an independent nation. Ghana consequently achieved flag independence in 1957 while Nigeria was to do so three long years later.
Majority of those who led the struggle for independence in Nigeria were either educated in Ghanaian institutions or worked in Ghana for a while as journalists or were mentored by Kwame Nkrumah. It was therefore to be expected that Ghana, though a very tiny nation relative to the size and population of Nigeria, saw herself as the tail wagging the dog of political relationship between both nations.
But that was not all. The competition for status reared up its ugly head when the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was mooted in 1961. Ghana and Nigeria belonged to two opposing camps. The Casablanca Group led by some of the continent’s most prominent ‘radicals,’ such as Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt, Ghana’s Nkrumah and Guinea’s Sekou Toure – desired the political unification of Africa under a supranational, pan-African authority after the manner of the European Economic Community. Member-nations of the group also pledged to support the nationalist movement fighting for Algerian independence from France.
But the rival bloc, known as the Monrovia Group, comprising the greater number of African leaders, including Liberia’s William Tolbert and Nigeria’s Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa, held a limited view of Pan-Africanism that did not envisage the loss of nationalism and independent statehood. Members equally backed the colonial master, France, against the Algerian resistance. The groups also supported opposing factions in the Congo Crisis of 1960-65 based on their world view and doctrinal leanings.
Although the Casablanca Group, for lack of critical mass, had to set aside its ‘radical’ values and ideas to make the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) a reality in 1963, its leaders never stopped perceiving those on the other side of the divide as stooges of former colonial powers – and this was largely reflected by way of the OAU being a toothless bulldog that achieved very little in terms of integration and unity on the continent. The other causative factor is the animosity arising from intense rivalry between Ghana and Nigeria in the field of sports, especially football.
It is equally obvious that the tit-for-tat maltreatment of Nigerians in Ghana and Ghanaians in Nigeria is deeply rooted in the Mosaic law of “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” The first significant deportation of Nigerians from the Gold Coast (the pre-independence name of Ghana) occurred as far back as 1954. Another wave of deportations took place four years later in 1958. But by far the most far-reaching was the deportation of about three million other African and non-African immigrants – with Nigerians constituting about 80% – in 1969 under the “Ghana Aliens Compliance Order” (GACO) enacted by Ghanaian Prime Minister Kofi Busia.
In 1983 – in the wake of devastating riots that engulfed parts of the North as well as to justify the politically-motivated deportation of Shugaba Abdurrahman Darman, the highly influential majority leader of the Great Nigerian Peoples Party in the old Borno State House of Assembly – all of which occurred in 1980 – President Shehu Shagari issued an executive order mandating the deportation of about two million undocumented immigrants back to their home countries. Given that Ghanaians comprised not less than 75% of the deportees, the order came to be known as “Ghana must Go!”
A Freudian slip made by the Ghanaian Information Minister at a recent widely publicised press interview lends credence to the supposition that the doctrine of reciprocity premises the unparalleled harassment Nigerian retail business owners are currently experiencing in Ghana. He posited that the decision of the Nigerian government to close the Seme Krake border since August 2019 to date has continued to gravely affect other countries in the ECOWAS economic bloc. It is therefore crystal-clear that the decision of the Ghanaian authorities to start enforcing the draconian provisions of its Investment Promotion Act 865 enacted in 2013 is nothing more than a retaliatory measure.
Section 27(1) of the Act stipulates that “A person who is not a (Ghanaian) citizen, or an enterprise which is not wholly owned by a citizen, shall not invest or participate in the sale of goods or provision of services in a market, petty trading or hawking or selling of goods in a stall at any place.” Section 28(1) of the same Act stipulates that “A foreigner may participate in an enterprise specified in Section 27 if that person, in the case of a joint enterprise with a partner, who is a (Ghanaian) citizen, invests a foreign capital of not less than $200,000 (about N80million!) in cash or capital goods relevant to the investment or a combination of both by way of equity participation and the partner, who is a citizen, does not have less than 10% equity participation in the joint enterprise.” The Act further provides that “A person, who is not a (Ghanaian) citizen, may engage in a trading enterprise if that person invests in the enterprise not less than $1million (about N400million!!) in cash or goods and services relevant to the investment. Such an investor is also required to employ at least 20 skilled Ghanaians.”
What the Ghanaian government seeks to achieve with this law is very obvious. Not only does it want to shut out foreigners by infusing landmines in the retail sector, but it is also hoping that foreigners who miraculously beat the long odds would be forced into starting an Apprenticeship Scheme that would see Ghanaians acquiring the necessary skills and competencies to eventually enable them take over the sector.
• Tiko Okoye, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja