Africans have always been willing to emigrate in search of a better life, and in the 1960s the relatively prosperous Ghanaian economy attracted many immigrants from other West African territories, notably Nigeria. By 1970 there was a general feeling that the economy was being exploited by foreigners who were strongly established in the commercial sector and the government of Dr. Kofi Busia was finally persuaded to expel them on short notice. By the mid-1970s, with Ghana’s economy in serious trouble, the flow of immigrants had reversed and Ghanaians were heading in large numbers to oil-rich Nigeria. In 1983, it was time for Nigerians to take revenge and as many as a million Ghanaians were given three weeks to leave the country.
The main route from Nigeria to Ghana is along the Gulf of Guinea coast through the states of Benin (formerly Dahomey) and Togo. Migrants struggling to beat the deadline traveled along the coastal highway through Cotonou in Benin to reach Lomé in Togo and the border with Ghana. Here his progress stopped. The government of Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings closed the border and denied returnees entry. Despite calls from all over Ghana and from international agencies and governments, the border remained closed for more than two weeks as the crowd gathered at the gate swelled to approximately half a million souls.
There was much speculation as to why the government prevented the re-entry of its citizens. Perhaps the revolutionary regime at the time doubted the political loyalty of the hundreds of thousands of vigorous young men who had mostly left Ghana before Rawling’s two coups on June 4, 1979 and December 31, 1981. Nigeria was known to be more violent than Ghana, with much more gun crime. Who is to say what scale of political unrest or wave of violent crime could result from the mass influx of these people facing long-term unemployment?
Others felt that whatever social problems they may bring, the returnees were their sons and daughters who could not be denied entry to the homeland. Among these were the traditional rulers who had a pastoral concern for their people. By far the most powerful of these was Otumfuo Opoku Ware II, Asantehene, King of Ashanti, who traveled 250 kilometers from his palace in Kumasi to the seat of the national government at Osu Castle in Accra. Traveling by road, the Asantehene crossed the Pra River, a historical and symbolic gesture signifying war.
What the King of Ashanti told the young flight lieutenant was not reported at the time, but the border opened three days before the Nigerian deadline. The returnees piled into cocoa trucks and huge articulated vehicles and drove triumphantly through towns and villages to the cheers of huge crowds who gathered to welcome them home. Aid agencies that had pooled resources near the border in anticipation of an urgent refugee situation found their services largely unused as the masses spread rapidly to their home cities and towns.
It may have surprised some observers that the returnees were greeted as heroes, as warriors returning from the successful defense of their country against an outside aggressor, but that is how they were viewed. In many ways they represented the cream of the nation’s youth: those with the energy and drive who, finding no livelihood at home, were prepared to pioneer a new life in a strange land. In a world where ‘life is war’, these were economic warriors. At least they had relieved their families of the burden of their upkeep for several years; at most they returned or brought much more than they had taken. They had suffered greatly at the hands of governments and everyone was relieved to see them safe at home.
