On a calm Sunday in the business hub around the Nkrumah Interchange in Accra, a Nigerian immigrant, Junior Izuwu, has crept out into the open with his tabletop where he sells phone accessories and repairs electronics.
Sundays are slow days and human traffic is minimal. Business is unlikely to be good. But at least, Izuwu has some peace. There will be no state officials or Ghanaian traders to harass him.
He is one of the small fish caught up in the Ghanaian government’s attempts to enforce laws on retail trade mainly in the economic hubs of Accra and Kumasi. This has led to the forceful locking up of the shops belonging to foreigners engaged in unsanctioned retail trade.
The laws have been lax for so long that immigrant traders like Izuwu view their enforcement as man biting dog. Crackdowns over the last couple of years have been described as xenophobic in nature by some Nigerians. The lack of restraint from some Ghanaian traders has not helped the situation.
Whilst there is a sanctioned task force going round to check the registration of businesses for taxes, resident permits, standard controls, and the Ghanaian Investment and Promotion Centre (GIPC) permit for foreigners, Ghanaian traders have intermittently taken the law into their hands resulting in violent incidents.
“The last time they threw stones at us when we were gathered and everybody ran away then they locked shops,” Izuwu recounts to Ubuntu Times.
Seated in front of the locked shops of his fellow Nigerians, Izuwu demonstrates little understanding of the bigger picture and expects his government to intervene.
“For the Nigerian Embassy [in Ghana], I don’t know what they are doing. The way they are treating Nigerians here in Circle, it is not easy,” he says.
The GIPC permit appears to be the most stringent requirement. It demands that foreign traders have US$1,000,000 for trading activity with a minimum of 20 skilled Ghanaians employed while registering for the permit costs 31,500 cedis (US$5,446). The average immigrant in a largely informal sector cannot afford this.
Other than that, any enterprise not wholly-owned by a Ghanaian citizen cannot 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, according to Ghana’s laws.
It is common to find some Nigerian traders and sympathetic Ghanaians citing ECOWAS protocols which allow for free movement across the West Africa sub-region. But its conventions do not supersede the sovereign law of individual states.
This is a point Dr. Vladimir Antwi-Danso, an international relations analyst, stresses to Ubuntu Times. “People always want to take advantage of the lapses in other country’s laws and exploit them. Period.”
Dr. Antwi-Danso expects zero compromises from the Ghanaian government as it looks out for the interest of indigenes and handles the grievances of Nigerian traders flouting the law.
“Retail trade is always reserved for indigenous people so it is made difficult to enter. There are no two ways about it,” he insists.
The clarity in this dynamic has been made murky by a recent back and forth laced with accusations between the governments of Ghana and Nigeria.
In the month that Ghana commissioned the African Continental Free Trade, Nigeria criticized the treatment of its nationals during the crackdown.
The Nigerian government in a statement last week complained about the “incessant harassment of its citizens in Ghana and the progressive acts of hostility towards the country by Ghanaian authorities.”
The statement, from Nigeria’s Information Minister Lai Mohammed, also said its citizens in Ghana were being made “objects of ridicule.”
The statement followed Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey’s summoning of Nigeria’s chargé d’affaires to Ghana to complain about comments attributed to her Nigerian counterpart, Geoffrey Onyeama.
Mr. Onyeama is alleged to have said that the crackdown on illegal foreign retail businesses was bid for votes by the Akufo-Addo administration ahead of Ghana’s elections in December.
Chief Kizito Obiora, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Traders in Ghana welcomed the signals coming from his government.
Speaking to Ubuntu Times from his Kumasi base, he said this response was the least he expected from his government. With a colorful analogy, he says: “no father will see that his children are being molested and he will just keep quiet. Any good father must surely take charge.”
Some anger simmers within Chief Kizito as he laments that the crackdown has revealed the “clear hatred of some Ghanaians”. He claims some Nigerian traders with the required documents are still being attacked and having their shops locked up.
That said, he is aware of the need to enforce Ghana’s laws and is looking for some flexibility for the state.
“Our government has already advised us to be calm and continue to dialogue [with the Ghanaian government], which we have started,” Chief Kizito says.
That hope for leniency may have been quenched by a statement from the Ghana government responding to Nigeria’s earlier salvo.
A statement from Ghana’s Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah held that “there is widespread abuse and disregard for local laws and regulations governing retail trade by some foreigners, including Nigerians, which need to be addressed without discrimination.”
“It is important to note that the compliance exercise under reference is not restricted to either ECOWAS nationals or Nigerians for that matter, but extend to all individuals engaged in retail trade, including Ghanaians,” the statement added.
The discourse around the traders’ also brings to bear the larger concerns of the stereotyping Nigerians in Ghana as well as recent diplomatic embarrassment for Ghana.
Nigeria’s current concerns span beyond the handling of traders. The statement from its government also touched on what it called the “aggressive and incessant” deportation of Nigerians from Ghana, biased media reportage, and “harsh and openly-biased judicial trial and pronouncement of indiscriminately-long jail terms for convicted Nigerians.”
The Ghanaian government was also forced into a state of humility in June 2020 when armed men stormed the Nigerian High Commission in Ghana’s compound and destroyed buildings under construction.
Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo and other state officials were compelled to apologize over the incident. This incident also emboldened some Nigerian traders to protest against their treatment in Ghana.
Though Ghana has long had cordial relations with Nigeria, there have been past events that highlighted how fraught the bond between the two nations can be.
In 1969, then-Ghanaian Prime Minister, Kofi Busia, invoked the Aliens Compliance Order and deported an about 2.5 million undocumented African migrants. The majority were Nigerians.
In 1983, the “Ghana Must Go” period saw then-Nigeria President Shehu Shagari expel thousands of undocumented West African immigrants. About half of these were Ghanaians, who returned home with the iconic Ghana Must Go checkered bags.
The current Nigeria President, Muhammadu Buhari, also expelled some 7,000 Ghanaians when he was atop a military government from 1983 to 1985.
There is value in the larger context but it could also be considered as a distraction from what Dr. Antwi-Danso feels is a two-dimensional issue.
He describes some comments coming from Nigeria on the matter as “ignorant” and clouding a situation that is “purely economic and legal.”
“Those politicians in Nigeria making all these useless comments should rather dialogue. That is what we call diplomacy.”
Ghana and Nigeria have since proposed a committee to work towards regularizing the activities of Nigerian Traders in Ghana.
After deliberations between the leadership of both legislatures, they said they will “explore the possible passage of reciprocal legislation which could potentially be called the Ghana-Nigeria Friendship Act,” according to a statement from the two legislatures.
It shall propose a Ghana-Nigeria Business Council to provide a legal framework that hopes to be mutually beneficial to both countries.