Nigeria and Ghana are two rather presumptuous cousins. When the two national sides meet at a football match, it always feels like the battle of Armageddon. But when either team faces another, one tends to rally in support of the other. Nigerian music is all the rage in Ghana, as is Nollywood and its gaggle of characters.
The young taxi driver that drove me around during a recent visit to Accra always addressed me as “Igwe” or “Chief” to my eternal irritation. After a week of driving us round Accra, he handed me a bill of US$700. When I raised eyebrows, he expressed surprise. He said most of the Nigerian “Igwes” that were his clients — governors, senators and the likes — would not even question it. I beat it down to US$500.
I went to Ghana in company of my better half Mrs Margaret Mailafia. On the return journey I was ahead of her at the immigration queue at Kotoka International Airport. I passed without incidence. When it was her turn, they asked her to empty everything from her lady’s bag. She obeyed. When she emerged at the other end to recoup her belongings, an envelope with some dollars in it could not be found. When she went to complain, all hell broke loose. They immigration officials descended on her, calling her a liar and a “Nigerian 419”. The bedlam was intolerable. The poor woman was reduced to tears.
Their boss sauntered into the affray with the hauteur of Ceaser looking down upon the vulgar crowd. She demanded to know what the kerfuffle was all about. We explained that after recouping the contents of her bag at the checkpoint, an envelope containing some money disappeared. Madam Ceaser frowned with disbelief. I calmly warned that if the envelope could not be found we would be left with no option than to call our friends in the Presidency. We were prepared to miss our flight if needs be, just to defend a principle. I explained that my wife is a highly qualified systems analyst and an evangelist to boot; therefore calling her a “419” was unacceptable.
A balloon had seemingly been deflated! A plaintive voice from the background suddenly announced that they had just seen a white envelope lying on the floor. Could that, by any chance, be ours? It sure was! It was handed back to my wife with a profusion of apologies. My wife just wanted us to leave. I insisted she counted the money in full view of everyone. The amount was intact.
As far as I know, no Nigerian immigration official would ever attempt to defraud innocent travellers in such a cheap and stupid way. Most would rather beg for a dime or two. Ghanaians are fond of referring to all Nigerians as “corrupt”, when in truth, there is no Nigerian to beat the record of the Ghanaian currency trader Kweku Adoboli who defrauded Swiss investment bankers UBS of more than US$2 billion in London.
The relations between our peoples go back to antiquity. The Ga of Greater Accra and the Ewe of the Volta Region, historians tell us, are branches of the ancient Bini people of Nigeria. The intellectual odyssey of Nnamdi Azikiwe in America served as a great inspiration to many Ghanaians of that generation, notably Kwame Nkrumah. When Nkrumah decided to go to the United States he spent months in Lagos with his cousin. It was from Lagos that he finally set sail for the United States. He also attended the same Lincoln College that Zik had earlier attended. When Azikiwe returned from academic sojourn he first settled in Ghana where built up a thriving newspaper business.
When Nkrumah himself returned from America, he first came to London, intending to study law. He had no where to stay and was accommodated by a young Nigerian law student by the name of Udo Udoma, who was later to become one of the brightest stars in the galaxy of Nigerian jurists. Nkrumah and Chief Obafemi Awolowo were the best of friends. When the former first visited Nigeria in 1961 he stayed at the latter’s home in Ibadan.
Our rivalries date back to the sixties, when Kwame Nkrumah championed the radical “Casablanca Group” in the defunct O.A.U. while Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa led the more conservative “Monrovia Group. When Balewa was assassinated in a military coup in January 1966, Nkrumah callously declared that he died of “forces he did not understand”. As nemesis would have it, he himself was overthrown in a CIA-orchestrated coup in the following month, presumably by forces that he understood!
Ghana has always positioned herself as the pace-setter. Big Brother is mentioned, often as an object of derision. During the late sixties Prime Minister Kofi Busia expelled thousands of Nigerians, confiscating their businesses and properties. In the 1980s Shehu Shagari reciprocated the gesture. “Ghana Must Go” became a metaphor for our love-hate relationship.
Nigeria’s nouveaux riche have massively invested in Accra. In fact, Ghanaians blame them for the skyrocketing prices of properties in their national capital. Today, Ghanaian authorities are humiliating Nigerian traders and closing down their businesses in Accra, Kumasi, Cape Coast and other cities. They have imposed all sorts of extortionate charges on them, contrary to the letter and spirit of ECOWAS. Thousands of our students are registered in Ghanaian universities, paying exorbitant fees that keep the Ghanaian education sector going. Most of those I have spoken to complain of one form of persecution or the other. It is, of course, worse in neighbouring Benin and Togo.
I remember several years ago when we decided to drive from Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, to Lagos through Ghana, Togo and Benin Republic. Our worst nightmares were at the Ghanaian borders. At the western end we were detained for more than 10 hours. At the Aflao border at the eastern flank we were kept overnight. The cruelty of the border guards when they realised we were Nigerians was unbelievable.
There have been lots of intermarriages. The first wife of late UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was Titi Alakija of the famous Alakija family of Lagos. They were later divorced. There are prominent Ghanaians who bear Yoruba names and whose parentage are Nigerian in origin. One of our great heroines is the late Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, the medical doctor who literally gave her life to prevent the Ebola pandemic from being spread in our country by an evil foreign agent. She was the daughter of the Ghanaian medical scientist Kweku Adadevoh who became the highly respected Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos.
Despite the Shagari episode, we Nigerians have always viewed Ghanaians as our brothers. In times of difficulty we have always stood by them. We have given aid in cash and kind. We have even quietly bankrolled a succession of Ghanaian leaders without demanding anything in return. How I wish the love is mutual!
Under the leadership of the indefatigable Nana Akufo-Addo and his highly able deputy Muhammadu Bawumia, a new Ghana is emerging. From being a basket case in the eighties, the country registered an impressive 8.143% growth in 2017 and is forecast to exceed 8.8% in 2019. The Ghanaians have, wisely, never allowed the discovery of oil to get into their heads. Rather, they are deploying it as a vehicle in their ambitious goal of economic transformation. Last year President Akufo-Addo expelled more than 50,000 illegal Fulani herdsmen families, with the terse warning that “Ghana is not Nigeria”.
But I will always love Ghana. There is no time I have ever visited Accra without making the obligatory pilgrimage to the Nkrumah Mausoleum. Except for the tasteless food, I enjoy everything about Accra. The streets are safe and the people are friendly.
Besides, some of the greatest Africans that I have admired throughout history are Ghanaians: William Amo, who taught philosophy alongside giants such as Immanuel Kant in eighteenth century Germany; pioneer educationist James Kwegyir Aggrey; philosopher and All Souls prize fellow William E. Abraham; intellectual and sage Kwesi Wiredu; classical scholar Alexander Kwapong; pioneer UNECA Executive Secretary, Robert Kweku Gardiner; former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan; and the poets Kofi Awoonor, Kwesi Brew Kofi and Anyidoho.
There is always something deep and profound about Ghanaians. They embody, in my opinion, the best of what Nkrumah termed “the African Personality”. They will continue to be the torch-bearers of the most humane ideals of African civilisation.
Obadiah Mailafia
