Nigerian traders and businessmen in Ghana are reportedly apprehensive following the declaration of incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as the winner of the just concluded presidential election in the former Gold Coast.
BusinessDay gathered that the constant harassment and closure of the Nigerian businesses in Ghana in recent times were allegedly masterminded by Addo, who wanted to appeal to the sentiments of his countrymen about the dominance of certain parts of the Ghanaian economy by foreigners mostly by Nigerians.
The Electoral Commission of Ghana officially declared Nana Akufo-Addo as the winner of the 2020 presidential elections. He was reelected for a second term with 51. 59percent of the votes to defeat former President John Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Addo polled 6,730,413 votes while Mahama received 6,214,889 votes, or 47.36percent, making it a tight race between the two, as many had predicted.
Since polling day, 13,434,574 votes were counted out of 17,027,641 registered voters in 48 hours, representing 79percent of the total registered voters.
Read also: ECOWAS spirit and Nigerian traders in Ghana
The lingering issue of reported ill-treatment of Nigerians had in August forced the Nigerian government to threaten dragging Ghana to the Community Court Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for breach of the ECOWAS Protocol of free movement of peoples. Nigeria opted for diplomatic solution to the issues.
ECOWAS protocol relating to the Free Movement of Persons, Residence and Establishment stipulates the right of ECOWAS citizens to enter, reside and establish economic activities in the territory of other member states and offers a three step roadmap of five years each to achieve freedom of movement of persons after fifteen years.
It was widely reported that the closure of the shops angered the National Association of Nigerian Traders in Ghana (NANT) who cried for help to the Nigerian government accusing the Ghanaian authorities of discrimination as shops belonging to Nigerians in Accra were locked up by Ghanaian authorities who demanded evidence of their Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC) registration.
The requirement for GIPC registration is $1 million minimum foreign equity, while registration fee is 31,500 cedis.
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, who earlier protested the reported ill-treatment, said the Nigerian government had reached agreement with Ghana over the GIPC over a year ago but expressed concerns that the matter has reared its head again. He added that the Ghanaian Code that stipulates that retail trade is exclusive preserve of Ghanaians appears in conflict with the ECOWAS Protocol.
“What is the point of having and economic community if at the end of the day, each country will make laws and regulations that are in contradiction with the protocol? That is an issue that needs to be addressed,” he added.
The Ghanaian authorities had remained adamant even as they accused the Nigerians of allegedly violating the provisions of the GIPC, but Nigerians debunked the claim, stressing that the action was made to hound them out of businesses for the benefit of the Ghanaians.
The Ghanaian authorities, through the spokesman of the Minister of Trade Boakye Boateng debunked the claim of discrimination, stressing that the traders, who have been served notice for over a year, were pardoned in December 2019 following the intervention of President Nana Akufo-Addo.
“It cannot be that we’ve been insensitive. If that is what they’re saying, I’ll be disappointed because I’ll rather say they have rather been unfair to us as a regulatory body because we have given them more time than enough to the extent even the Ghanaians thought that the ministry was not on their side or the ministry wasn’t ready to even enforce law,” Boateng said.
The diplomacy adopted by the Nigerian authorities appears to provide greater prospects for the resolution of the problem, but the Nigerian traders having faced ceaseless attacks on their property and intimidation remain skeptical.
There was some glimmer of hope when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, in September, led a delegation to Ghana where he met his Ghanaian counterpart, Mike Oquaye in Accra, and expressed hope that Nigeria and Ghana will arrive at mutually acceptable resolutions to the trade disputes.
During the visit the Ghanaian Speaker Oquaye said: “Ghana and Nigeria are like the tongue and the teeth, they must interact, and sometimes the teeth may do havoc, and yet it never regrets the taste that the tongue gives to it. That’s what happens if we don’t interact.
“Even when we step on one another’s feet, in the process we should come to realise that there’s a need to continue to be together.”
Responding, Gbajabiamila emphasized that within the next two days of discussions, hopefully, they would be able to arrive at a mutually acceptable resolution between both countries.
He said: “There’s something in modern-day parlance called legislative diplomacy or parliamentary diplomacy, and that’s what obtains all over the world today. Diplomacy is done from all angles including back channel such as what we are doing now and sometimes you get results that you can only imagine.
“In Africa, you cannot talk about Nigeria without talking about Ghana and you cannot talk about Ghana without talking about Nigeria and therefore it has become incumbent on us, one as leaders of parliament and two generally as parliamentarians to bring to bear this concept of legislative diplomacy for fruitful results.”
The Nigerians in Ghana however, appear not to show so much confidence in the diplomatic niceties of both governments as the attacks and harassments reportedly continued even after the diplomatic efforts, which apparently prompted the traders to threaten leaving Ghana in droves even after the Federal Government had appealed for calm.
The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola had on November 12 called on the Traders facing tough times in Ghana not to leave the country, but rather to be patient with the Government of Nigeria as it continues to engage the Ghanaian Authorities and other relevant stakeholders with a view to addressing their challenges.
But the traders, who were led by President of National Association of Nigerian Traders, (NANTS) Ken Ukoaha alongside the President of Nigerian Union of Traders Association in Ghana (NUTAG) Chukwuemeka Nnaji and other members of the Association presented a letter to the Chairman/CEO Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) Abike Dabiri-Erewa in Abuja calling on the Government to evacuate them from Ghana.
Ukaoha had expressed what he referred to as the “agony, humiliation and torture of Nigerian Traders in Ghana, emanating from the Ghanaian Government’s decision to raise the capital base of any foreign trader doing business in the country to $1million, and the subsequent locking up of many Nigerian traders’ shops since 2019.”
The letter has names of 753 members who signed to be supported to return home.
Now that Akufo Addo has been re-elected, all eyes are on him to see if he would continue with the decision against Nigerian traders or rescind it in the spirit of African brotherliness.
