Where does Ghana must go come from?
Question Wednesday(ep 4) but on friday
Ghana vs Nigeria is a rivalry that has existed for as long as I have lived (which truth be told is not very long but at least counts for something). These days, it manifests as social media contests on whose movie industry is better or who makes the better jollof rice (obviously Nigeria) or something else of equal ridiculousness and insignificance. It’s unsure when the rivalry started or why it even exists, but some intelligent guesses can be made. One of which is attached to the origin of the phrase ‘Ghana must go.’ Let’s dig in.
This bag is referred to widely as a Ghana must go. At least in Nigeria, that’s what it’s called. I was born into that reality. I knew of Ghana as a country and I grew up with Ghanaian friends, but I never thought to question it and didn’t for most of my twenty-something years. I mean, if you asked me why that was, I could probably make up something logical, but I only just found out about the real story and that is sort of what this article is about.
Mostly, I was just thinking about the Ghana Must Go bag and why it has that name in Nigeria. In Ghana, it is simply referred to as Ghanaian sack(a more respectable name that probably originated from the same story). Other names for the bag include ‘Chinatown tote’ which is what it is called in America. In Germany, it’s called a ‘Tuekenkoffer’ which translates to ‘Turkish suitcase’, and in Guyana, it is known as a ‘Guyanese Samsonite’ probably because of how strong it is. In America and Germany, there’s a similar situation where the name is connected to a particular social group. I am not entirely sure what their stories are but here’s the story between Nigeria and Ghana.
I should say it started in 1983 but the story probably started a little earlier (as most things in history tend to.) The story just happened to culminate in 1983 when the then President of Nigeria, Shehu Shagari, passed an order that essentially banished a huge number of Ghanaians living in Nigeria, about a million of them (a number equal to 8% of the Ghanaians living in Ghana at the time). Let’s take a step back to why there were so many Ghanaians living in Nigeria and why the order was passed.
Why were there 1 million Ghanaians in Nigeria in 1983?
This one can be traced back to 1956; the discovery of oil in Nigeria by Shell-BP. Over the years that followed the discovery, Nigeria experienced a lot of growth in the oil sector. Notably after their independence, when onshore and offshore exploration rights were extended to other foreign companies. Things really picked up when, in 1970, just in time for the Biafran war to end, oil prices skyrocketed. The next year, Nigeria joined the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and by 1977, she had set up her own National petroleum company. The ‘70s was a relatively good period for the Nigerian economy and it interested a lot of foreigners including Ghanaians.
Why was the order passed?
In 1969, the Ghanaian government passed a law similar to the one the Nigeria president passed in 1983. The Alien Compliance Order was targeted at foreigners living on Ghanaian soil and was effected to banish Nigerians and other Africans. It created some bad blood but nothing too serious. Nigeria and Ghana maintained a mostly cordial diplomatic relationship. That is until 1980, when the government of Hilla Limann, a good friend of Shehu Shagari, was overthrown by Jerry J Rawlings. Rawlings and Shagari were not on great terms and the situation deteriorated to the extent that by 1982, Nigeria stopped shipping crude oil on loan to Ghana after Rawlings claimed that Shagari was conniving to assist Limann to overthrow him. Around the same time, the oil boom from the previous decade began to die down which meant bad news for the Nigerian economy. Later that same year, the house of the Nigerian Vice president was attacked by robbers who were later found to be mostly immigrants. On January 17th 1983, the immediate expulsion of illegal immigrants was announced. People without the right documentation were given two weeks to leave the country.
The unexpected development led to panic among the immigrants, a huge percentage of which were Ghanaian. It was also rumoured that the Government gave the Nigerian populace power to confront the immigrants after the date on the ultimatum was passed. The Ghanaians weren’t going to wait around to find out if this was true, so they departed Nigeria into neighbouring Benin Republic through the Seme border. For the unplanned journey, they used the most readily available bag that could carry the most part of their luggage —> Ghana Must Go. It was from this that the bag got its name in Nigeria.
It is important to note that it wasn’t a straightforward trip for the deported Ghanaians. In the previous years, Rawlings had shut the Ghanaian border after a coup scare. As a result, when the Nigerian government passed her order, Togo also shut her border to avoid the influx of Ghanaians, leaving the migrants stranded in Benin with nowhere to go. Many of them proceeded to the port hoping to get a boat to Ghana, but the queues there were miles long and many people were stranded so long that they ran out of money. Eventually, Ghana reopened her border forcing Togo to do the same and giving the affected persons passageway to return to what had once been their home.
The name Ghana Must Go stuck in Nigeria and just couldn’t be rubbed off but the story itself isn’t known by very many.
Thank you for reading all the way to the end.
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