All those glorious years
we spent in Nigeria-Kofi Amenyo

(This article is dedicated to all those
Ghanaians who went to Nigeria in
search of a better life between 1978
and the second “Ghana Must Go” in
1985. You saw the very best of
Nigeria and no matter what
happened to you then, or later, you
will never forget your time in that
country!)

Some people say it was the “constro”
boys who went first and came back
home with the good news. Others
say it was the trained teachers (Cert
A holders) who went first, started
teaching in secondary schools there
and came back on holidays and took
along their brothers and friends who
are graduates. Still others maintain
that Ghanaians had been travelling to
Nigeria since goodness knows when.
There were vehicles that made the
long journey from Kumasi or Accra to
Lagos. Long before our
independence, Anlo fishermen and
traders piled themselves into trucks
setting forth from Keta into the wilds
of Nigeria. The journey took the
whole day. Nigeria was far away, very
far away indeed.

No matter where the truth lies, one
thing is certain. The great movement
of Ghanaians to Nigeria in search of a
better life would not happen until
after 1975. Prior to that, nobody left
Ghana to settle in Nigeria because
Ghana was not good enough for
him. There have always been ties
between individual Ghanaians and
Nigerians with inter-marriages
meaning some Ghanaians moved to
settle in Nigeria. But nobody left
Ghana to escape economic
hardships. Not until the mid-70s.
The largest chunk of the economic
migrants from Ghana to Nigeria
made their moves between 1978 and
1981 or thereabouts. By 1982, Lagos
was full of Ghanaians from all walks
of life. They ranged from university
lecturers (and students), medical
officers, political refugees, through
secondary school teachers to our
boys working on construction sites
and our girls selling bread in the “go
slow” on the highway leading out of
Lagos to Abeokuta. They rushed to
the slow moving vehicles peddling
what they called “Ghana bread”.
(Some of the Yoruba didn’t like this
bread complaining that there was
too much sugar in it. Yes, much of
Ghanaian bread contains too much
sugar. If there is not too much sugar,
then there is too much salt!) Some of
our girls chose the easy way out and
betook themselves to the houses of
ill-repute where they plied their
damnable trade.

By the 70s, the journey now took
only a few hours from Accra to
Lagos. If you liked, you made the
“short-short” one by taking a vehicle
to Aflao, crossing the border on foot,
taking a taxi to the station near
Asigame (Grand Marché) in Lomé,
where you took one of the Peugeot
“caravans” straight to the Badagry
border where another vehicle took
you into Lagos. You could also take a
vehicle from Cotonou and make it to
the old port of Porto Novo
(Xogbonu) and enter Nigeria at
Idiroko which was the border
crossing before the huge Badagry
border was rebuilt as the main entry
point. The Idiroko to Lagos road was
still called the “Old Ghana Road”
when we were there.
For the Ghanaian making the journey
by road to Lagos for the first time, it
was a real experience. Once you
cleared the Badagry border and was
on your way on the dual carriage to
Lagos, you knew you were
somewhere far away from Accra.
Lagos looked big to you. Much of it
was like a huge construction site.
This was the time when foreign
companies like Julius Berger were
building flyovers, overhead bridges,
and motorways all over the place.
Even though Ghanaians could be
found in every state, most of them
were in the Yoruba speaking states
which are geographically nearest to
Ghana.Most of the
Nigerians who lived among us in
Ghana before the Aliens Compliance
Order (ACO) were Yoruba. They were
the ones we called “Alatafuo” or
“Anago” and when we went to them,
they also called us “omo Ghana” (no
offence meant, none was taken
either). So the Ghanaian connection
with the Yoruba, in particular, is a
long one. Some versions of Ewe
history even trace the origins of the
Ewe to a place called Ketu in
Yorubaland. In the early 80s, in
places like Ogbomosho, Ejigbo,
Osogbo, Ilesha, one could still meet
those Yoruba who had lived in
Ghana before ACO and who still
spoke fluent Twi, Fante, Ewe or Ga.
They were proud to display their
knowledge of these languages,
having quite left the bitterness of the
“munko munko” (ACO) behind them.
The years around 1980 marked the
most dizzying heights of Nigeria’s oil-
fired economy. The oil money was
flowing through everybody’s fingers
and some of us were there to partake
of the goodies. They accepted us so
long as there was something for
everybody.

Every Ghanaian who went there got
some kind of job. Teachers were in
high demand. It was very easy for the
Ghanaian teacher to fit into the
Nigerian classroom. Because WAEC
gave us all the same GCE syllabus,
Ghanaian teachers found themselves
teaching exactly the same things they
were teaching in Ghana. Maths,
Science and English teachers were
especially in high demand. The
greatest need for teachers was in the
states controlled by the UPN which
were implementing free education –
the type Akufo-Addo is promising us.
The UPN was then led by Chief
Obafemi Awolowo, the revered
Yoruba leader. (I have, sometimes,
wondered if there is some
resemblance between him and
Akufo-Addo that goes beyond their
old style round metal-rimmed
glasses.) Secondary schools were
built in all towns and villages and
students went straight from primary
school to these schools without any
exams.
It was not that there were no
Nigerians who could teach their
children. The economy was so good
that Nigerian university graduates
looked down on the teaching job.
They easily got higher paying jobs in
industry or obtained generous state
or federal government scholarships
to pursue advanced studies in
foreign universities. Ghanaians
readily took their places and
acquitted themselves well. Indeed,
there will come a time, (if that time
has not even passed) when a crop of
prominent Nigerians can proudly say
that some of their best teachers in
secondary school were Ghanaians.
They will be referring to that time,
around the 80s, when so many
Ghanaians taught so many Nigerians.
Everything was very cheap in this
country. What we had then called
“essential commodities” in Ghana
were anything but essential in Agege
(the name of the Lagos suburb that,
in Ghana, became used for the entire
country). Blue Band Margarine, which
had ceased to exist in Ghana, was
available at every roadside seller’s.
Beer was one naira for the premier
brands of Star and Gulder – brands
that we had known from Ghana. The
big bottle of Guinness, Odekun,
(which was unavailable in Ghana)
went for 1.30 naira and the little
bottle (kekere) made you poorer by a
mere 70 kobo. Semovita cost 80
kobo a kilo. We did not even have
Semovita in Ghana then. Sardines
and Geisha (which Nigerians looked
down upon but were favourite items
in Ghana, the lack of which can cause
governments to be overthrown) were
all over the place selling cheaply.
During the Christmas season,
imports were increased bringing
down the prices of items across the
board. In Ghana price increases were
particularly notable during the
Christmas season.

Those Ghanaians who went to
Nigeria before 1980 saw the very best
of the country, economically. In some
states, graduate teachers were given
car loans in cash! You took your
3,000 naira, went to a car dealer and
drove away with your brand new
locally assembled VW “beetul”.

It cost you less than 3,000 naira so
you had something left over to buy
petrol and drinks to celebrate your
first new car with your friends – to
“wash” the car, as it were. In the
early 80s, a graduate teacher’s
monthly pay of 360 naira was
enough to buy you a return ticket to
the UK. That was before the Thatcher
government brought in visa
requirements for Ghanaians and
Nigerians. Those Ghanaians daring
enough went on holidays in Britain.
The naira was equivalent to the
pound and fetched you more than a
dollar!
This was also the time Ghanaians
would tell jokes about the newcomer
who went to the wayside chop bar
and asked for 50 kobo rice and 50
kobo meat and the seller woman
looked at him with surprise. He
insisted on his order and when he
was served, there was no way he
could eat it all. He thought the naira
was like the cedi he had left behind
in Ghana.
At the beginning of each academic
year, the now defunct West Africa
Magazine published long lists of
Nigerian scholarship winners who
would be going to universities in
Europe and North America to study
obscure subjects in the sciences and
technology. It was as if the states
were competing with each other to
see which of them could send the
greatest numbers of their citizens on
scholarships abroad. We looked at
these lists with a tinge of envy. Our
country could not afford to give us
similar privileges.

The daily newspapers were bumpy
affairs of 48-60 pages at a time when
our flagship national daily, Daily
Graphic, was still running 16 pages in
tiny print. There were even
broadsheets, something we had
never seen in Ghana before. A few of
the numerous newspapers really had
quality stuff. The newly established
Lagos Guardian attracted articles
from some of the country’s greatest
brains – Wolé Soyinka, Niyi
Osundare, Kole Omotoso,
Chinweinzu. Then came the
newsmagazine, Newswatch,
modelled on Time Magazine and
better than anything we ever had in
Ghana. On its staff were some of the
country’s best journalists including
Dele Giwa who was murdered by a
mail bomb during Babangida’s reign
of terror. There were several
television and radio stations at a time
when Ghana still had only one
television channel and one national
broadcaster and we had never heard
of FM broadcasting. Naija movies
were not available then.
The Ghanaian immigrant felt
completely at home. Ghana was not
too far away and you could visit
home for the weekend. We settled.
We started enjoying the food, the
beer, the women and the music. Oh,
the music, especially Yoruba music.
Because of Juju music’s roots in
highlife, it was easy for Ghanaians to
take on and like that music.
Moreover, some of us still
remembered the time when the
Yoruba lived among us in Ghana and
played lots of the music of the
accordion playing I. K. Dairo. They
may have played the music of
Haruna Ishola too.

The 80s marked the heights of the
careers of King Sunny Adé with his
velvety voice (Gboromiro; Synchrooo
... synchro system) and “Shief”
Commander Ebenezer Obey and his
evergreen, forever and forever
wedding song: Eto gbeyawo laye
t’Oba Oluwa mi file le, pelu aseni...
(What God has joined togedaa let no
man put asondaaa...). Fuji, Apala and
Sakara music are more difficult for
Ghanaians to absorb. They are more
traditionally based with Islamic roots.
But if you live in a place where you
hear a certain music type being
played over and over again, and see
the people cooing over it, you cannot
help but get infected yourself. That is
why many of us will never forget
names like the late Alhaji Sikuru
Ayindé Barrister, Kollington Ayinla, or
Mama Salawa Abeni. Today, Fuji
music has morphed into the Yoruba
variant of hip-hop. But for those of
us who were there in the early 80s, it
is the music of Sunny Adé (is there
any musician who has sung his way
into the hearts of the Yoruba more
than this man who has so many
wonderful tracks you won’t know
which ones to choose as your
favourites?) and Ebenezer Obey (who
is now into gospel music having also
fallen victim to the excessive
religiosity that is now afflicting many
parts of Africa) that we have
continued to enjoy long after we left
the country even if we do not
understand all the mgbati mgbati.
Then things started getting bad.
Many of us saw the signs very early
because we had seen similar signs in
Ghana. Contracts were not being
renewed. It was becoming more
difficult to get jobs. Prices were going
up. Some construction works were
being terminated midway.
Remittances through the banks were
becoming more difficult to get as the
black market rates of the naira
started running away from the
official rates.
They did not sack us from their
country. We had survived “Ghana
Must Go” 1 and 2. We left on our
own when they relieved us of our
teaching jobs. Many were too old to
brave the journey to another part of
the world. They returned to Ghana
and went back to the teaching service
or whatever else they were doing
before the Agege craze. Many of the
young ones came back to Ghana
only to re-saddle and set forth again.
Some of the “constro” boys, ever the
most daring, took the desert road to
Gaddafi’s Libya. Some of them lost
their lives on the way. Some of us
came to Europe. Others went to
North America. There were those
who made it to other African
countries like South Africa, Botswana,
Zambia, or any country willing to
accept them. Anywhere else was
better than the difficult days of
Rawlings’ military Ghana.

Today, it is said that more than half
of Nigeria’s 160 million people live on
less than two dollars a day. The naira
is now 150 to a dollar. The largest
note is 1,000 naira (equivalent to 12
ghc). A proposal to print 5,000 naira
bills was dropped. Another to re-
denominate the naira was also
discarded. A bottle of Guinness is
around 300 naira and Semovita is
250 (na kekere bi dat o). The molue
conductors at Oshodi are no longer
shouting: “Enter with your ten ten
kobo – 50 kobo one naira no
change”. That belongs to a time in
the distant past. The trip now costs
100 naira.
Nigerians are finding it difficult to
exist on their monthly salaries. Many
have voted with their feet and for
some, even Ghana is better to live in.
To be sure, though the Nigerian
economy may not be riding the giddy
Olympian heights of the late 70s, it
has never descended into the gutters
that the Ghanaian economy found
itself in the same period. But the best
is over and many Nigerians will give
an arm to have the seventies and
early eighties back.
Yes, there are Nigerians who are
crooks, cheats, bandits, religious
fanatics and what have you. But the
fact is that MOST ordinary Nigerians
are honest, peace loving, God-
fearing, resourceful and friendly
people. You have to live in the
country to see these ones whom we
do not hear much about. You can
also ask the thousands of Ghanaians
still living there. And, oh, the country
itself is, actually, really beautiful.
For many of us, since Nigeria was our
first foray outside our native land, the
country remains special to us. We still
have fond memories of our time
there. I have not been back there
since I left 26 years ago. I very much
want to visit and walk the old paths
again. What a wistful experience that
will be!
Kofi Amenyo
(kofi.amenyo@yahoo.com)

lalasticlala, Ishilove, Justwise, Disguy, Seun. I don't know who fit carry this nice tori go front page.

Wish we could also say Fond stories of our own dear Nigeria. We just can't do that right now!

Anything to brush the ego is allowed

An old article We've read so many times. .but u never gets tired of it