This is a good point that would be valid if it does not ignore the fact that in an economic regional bloc like ECOWAS ( you can consult the rulebook of ECOWAS if you want) member nations must attempt to make it easier, not more difficult, for other member nations to do business within its terrain !!! What is the point of ECOWAS if Ghana will treat businessmen from its fellow member nation worse than it would treat businessmen from Lebanon? The UK may have no problem blocking the entrance of Nigerian goods into its market but it will not practice such barefaced protectionism against Germany because , as members of the same economic regional bloc, the UK knows it will quickly be called to order for such a flagrant disregard of EU rules.

Ghana can go ahead with its plan but all of us , most especially Shesi , must understand and acknowledge that this is uncharted territory Ghana is venturing into. Up until now , and despite the petty 'discrimination' against each others exports, citizens of ECOWAS nations have not been treated as expatriates when they have sought to do business in the nations of other member States. Let God give us all long lives so that we can see what Ghana's unprecedented action portends for the future.

It is true that ECOWAS does not work. Nonetheless , it is still an existing entity . It is foolish for member nations to ignore this fact with actions that flagrantly violate the most fundamental tenets of West Africa's economic regional bloc.

ROSSIKE:

Abeg make una leave Ghana mehn,  I'm Naija and yet I feel for them. A country of 20 million will always feel threatened by an imposing 150 million strong economic behemoth just close to its borders.

Like someone said above we could  quite literally swallow them up without noticing.

But they would   

Ghanaians must grow up, or else…


Thursday, 10 September 2009 01:07 Ebere Onwudiwe & Okey C. Iheduru   



While markets ‘dynamise,’ nation-states restrain and demobilise.” This aphorism best explains the recent spate of anti-Nigerian sentiments in Ghana. The attacks seem to have picked up since October, 2008 when the Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC) sealed up the shops of Nigerian traders on the ground that they failed to comply with a protectionist law requiring foreigners to pay a US$350,000 registration fee before engaging in retail trading.  On September 2, 2009, a Nigerian who had lived almost 20 years in the US before moving back to Ghana three years ago, became one of the growing statistics of mob attacks when a commuter bus collided with his Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) along Achimota road in Accra, Ghana. His mix of American and a little Nigerian accent was all the bus driver and his raging passengers needed to almost lynch this ‘Nigerian armed robber.’ This was simply because he protested that they must get the cops over before he would allow the bus driver to leave the accident scene.


Today, many Nigerians in Ghana seem to have resigned themselves to their fate. Vitriolic attacks on and cyber-lynching for anything Nigerian seem to be a staple of much of Ghanaian online discussion boards such as www.ghanaweb.com. There is even a derisively tagged ‘Nigerians are coming’ bag, an insipid imitation of Nigeria’s ‘Ghana must go’ bag (a reminder of Nigeria’s 1982 cruelty to Ghanaians resident in the country).
While it would be a stretch to claim that Ghanaian authorities approve of this rising xenophobia, the frequency of these attacks, the willingness of many otherwise reasonable people to join the action and the fact that few, if any, of the culprits are ever apprehended and prosecuted can suggest government culpability.  

Ghanaians, of course, have the right to enact investment laws, but what threatens to further ruin relations between our two countries is the stipulation that foreigners doing business in Ghana must have a capital base of US$350,000 (about N50 million) to be allowed to operate. While the law is ostensibly designed to protect Ghanaian investors from foreigners with better business acumen and background, its implementation suggests it was designed primarily to tame Nigerians’ ‘aggressive’ business practices. This is especially because the only shops closed under this law were those of Nigerians.
The Ghanaian government even tried to get Nigerian businessmen to form ‘one company’ and continue doing their businesses in the country, noting that the goods owned by the companies would form part of the outrageous US$350,000 requirement. Someone should tell the closet Stalinists in Accra that the orientation of Nigerian capitalists cannot accommodate this kind of temptation.  


In Ghana, some academics and government officials are quick to say “you people” ignominiously expelled over two million West African ‘illegal’ aliens (mostly Ghanaians) from Nigeria in 1982. True, but two wrongs cannot make a right. Besides, regarding the 1982 Nigerian expulsion of Ghanaians and the harassment of Nigerians in today’s Ghana, the situation is hardly the same. In any case, we do not find it necessary to remind our Ghanaian brethren that Ghana was the first to mass-deport ‘aliens’ in 1972. Or that most Nigerians in today’s Ghana are only there to invest and are not free loaders that can in anyway constitute a burden to the Ghanaian state.


By April this year, Nigerian investments in Ghana topped the US$1 billion mark, about 17 percent of Ghana’s gross domestic product. Yet, there is no Akwa Abaa for these boosts to Ghana’s economy. Instead, many Ghanaians see the investments as ‘domination’ complete with gory tales of the ‘corrupting influence’ of the Nigerian investor. No such knee-jerk resentment for Obruni (white) investors that Ghanaians like to worship in Obuasi gold fields.  


South Africans invest heavily in Nigeria and no Nigerian lifts a finger in protest. They have so far been thankful, as they should! The people and government of Ghana should welcome Nigerian investors and traders the way Nigerians welcome South Africans. In fact, relative to total population, the proportion of African entrepreneurs in Nigeria dwarfs the numbers for Ghana and South Africa combined.
 

Nigerians armed with petro-dollars are not enemies. They are not the problem in Ghana where the rising stench of xenophobia is rooted in large-scale poverty and economic dependency (over 60 35 percent of annual budget is official development assistance.) In 2006, Nigeria doled out $40 million to get the Ghanaian government out of an asphyxiating oil crisis, plus 200 vehicles to enhance their police mobility.


The bottom line is that xenophobic violence can beget xenophobic violence. Worse, Nigeria’s government may decide to wield the big stick against Ghana to set an African example of it’s promised ‘citizen diplomacy.’ 
We doubt that the people and government of Ghana are in any position to deal with a Nigerian backlash. Ghana’s manufacturing and service sectors are largely dependent for their bottom line on what Ghanaians unappreciatively call Nigeria’s “aggressive capitalism and stupid wealth.” What if Nigerians decide to withdraw their investments, will these sectors not atrophy?
Regarding their primitive attitude towards intra-African trade and investments, a warning to Ghana should be in order. They must stop and think, or else….

Gbawe:

Many folks dont see the big picture. For most , and in consonant with how we tend to be visceral in Africa , "Ghana can do what it wants and if Nigeria is unhappy they too can retaliate in kind" . Sadly that type of thinking is stoking the fire of what is already spilling over into xenophobic attacks plus crude and panic-led protectionist actions . Without cool heads the next phase will be one we will all regret. This situation appears set to worsen because the Government of both nations , rather than be decisive in arresting a degenerating situation, prefer to stoke the embers of what may become a raging fire. While the Ghana investment promotion council busies itself with ways of harrassing Nigerian businesses alone Nigerian Ministers and political leaders, perhaps out of frustration at their own cluelessness, are busy taunting Ghana ungraciously . If we see large scale South-Africa type xenophobic attacks in either Nigeria of Ghana then it will be 'par for the course' considering how enough condemnation is not coming from both sides as per the incendiary actions and utterances we have seen of late from both nations. The article below has an overt bias in favour of Nigeria but its content , many of which we can all confirm the truthfulness of , should worry sensible folks.


http://www.businessdayonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4971:ghanaians-must-grow-up-or-else&catid=96:columnists&Itemid=350

Fhemmmy:

i bet most of our unlawful makers ave no clue what this will mean, and what the effect will be on the citizens they are making law for, Nigeria has nver been a nation that provide for the people, it is always about them and what they can make and steal.
Like i said, i hope this will wake them up and make them to protect Nigerians and make decisions that will favour us.

emeka_gh:

Interesting thread. And as usual filled again with ignorant outburst from some ill informed, but passionate people. Anyway I have lived in the two worlds - Nigeria and Ghana. And I like to give my opinion is this matter.

At those creating rumours about chasing out Nigerians,
That is not the case. Ghana is simply trying to regulate their [size=14pt]business [/size] environment. And it's a buyers market like Shesi said. If the cost of [size=14pt]doing business [/size] in Ghana becomes 'untainable' for any reason, [size=14pt]business[/size] men (women) with make necessary decision. I don't have yet the $300,000 (or $1m) required do business in Ghana, but I know I can start a $10,000 (or less) chicken/fish farm business in Nigeria or Benin/Togo. Why do I need to bother about Ghana's conditionality? Lets quit this unnecessary noise about Ghana, it's simply not worth it!

Kobojunkie:

WOw!! Someone actually read the article??

semid4lyfe:

And the xenophobia continues -

This move by Ghana is self-serving and purely Anti-Ecowas cos it breaches the ECOWAS charter and protocol.

The Nigerian Government should come out and condemn this move in the strongest terms.

Look, lets be honest, Nigerians are only crying ecowas ecowas cus it suits their purposes in this discussion. If the tables were turned,, you can bet the overwhelming consensus will be 'which ecowas?'

We in Ghana are not going to put our economy and social systems under unnecessary strain because of an organization like ecowas. what is ecowas? what has ghana benefitted from ecowas.


When i questioned the suitability of ecowas earlier, i wasn't questioning the wisdom in forming trade blocs, I was questioning the practicability of Ecowas specifically. Despite it's name, Ecowas was never really meant to  serve an economic purpose. Ecowas' chief purpose was peace-keeping, and to facilitate movement of West African citizens escaping War in their own countries. GHana has benefitted nowt from ecowas. All we do is send our soldiers to die in peace keeping missions. That is what ecowas means to the ordinary ghanaian on the street when they hear the world.

The francophones do their own thing. Nigeria only plays by the rules when it suits her, and Liberia and Sierra Leone only contribute refugees (not so much lately). Why should we be bound by this organization. Ecowas serves no purpose ordinary bilateral agreements couldn't accomplish. It's time to get back to the drawing table if we want economic integration.  You can't compare Ecowas to the EU. Just can't.

It makes every sense to set minimum standards for foreigners hoping to do business in your country. Why don't the western countries allow anybody who wants to move into their countries? Free movement of people is part of the Universal declaration of Human rights. So why do we still need visas then?

When you are dealing with a country whose population outnumber yours by 500%, you don't open your borders freely. Especially when it's a country whose systems are currently not working and majority of its population may be looking for a way out if not now in the near future. Check America (the flag-bearer of free trade)'s foreign policy when it comes to China.

Ghana is getting everything wrong here. They don't even know the meaning of ECOWAS. The sooner they realize that selfish interests ends in futility, the better for them. Well, now we understand that these Ghanians are beginning to be so rude like the South Africans.

Martass
Posts: 56

Online

Re: Ghana's Plan To Chase Out Nigerians - Classifies Ecowas Citizens As Expertrates
« #189 on: Today at 10:17:20 AM »

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ikeymanoo,

You rather sound like an idiot. You don't make sense in what you write. Ghana can send you packing if they so wish and there is nothing, I mean nothing you could do whatsoever. Who the fuckin hell do you think you are? Let me tell you one more thing, Ghanaians don't spend a second thinking about Nigeria. Half wits like you always think Nigeria is the center of the world, my ass.

thando (f)
south africa, kzn
Posts: 191

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Re: Why Nigerians Don't Tap Into South African Market?
« #186 on: Today at 10:03:42 AM »

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The tag "nigeria must go" is only gonna gain momentum wherever there is a signifant number of nigerians, whether in ghana kenya lybia or china