Ghana’s hospitability is unequaled in the West African sub-region. It is a feature which has given rise to the creation of the sprawling Zongo communities countrywide, with first generation migrants pitching camp here in what can pass for the labour rush of the pre-colonial days.
Today, Ghana is home to fifth generation descendants of migrants who, as part of the Ghanaian population, continue to contribute towards the growth of the country in diverse ways.
Ghana has benefitted from the advantages of foreign cultures and the introduction of trades and cultures from other countries in the sub-region, especially Nigeria.
Hausa, which is a Northern Nigerian language, one of the most widely spoken in the sub-region, is now a Ghanaian tongue.
It was the language of the Gold Coast Constabulary, medium of communication within the lines and outside the military in the booming trade in the trans-Saharan trade route.
Ghana is unsurpassed in terms of seamless assimilation of migrants, as evidenced in cross-ethnic marriages.
It is worrying, even painful, therefore when Ghanaian nationals are subjected to untold hardships in neighbouring countries. We are referring to countries whose nationals continue to drink from the fountain of Ghana’s goodness.
Ghana is one country in West Africa where foreigners can move freely, and even working with nobody asking for their nationalities.
Not so in Niger where there is no room for Ghanaians to run businesses, it is an unwritten convention in that country that non-citizens should be barred from business activities. Foreigners intending to engage in business should do so through indigenes.
Salt, which that country imports from Ghana, must by convention pass through local middlemen because Ghanaians will not be allowed to directly deal in that commodity.
Last week, a disturbing development regarding Ghanaian nationals in Niger and Nigeria made the headlines; hundreds of Ghana trucks laden with onion were detained by armed men.
With their fate yet to be established at the time of composing this commentary, the development is said to have arisen over a disagreement between local onion traders and their counterparts in Niger.
We condemn unequivocally the danger to which our compatriots have been subjected to in a terrain where banditry and insurgency are rife.
Niger might no longer be part of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a decision taken by the junta in that country, it still belongs to the sub-region with thousands of her nationals living in Ghana.
It is our hope that government would oblige the pleas of the stranded truckers and onion traders and intervene to resolve the impasse. Onion is a perishable vegetable and cannot stand a couple of days in a hot weather.
We do not even know who the armed men holding them are, but from the look of things they are non-state actors, which makes it even more worrying in a restive part of the sub-region.
As we write, hundreds of Nigerien nationals have swarmed Ghana, almost taking over the okada business. Must we stop them? This is no xenophobia. Just protecting jobs for our youth.