Golden Heart 
A very little history again today, and this time around we will talk about Nigeria and Ghana.
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Every country has the right to protect her territories and boundaries. Nations are ‘nations’ because of the power they can exercise to protect themselves and ensure that resources are sufficient first, for her citizens before anyone else.
Also, there is a universal right that applies to every human and that is the freedom of movement. This is a human right. But this is not an absolute right, automatically. One cannot just up and move to another place, especially a sovereign state without at least fulfilling some necessary requirement demanded of them from the place they want to settle in.
It is like our homes. We have doors/fences/barricades to keep off intruders and guests, until we give them the permission to come in or not. This is the principle upon which migration laws/policies exist.
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Everyone talks about ‘Ghana Must Go’ and interestingly, many of us are not aware that before GMG, there was a Nigeria Must Go (my own term) event.
In 1969, Ghana exercising their inherent right to protect their country, forcefully expelled millions of ‘legal and illegal’ immigrants. This was even codified as a law, The Aliens Compliance Order of 1969. That order, a very unfair one, had even legal immigrants, majority of whom were Nigerians stranded and forced to leave Ghana, some settling in neighboring countries as they could not return back home. It is estimated that about 2 million Nigerians were affected.
In 1983, an executive order was passed by the then Nigerian President Shagari asking IMMIGRANTS WITHOUT PROPER DOCUMENTS to leave the country. A timeline of two weeks was given, January 17th to 31st for those not in good standing to regularize their papers or leave to avoid the risks of arrests. What made this hit harder than the Ghanaian situation was that Nigeria had just tasted the glory of the oil boom and so much money was flowing like water while Ghana especially was grappling with a coup, an unstable government and really terrible economic realities. It is on record that about 2 million immigrants, majority of which were Ghanaians were affected. Also note that the ones that had proper and up to date documents were not affected; especially if the companies they worked for made sure their papers were in order. A large number of our Ghanaian brothers and sisters left with their entire investments and savings in large sac-like bags that were later referred to as Ghana must go bags. Some left with nothing. A very sad and unfair situation!
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The politics of the above events is something I cannot exhaust in a single post but the above two incidents caused a lot of strain and diplomatic tensions between both countries, especially as it was seen as ‘You slap me, I slap you back so therefore it cancels the ojoro’! Ghana and Nigeria has long moved on but there remains underlying currents and tension from those events, more on the sides of the Ghanaians than their Nigerian counterparts. In fact, recent news shows us that we are sitting on top of another possible xenophobic explosion in Ghana, sadly.
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Issues of immigration Law still leaves me confused but I know that every country in the world will at some point take very bold and sometimes unfair decisions in protecting their territories, citizens and resources. This is where governments come in, and this is where we can see an offshoot of the social contract theory.
Laws and strategic policies that don’t deny human rights are the civil and sane ways to regulate movements of people, not violence or bloodshed or the indignity of unleashing terror and inhumane humiliation to people we consider strangers or neighbours, like what we are seeing in South Africa. If you have persons who are not properly documented living in your land, the very fair answer is deportation with some bits of dignity left. This is even an agreed universal approach to issues of immigration.
Humans have the right to seek greener pastures or just move about. This is not without exceptions. Countries also have the right to regulate who comes in and who goes out, and this is where politics comes to dance.
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Why did I come back to share this?
I have seen persons compare the South Africa issues with the Ghana Must Go event. Those are two very far flung events. If history must be told, at least it is good to do it right and from the beginning.
From all of the above, no one is asking that South Africa (or any country at all) admits Nigerians into their country just because of the peculiarity of our shared history, but what we, especially me is asking is the dignity to expel Nigerians (who are not in line with the Immigration laws of their country) without violence or the terror that comes with a hate so evil and dark like we are witnessing. Violence hidden in the guise of territoriality is a No No anywhere, especially when the other party is harmless. My last post was not to ask that SA repay us by letting us in. It was a reminder to those who try to justify that Nigeria must have done something bad to deserve such hate.
If you have Nigerians living without papers, the diplomatic relationships and laws demand a deportation. If a few are caught doing crimes or violating criminal laws of where they are, the law demands a fair hearing and then a judgment, not violence or threats to the others who are law-abiding dwellers. This should not be hard to understand.
So many of these issues stem from the fact that we have leaders who are not paying attention to their citizens and the people protected in their territories. That we have degenerated to this absolute chaos is just saddening. Well, I really hope that someone is putting these things down in a book so history AGAIN can bear witness to this mess and just maybe the children of our children will get it right at some point.
