The federal government, last week, threatened to sue the Ghanaian government at the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) if the country was found to have breached the sub-region’s protocol of free movement of people from member states.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, disclosed this while hosting a delegation of the Progressive Ambassadors of Nigeria (PAN) led by its President, Mr Jasper Emenike. He lamented about the closure of business premises of Nigerians in Ghana for alleged violation of trade regulations.
PAN had gone to brief the minister on the need for Nigeria to take urgent steps to address the issue. Emenike described the action as xenophobic. The Nigeria Union of Traders in Ghana (NUTAG) has equally urged the federal government to take urgent steps to end the ordeal of Nigerian traders doing business in Ghana. The President of NUTAG, Chukwuemeka Nnaji, said their businesses including warehouses have continued to be locked up and their business partners harassed.
Speaking further on the development, Mr Onyeama said the Nigerian government had more than a year ago reached an agreement with Ghana on the matter. He expressed concern that the matter was being re-opened; adding that the GIPC regulations which stipulate that retail trade is the exclusive preserve of Ghanaians conflict with the ECOWAS Protocol. “What is the point of having an economic community if at the end of the day each country will make laws and regulations that are in contradiction with the protocol?”, Onyeama said. Mr Onyeama also said the Nigerian government has been following the matter very closely and would within the shortest possible time consider all the options depending on the facts available to it.
Addressing reporters, the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe also described Ghana’s policy, which stipulates that retail trade is the exclusive preserve of Ghanaians, as “wilful denigration of sub-regional brotherhood”; adding that it clearly violates ECOWAS protocol. “This is quite absurd as it negates the spirit that propelled the formation of ECOWAS in the first place”, Abaribe said.
The Ghanaian Ministry of Trade, had on Sunday August 16, 2020 rejected claims of unfair treatment of Nigerian traders during the enforcement of the Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC) regulations, saying that traders must pay the required taxes and other fees imposed on them by the authorities. While the requirement for GIPC registration is $1 million minimum foreign equity, the registration fee is 31,500 cedis. It is pertinent to recall that ECOWAS’s protocol relating to the free movement of persons, residence and establishment stipulates the right of ECOWAS citizens to enter, reside and establish economic activities in the territory of other member states.
It is not unlikely that the action of Ghanaian authorities is a reaction to Nigeria’s closure of her land borders with neighbouring countries including Benin and Niger since August 20, 2019. Indeed, the measure which was taken to effectively check the smuggling of rice and other commodities into Nigeria as well as criminal activities that undermine the country’s economy may have prompted Ghana’s GIPC policies. The blockade has had some economic effect across the West African sub-region.
Hopes were raised when officials of the two countries gathered in Abuja on Thursday August 20, 2020 for a two-day National Consultation Workshop on ECOWAS Post-2020 Vision which held at the headquarters of Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Director, Microeconomic Analysis, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, David Adeosun, who was part of the federal government’s delegation at the workshop said ECOWAS delegates would during the side-lines of the meeting discuss the closure of Nigerians’ shops in Ghana.
While we call on the Ghanaian authorities to act within the purview of ECOWAS protocol, we urge Ghanaian government to suspend its GIPC policy until after relevant aspects of the ECOWS protocol have been reviewed to allow retail trade become the exclusive preserve of Ghanaians. Nigeria’s immediate neighbours in the sub-region are also encouraged to fulfil the conditions stipulated by the Nigerian government for the re-opening of its land borders.
