A group of Nigerian youth has given Ghanaians a 24-hour ultimatum to re-open locked up stores of its compatriots in Ghana.
South-East youths, under the auspices of Coalition of South-East Youth Leaders, condemned the alleged inhuman treatment being meted to Nigerian traders in Ghana.
The President-General of Coalition of South-East Youth Leaders, Ibem Goodluck, conveyed the group’s position to journalists in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital.
He said, “The action of the group contravenes international laws and it’s an infringement of the
fundamental human rights and privileges of Nigerians and other nationals doing business in Ghana. It’s a total travesty of the law for the Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA) to do what they just did.
“GUTA lacks the powers to ascribe to itself the duties of the police or other security agencies in Ghana. Intimidating and harassing Nigerians is totally unacceptable and we condemn it in its entirety.
“We call for the immediate arrest and prosecution of GUTA members who took laws into their hands by illegally locking up the shops of Nigerians which is not their duty. For every offence, there must be punishment.
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“We demand that those GUTA members be punished for insulting and embarrassing the government of Ghana. Self-help is a crime anywhere in the world.”
It added in a Punch report: “We give them 24-hour ultimatum from the time of this press release to immediately unlock Nigerian shops that they locked unlawfully.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria has closed its borders to Ghana and other neighbouring countries until January 2020.
Background
Ghanaian traders at selling at the Opera Square in the capital, Accra, recently locked-up shops belonging to foreign nationals engaged in retail business.
Most of the shops are believed to belong to Nigerians and it is unclear the number of shops that had been locked-up.
“According to an eyewitness account, over 50… maybe less. We are not sure,” said Chukuemeka Nnaji, President of the Nigerian Union of Traders Association of Ghana.
However, reports have it that over 50 shops belonging to these foreign nationals had been locked-up.
The Ghanaian traders said the activities of the foreign nationals contravenes Section 27 of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) Act 865 which bars foreign nationals from:
the sale of goods or provision of services in a market, petty trading or hawking or selling of goods in a stall at any place
the operation of taxi or car hire service in an enterprise that has a fleet of less than twenty-five vehicles;
the operation of a beauty salon or a barbershop;
the printing of recharge scratch cards for the use of subscribers of telecommunication services; i.e. the production of exercise books and other basic stationery;
the retail of finished pharmaceutical products;
the production, supply, and retail of sachet water; and
all aspects of pool betting business and lotteries, except football pool.
The traders say they are forced to carry out the operations following the government’s failure to enforce the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre laws.
“If the police will not do it, we will do it ourselves,” said one of the traders. “It has been many years since we started this activity, the Police is not willing to help us. So we have to help ourselves, protect our laws.”
This action comes just four days after a similar operation was carried out by members of GUTA in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region. Several shops belonging to Nigerians in at least five markets in Kumasi were locked up last recently.
The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Ghana Union of Traders Association, Albert Offei, warned the action would soon be extended to other parts of the country.
