Barima’s Beefs VIII: “It’s the economy (and other things), stupid”: why young Ghanaians are leaving

Launch any social media app – Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok or whatever suits your fancy – type “I for lef Ghana”, and you will immediately discover hundreds of people (if not more) expressing the desire to leave their country.

From the small poultry farmer in the Bono Region to the mid-level accounting associate at a Big Four firm, the feeling is clear: “Get me out of here!”

Make no mistake, though: the “I for lef Ghana” movement is not entirely new. For a long time, Ghanaians have been moving across the Atlantic to Western countries for a multitude of reasons – from Philip Quaque who, after moving to England as a child in the mid-1700s, was ordained in the chapel at St James’s Palace and became one of the first Africans from the Gold Coast to become a priest in the Church of England, to the student activist and lawyer Joe Appiah, who used London as a base to agitate for Gold Coast independence, and the journalist Bankole Awoonor-Renner, who in the 1920s studied first in the United States and then the Soviet Union.

The last exodus

Although migration has always been a fact of life for some people in this country, it was the late 1970s through to the 1990s, when the Ghanaian economy was in steep decline and the political situation untenable, which caused Ghanaians to leave their native land in droves in search of opportunities anywhere – from the hotter climes of Kano to coldest Hanover. While the prosperity that John Agyekum Kufuor ushered in during his years as president brought back many Ghanaian diasporans, intent on contributing their quota to national development, the pace of migration seems to have picked up once again.

In recent years many migrants, typically those at the lower end of the social ladder, have opted to “travel through the Sahara Desert to reach Libya and Europe”. Italy’s Ministry of the Interior counted 4,431 Ghanaians arriving on the shores of that country in 2015 alone. Their better-heeled mates back home, living primarily in urban areas, working in white-collar jobs and firmly established in the middle class, also spend their time scouring the internet, looking for tips on how to get scholarships to study or permits to work in the West.

Why? To put it simply, real life in Ghana today is bleak. The typical young person wakes up in a country where prices are skyrocketing and the economy seems to be in meltdown. This is to compound a stagnant income – if you have managed to find a job or occupation at all. Forget the possibility of sending something home to pensioner parents at the end of the month, buying that Honda Civic, or even securing a piece of land to build a house.

In fact, bleak is an understatement. Simple pleasures have disappeared for the typical middle-class youth. There is no bimonthly meet-up with the boys at Honeysuckle, because that money is now going towards the food budget. Nor is there a chance to buy new sneakers or the season jersey of your favourite football club, because the exchange rate has ballooned so much that a purchase of this kind would be as foolish as it would be deadly.

There are no little things, soft things. Life has turned into a game of surviving, without any dreams of thriving. It’s a frustrating existence.

Somewhere … over the rainbow

Couple this with the daily torrent of bad news – from sick people being carted miles in the vaguest hope of treatment, to the galamsey tragedy that is Ghana perhaps having to import water at some point in the near future – and it is easy to understand why amannɔne has become so attractive to Ghanaians.

They see the good life that citizens in the West live – the first cars and homes at 22, the mouth-watering entry-level salaries – and ask themselves if they don’t deserve a nice life devoid of worry. It is because of this that “I for lef Ghana” becomes a rallying cry, a symbol of the possibilities.

And yet, others argue that while Ghana might be going through a rough patch right now, the potential for growth is immense. After all, in 2019 Ghana was named the fastest-growing economy in the world; the bubbling arts scene in Accra made Time magazine crown it one of the world’s 100 Greatest Places in 2021; and, unlike among so many of our near neighbours for which coups have become a fact of existence, Ghana has solid democratic credentials, even gaining a reputation in 2020 for holding the “dullest election in Africa” that year.

Some say that once we are able to scale the present challenges, put our talents to use to push the country forward and do the hard work of holding politicians accountable in detail in between elections to get the leadership we need, the next generation will see a much wealthier and stronger Ghana. But it’s much easier said than done. Still, trying is a better option than giving in completely.

For this correspondent, the child of entrepreneurs in the diaspora who rushed back to Ghana to make their mark amid the excitement of John Kufuor being elected president, it goes against my bona fides to seek greener pastures abroad. So, I meander through life in this ever-changing country, making new acquaintances and jumping life’s hurdles, hoping and praying to John Wesley’s God that things will straighten out.

Barima Peprah-Agyemang (@fremebarima) is a graduate of Ashesi University. He is from Sampa in the Bono Region

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