Reasons why returnees go back – Napoleon Ato Kittoe writes 

Everywhere on the planet, there are Ghanaian crowds. Xenophobic fires in South Africa sent many running, but the compass of returnees keeps turning away from home for other reasons. The first and lowest-hanging fruit is evil in the land. By evil I mean the frontal obstacle placed in your way, and the hard tackle on your basic desire to grow. It is not foreign mobs this time. It is the man at the desk, the “come tomorrow”, the forces that meet your ambition with resistance. Until we uproot the daily evil that blocks effort, every returnee’s heart will keep pointing outward. Growth must be protected, not fought.

The next deterrence is that prices of land in Ghana are so high they break the spirit. Then comes the inability to secure a job in the formal system through personal effort. Add unequal treatment of citizens by the state. It depends where you operate to access the juiciest dispensation. The political division in the land is gaining notoriety. If a person points at you as belonging to the other party when that party is not in power, you are denied everything. A country that sells land like gold and jobs like favors tells her children: build elsewhere. Fair access is the foundation of return.

Another factor is the slowness to acquisitions in Ghana if you use the legit path. You are encumbered in all directions. In Ghana, it is harder to marry and that is a worry to the men. So our men marry where they find women elsewhere not too financially draining. Many Ghanaians travel overseas purposely to make money to come home and build a house. Yet owning a house is out of reach for many Ghanaians if they lived in Ghana. When marriage and shelter become luxury items, the compass turns. People chase places where life can start now, not in 20 years.

In Ghana, systems don’t fully work. A pothole can remain where it is for years. Elsewhere, it won’t reach a superior officer before it is corrected. Train services abroad are working and pick people on time. So returnees become fond of such destinations and would want to live there. Ghanaians in Ghana have a high taste for foreign goods. They are in Ghana creating employment for other countries while our own systems rust. Reliability builds love for a place. When basics work abroad but fail at home, loyalty shifts with the train schedule.

Some Ghanaians feel shy doing menial jobs in Ghana. Outside, they easily do them. Frying bofrot by the sides of the road in Kaneshie is a big deal. Easily to be done in say Zanzibar. Xenophobia didn’t stop them from hustling in SA townships. Yet pride stops them from hustling in Kaneshie. The compass turns where dignity meets work. Until we honor all labor at home, our people will export their sweat and import their shame. The good news is that Ghanaian Businessman and Philanthropist, Ibrahim Mahama, has pledged to offer the returnees from South Africa at least 100 jobs. The state too has urged institutions in both the public and the private sectors to be innovative and create jobs for the arriving hands.