USA Travel Ban: Karma For Buhari Kicking Out 700,000 Ghanaians and others In The 80's?

By Nicholas Joshua

General Muhammadu Buhari (Nigeria’s current president) announced another expulsion — this time, of all foreigners, including those who had resident permits, as then Military Head of State.

On May 3, 1985, the Nigerian Government told 700,000 illegal aliens that they had a week to leave and that the borders, previously closed to prevent currency smuggling, would be open for their departure. In addition to the 300,000 migrant workers from Ghana, there were about 100,000 from Niger; most of the rest were from Chad and Cameroon.

Ghana must go

Officials in Ghana said about 62,000 Ghanaians had arrived since Nigeria announced the expulsion plan in mid-April.

The number is far short of the 300,000 Ghanaians believed to have been working in Nigeria. Some officials and returning Ghanaians said many were still stranded in Nigeria, unable to pay for transportation home.

Ghana's High Commissioner to Nigeria asked Nigerian authorities earlier this week to extend the May 10 deadline for the expulsions. But the Nigerian Interior Minister, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Magoro, said Friday that there would be no extension.

Trucks carrying returning Ghanaians have converged on the reception center at the stadium and another at a nearby trade fair site, by a lagoon on the Atlantic. As they tumble off the vehicles, many search for food and water. Though most are penniless -Nigerian customs officials searched them closely and refused to let them carry out more than the 20 naira, or $17.65, allowed by law - they have returned with bicycles, mattresses, electric fans and other items.

''We have done nothing except to look for the better way of life,'' said one woman, loading a mattress and sewing machine onto a truck for her journey to a town about 100 miles from here. ''They wanted us to leave, so we will go. But if we could have had more time, it would have been better for all of us.''

''I struggled a lot before I got a job as a driver there,'' said Mr. Antwi, who lived in Nigeria for nearly two years. ''My employer said he would like to keep me on but that it would be dangerous to hide me. So now I am back and must begin again from the bottom.''

This was how Nigeria maltreated strangers.

When everything was well In the country; they never knew someday that things will go so bad.