Beyond the sensational headlines and the obviously delicious political dimensions of the alleged World Cup visa racketeering story that has claimed one major political scalp and threatens several others, there is perhaps another angle of this melee that has not seen much public airing.
In a conversation with a friend over this story, he asked why on earth anyone would pay as much as $10,000 to anyone for a tourist visa to the United States or to Canada just to watch the World Cup and return home.
We agreed, as I am sure most people would, that clearly those who made these payments had no intention of returning to Ghana after the tournament, and perhaps did not even intend to set foot in a stadium out there to watch any match, not even Ghana’s.
This is blindingly obvious.
My friend said he did not know people had that amount of dollars stashed away in this country and rattled off a list of investments he believed the victims could have pursued, made substantial returns and lived comfortably, instead of chasing the American (or Canadian) dream which he believed to be no more than a mirage.
It is amusing how people can marshal grand and sensible investment options when it comes to other people’s money.
Bigger, wider picture
I have no doubt in my mind that for some people ‘it serves you right’ is their reaction as far as the victims are concerned, and that they do not even see them as victims in the first place, but rather as willing parties to an unwholesome, even criminal enterprise that just went bad for them.
Whilst that may indeed be true, I think that view misses the much bigger and wider picture.
This does not in any way absolve those who allegedly took huge amounts of money from these people and promised them visas, purportedly to paradise.
In my over two decades of involvement in immigration work spanning the UK and Ghana in particular, I have encountered scores of people desperate to leave this country by any means necessary.
Nothing seems to deter them. In that time, I have come to appreciate better their thinking processes on this vexed matter.
Long before this, when I spent a year in Burkina Faso in 1990/91 as part of my French undergraduate studies at the University of Ghana, I encountered a young shoeshine boy from my hometown whose sole ambition in life was to travel across the Sahara Desert into Libya, then through to Italy, the UK and then finally to the United States, where he would marry a white lady and live with her and their mixed-race children in a big mansion in Virginia, never to return to Ghana.
He was very clear in his mind about this, and I sometimes wonder what became of him whenever I discuss migration and immigration issues. I hope he is living out his dream.
I am sure we have all come across media stories of people from developing countries paying huge sums of money to engage in perilous adventures all in the name of landing in a Western country, whose streets are believed to be paved with the proverbial gold.
This growing phenomenon of immigration and border control has been one of the most divisive and defining issues in Western politics, with deep ideological tensions across the US and Western Europe in particular, and has both toppled governments and ushered some parties into office.
Desperate desires
The reasons for the desperate desire to migrate to the West are not hard to fathom. In the particular Ghanaian context, it is not civil or religious or even political strife, but purely driven by economic malaise, poor opportunities for the youth in particular and a burning attraction, even among some people doing reasonably well here, of the West with all its famed glamour, glitz and supposed heavenly status.
In many cases, the magnetic pull of the West is driven by movies and other media platforms, as well as acclaimed success stories of others (including family and friends) who have relocated and whose lives have seen remarkable turnaround, including land and other acquisitions back home.
Even social media photographs by these people do have an effect. Of course, the would-be immigrant may hardly be interested in the stories behind the sheen and the glamour.
I think it is within this broad context that we must perceive people paying vast sums of money to agents in a bid to relocate to the US or Canada.
If others are paying these huge sums of money to risk boat and desert crossings, then perhaps from their perspective, this is a stroll in the park.
It is hard to argue with this from the rational perspective, when one has had the sort of conversations I have had with many would-be immigrants and immigrants over the past two decades.
On alternative investments here in Ghana, the pushback I have experienced has been that whether one invests in Ghana or travels abroad, there is a risk of that investment going up in smoke.
I have seen people’s lives turn for the worse after relocating to the UK at huge cost, living in penury and fear, below the immigration radar.
I have equally seen people emerge from that dark space out there, through many difficult twists and turns, to legitimise their stay and actually flourish in that country and give their children opportunities they could only have dreamt of back home in Ghana.
It is primarily for these reasons that I am not usually in a hurry to mount a high horse when it comes to people’s dreams of emigrating.
Indeed, when I lived in the UK, I learned the lesson not to kill people’s dreams of relocating there whilst I remained planted there, because in their eyes it smacked of double standards.
Even following my relocation back home, I am still cautious because the refrain is that they also want to test their chances and see things for themselves, even when certain realities have been laid before them.
Hasten slowly
From biblical times and throughout the history of mankind, the desire to seek greener pastures elsewhere on the surface of this earth for whatever reason is quite innate.
Modern society almost everywhere in the world is the result of many complex internal and external crisscrossing migratory patterns that are constantly evolving, driven by several legitimate factors including the pursuit of economic betterment. Ghana is no exception.
For many who can fairly easily stroll into a Western embassy and obtain a visa for a holiday abroad, it could be understandably tempting to rain on other people’s dreams and snort at decisions they make, perhaps with good intentions.
Perhaps the Latin maxim ‘Festina Lente’ (hasten slowly) that I learned at Opoku Ware School many years ago could come in handy in this discussion. I wish the victims well.
Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng.
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