Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has called on Nigerian traders who are facing tough times in Ghana not to leave the country but be patient with the Nigerian government as it continues to engage the Ghanaian authorities and other relevant stakeholders with a view to addressing their challenges.
The minister gave the advice yesterday in his office in Abuja when he received a delegation of the Nigerian Traders Association in Ghana, an affiliate of the Nigerian Traders Association, led by its National President, Dr Ken Ukaoha.
In a statement signed by the Director of Press and Public Relations, Mohammed Manga, on behalf of the minister, he assured that President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration would continue to engage Ghanaian authorities to ensure that the challenges faced by Nigerians are amicably resolved.
He said the Nigerian government was pained by the conditions under which Nigerian traders in Ghana had been made to operate in recent times and assured that government would not abandon them.
“We will not abandon you, no stone is being left unturned to remove the pains you are passing through in Ghana,” Aregbesola assured.
The minister stressed that the Nigerian government is not resting on the matter but doing everything possible to make life better for its citizens in Ghana and other countries of the world.
Earlier, Dr Ukaoha expressed what he referred to as the agony, humiliation and torture of Nigerian traders in Ghana, emanating from the Ghanaian government’s decision to raise the capital base of any foreign trader doing business in the country to $1 million and the subsequent locking up of many Nigerian traders’ shops since 2019.
He added that in spite of various interventions by representatives of the Nigerian government, nothing significant had been done by the Ghanaian government to reverse the trend.
Ukaoha, who expressed the frustration of many Nigerians who are doing business in Ghana, noted that about 753 citizens are ready to leave Ghana.
“If we react proportionately to the way we have been treated in Ghana, it might lead to a serious crisis,” he stressed, and appealed to the federal government and ECOWAS to take urgent steps against the Ghanaian government to assuage the sufferings of Nigerian traders in that country.
Credit: Nigerian Pilot