Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:05:32.807Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘We are citizens too’: the politics of citizenship in independent Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2010

Ousman Kobo
Ousman Kobo*
Affiliation:
Department of History, The Ohio State University, 106 Dulles Hall, 230 West 17th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1367, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines Ghana's struggle to create a pluralistic nationality that guarantees universal rights to all citizens, including people of foreign origin. A major recipient of colonial labour migrants who considered themselves citizens of Ghana at the time of independence, Ghana provides an excellent case study for exploring the ambiguities and malleability of post-colonial citizenship. Analysing the various ways in which Ghanaian politicians have struggled to redefine the nationality status of descendants of migrants from other parts of West Africa since independence, I argue that the politicisation of Ghana's post-colonial citizenship stems not only from the country's colonial legacy, but also from struggles over diminishing economic resources between the late 1960s and early 1980s that led some indigenous Ghanaians to declare the non-autochthonous population as ‘aliens’ who should be excluded from the benefits of citizenship. Constitutional provisions that recognised citizenship by birth were contested by popular perceptions that only the autochthonous are ‘true’ citizens and are thus the only legitimate beneficiaries of political and economic rights.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 67 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Addo, N. A. 1974. ‘Foreign African Workers in Ghana’, International Labor Review 109, 1: 47–68.Google Scholar
Adjei, M. 1994. Death and Pain, Rawlings' Ghana: the inside story. London: Images Publishing (Malvern) Ltd.Google Scholar
Adomako-Sarfoh, J. 1974. ‘The effects of the expulsion of migrant workers on Ghana's economy with particular reference to the cocoa industry’, in Amin, S. & Forde, D., eds. Modern Migrations in West Africa. London: Oxford University Press, 138–55.Google Scholar
Ahooja-Patel, K. 1974. ‘Regulations governing the employment of non-nationals in West Africa’, in Amin, S., ed. Modern Migrations in West Africa. Oxford University Press, 170–90.Google Scholar
Allman, J.-M. 1991. ‘Hewers of wood, carriers of water: Islam, class and politics on the eve of Ghana's independence’, African Studies Review 34, 2: 1–26.Google Scholar
Asante, S. K. B. 1977. ‘Bankole Awooner-Renner’, in Ofosu Appiah, L. H., ed. Encyclopedia Africana Dictionary of African Biography. Vol. i. New York: Reference Publications, 208–9.Google Scholar
Balogun, S. U. 1987. ‘Muslim participation in the independence struggle of the Gold Coast’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 8, 1: 176–82.Google Scholar
Bennet, G. 1954. ‘The Gold Coast general elections of 1954’, Parliamentary Affairs 7, 4: 430–9.Google Scholar
Census. 1960. 1960 Census Report. Vol. ii. Accra: Government Printing House.Google Scholar
Census. 1969. The 1960 Census. Vols. iii and iv. Accra: Central Bureau of Statistics.Google Scholar
Constitution. 1970. The Constitution of the Second Republic of Ghana, 1968. Accra: Ghana Publishing House.Google Scholar
Coquery-Vidrovitch, C., Goerg, O., Mande, I. & Rajaonah, F., eds. 2003. Etre Etranger et Migrant en Afrique au xxe Siecle: enjeux identitaires et modes d'insertion. Vol. i: Politiques migratoires et construction des identités. Vol. ii: Dynamiques migratoires, modalités d'insertion urbaine et jeux d'acteurs. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Depuis, J. 1824. Journal of Residence in Ashantee. London: Colburn.Google Scholar
Dorman, S., Hammett, D. & Nugent, P., eds. 2007. Making Nations, Creating Strangers: states and citizenship in Africa. Boston, MA: Brill.Google Scholar
Geschiere, P. 2009. The Perils of Belonging: autochthony, citizenship, and exclusion in Africa and Europe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Ghana Muslim Representative Council (GMRC). 1958. Functions of the Ghana Muslim Representative Council. Accra: Ghana Publishing House.Google Scholar
Grindal, B. 1973. ‘Islamic affiliations and urban adaptation: the Sisala migrants in Accra, Ghana’, Africa 43, 4: 333–46.Google Scholar
Herbst, J. 2000. States and Power in Africa: comparative lessons in authority and control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kobo, O. 1999. ‘Transformations of Muslim identity in 20th century Ghana’, MA thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison.Google Scholar
Levtzion, N. 1968. Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Levtzion, N. & Fisher, H., eds. 1987. Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Mabogunje, A. 1972. Regional Mobility and Resource Development in West Africa. Montreal: McGill University Press.Google Scholar
Owusu-Ansah, D. 1983. ‘Islamic influence in a forest kingdom: the role of protective amulets in early 19th century Asante’, Trans-African Journal of History 12: 100–33.Google Scholar
Peil, M. 1971. ‘The expulsion of West African aliens’, Journal of Modern African Studies 9, 2: 205–29.Google Scholar
Peil, M. 1974. ‘Ghana's aliens’, International Migration Review 8, 3: 367–81.Google Scholar
Peil, M. 1979. ‘Host reactions: aliens in Ghana’, in Shack, W. & Skinner, S. P., eds. Strangers in African Societies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 123–40.Google Scholar
Pobee, J. 1993. Religion and Politics in Ghana. Accra: Ghana Universities Press.Google Scholar
Price, J. 1956. ‘Muslims vote in the Accra constituencies, 1954’, Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Conference of the West African Institute of Social and Economic Research. Legon, Ghana: 104–11.Google Scholar
Rouch, J. 1956. ‘Migrations au Ghana (Gold Coast) – enquête, 1953–1955’, Journal de la Société des Africanistes 26: 33–196.Google Scholar
Samwini, N. 2006. The Muslim Resurgence in Ghana since 1950: its effect upon Muslims and Muslim-Christian relations. Berlin: Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Schildkrout, E. 1974. ‘Islam and politics in Ghana: an analysis of the disputes of the Kumasi Central Mosque’, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 52, 2: 113–37.Google Scholar
Schildkrout, E. 1978. People of the Zongo: transformation of ethnic identity in Ghana. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sudarkasa, N. 1979. ‘From stranger to alien: the sociopolitical history of the Nigerian Yoruba in Ghana, 1900–1970’, in Shack, W. & Skinner, S. P., eds. Strangers in African Societies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 141–68.Google Scholar
Trimingham, J. S. 1954. A History of Islam in West Africa. 2nd edn.London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilks, I. 2002. Wa and the Wala: Islam and polity in northwestern Ghana. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wilks, I., Levtzion, N. & Haight, B. 1987. Chronicles from Gonja: a tradition of West African Muslim historiography. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Young, C. 1993. The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism: the nation-state at bay? Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Young, C. 2001. ‘Nationalism and ethnic conflicts in Africa’, in Guibernau, M. & Hutchinson, J., eds. Understanding Nationalism. London: Polity Press, 164–81.Google Scholar

Newspapers and magazines

The Daily Graphic, Accra; The Ghanaian Times, Accra; West Africa, London.

Websites

British Nationality Act, 1948, available at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1948/cukpga_19480056_en_2, accessed 21.1.2009.

Ghana Citizenship Act, 2000. (Act 591) [Ghana], 5.1.2001, available online in UNHCR Refworld at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3eda135a2.html, accessed 24.11.2008.

Ghana News Agency, available at: http://www.ghananewsagency.org.

Interviews

Baako, Alhaji (now deceased). Local business owner, diamond prospector and community leader, interviewed in June 1998 and April 2001.Google Scholar
Murtala, Sani Mallam. Muslim scholar, Qur'anic school teacher and community leader in Nima (Accra), interviewed in Accra several times, June 1998 to August 2008, Nima.Google Scholar
Shaaban, Mallam Rashid. Muslim leader of Kumasi and a Qur'anic school teacher, generally regarded by Kumasi Muslims as a repository of the history of Mossi migrants in Ghana, who served as Enid Schildkrout's main informant during her research on Kumasi Zongo communities during the 1970s; interviewed several times between July 1998 and June 2006.Google Scholar