WELCOME BACK, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS!At long last our Ghanaian ( and a few Nigerian) brothers who went on an adventure to Barbados (and Trinidad) have arrived back home in Ghana- at least most of them any way. About 7 of them are still missing in action and will be declared fugitive illegal immigrants soon if they do not give themselves up. It looks like some Bajan brothers are hiding the few guys left but it remains to be seen how long one can hide on an island which is smaller than the size of Kpetoe.
The Barbados Nation newspaper reports their departure here and the some of the statements attributed to the Barbados Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, Senator Maxine McClean, are a bit amusing.
According to McClean, the ones who left on the flight last night have not been deported, and their status has been regularised and that will be reflected in their travel documents.
She said that should any of them wish to re-enter Barbados, they could, once the requirements of the Immigration Department were met upon arrival
Someone is in denial here or someone hasn't learnt their lesson from the fiasco because almost everyone realizes now that these "visitors" were promised jobs in Bardados and other countries and were most probably victims of an illegal immigration scam perpetuated by someone or a group of people who played the Barbados authorities with talk of a "cultural exchange". Maybe the Minister is just speaking diplomatically. Judging from the photograph of the departing visitors above, they appear very happy and are smiling and laughing. It looks like they were treated well and Ghanaians will remember that if a group of Bajans happen to be stranded in West Africa in the future.
As a frequent visitor to the Barbados Free Press blog, I could not help noticing that what many of the Barbadian commenters there were most scared of was the possibility that the visitors would impregnate their Bajan women. I thought they ought to have given their women more credit than that. Whatever happenned to courtship and marriage, before children? Other Barbadians were scared of the West Africans bringing diseases like Yellow Fever and AIDS to their island! That threat is gone now and those Bajans can now sleep peacefully at night; the sterile island bubble is still free of disease pathogens! A few others were scared about increased crime; I can assure them that these "tourists" were looking for jobs and a better life and therefore were very unlikely to become petty criminals
The Ghana News Agency reports their arrival story here and of note is the fact that the 19 Nigerians refused to give any interviews on arrival. Many commenters on Ghanaweb are displacing some of their anger onto the Nigerians and demanding that we send some of the bill for the repatriation to the Nigerian government. 
The total amount is reported to be 300,000 US dollars equally shared between the Barbados government and Ghana. By my calculation, we should send a bill for 43,467 US dollars to the Nigerian government. It is small change for Nigeria with the price of OIL currently a 125 dollars a barrel and then we can have some peace.
It is dog eat dog season and everyone is looking for someone to hate and vent their displeasure at. Some Bajans did it to the Ghanaian visitors and some Ghanaians are venting on the Nigerians who were on the flight. It is all misplaced anger. Not long after the visitors leave, the angry Barbadians will turn their anger back to other things, maybe resume their attention on the Guyanese and soon after the Nigerians leave Ghana, the angry Ghanaians will resume hating each other like we do daily on the Ghanaweb forum SAY-IT-LOUD
Can anything good come out this fiasco? I doubt it but all reports indicate that initially, many Barbadians were extremely happy to see the visitors. Now they have been left with a sour or sour taste in the mouth because of what they perceive as a threat of illegal immigration from "African scammers". Time will tell. In the meantime, a warm welcome home to my Ghanaian adventurers. I hope you acquitted yourselves well in your short time in Barbados society. Now let us turn our attention to finding out the culprits behind this scheme. We can start at the office of the Travel agent in Ghana and we should not rest till we catch the possible frontman on the either side in Barbados. -mailto:-gbetor@kpetoe
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