Stranded Ghanaians back home from Barbados

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

Pope Benedict XVI campaigning for Obama?

From REUTERS, Pope Benedict XVI speaking in Washington DC lamented the "clear signs of a disturbing breakdown in the very foundations of society: signs of alienation, anger and polarization on the part of many of our contemporaries; increased violence; a weakening of the moral sense; a coarsening of social relations and a growing forgetfulness of God."

Is the Pope campaigning for Obama or what? Obama said something last week about alienation, anger and polarization and the self-righteous pundits will not let anyone hear the last of it. It was like he had made some kind or rivers of blood speech and even nice Hilary is now running an ad in Pennsylvania showing the man and woman in the street saying how offended they are and how out of touch the posh Harvard educated Obama is with ordinary Americans.

So what do you say about Pope Benedict then. Here he is echoing the words of Obama in talking about “alienation, anger and polarization” and I am sure the talk on Talk Radio in the coming days will be about how we don’t need no European coming to tell us anything about ourselves. Who does he think he is coming here and telling us about Native Americans having had a bad deal? Tune in to your local Talk Radio over the next few days and see variations of Godwin’s law at work. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

gbetor@kpetoe

COMING BACK SOON

After an absence of almost two years, I intend to revive this blog and post here more frequently. What has caused this change of heart? I think there is still a lot to be said about what is going in Ghana and the world at large which is not being written anywhere I have looked. I intend to build up the pace slowly so I urge my two readers to be patient and keep returning to the site.

It has been interesting to read the news about Ghanaians “airlifted” to Barbados purported to be on a ground-breaking tourist trip which is now unraveling as a an immigration scam. You can read here about how some Barbadians feel about it and amuse yourself with some of the comments. I actually thought Yellow fever had been almost eradicated but this is the disease someone fears most on the island with the arrival of the West African visitors.

I will write more on that ill-fated trip by Ghana International Airlines to Barbados, after the story reaches its conclusion with the departure of the stranded visitors. I take this opportunity to thank the people of Barbados who have been generous in taking care of the needs of these Ghanaians, while they await a swift removal which cannot come too soon for many people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Ghanaians will do well to remember this kindness in the unlikely event that global warming causes the oceans to rise and the island of Barbados happens to be evacuated.