Is Ghana having her “favorite holiday destination” moment?

It appears Ghana is having her “favorite holiday destination” moment, how so? Everyone and their grandmama wants to be in Accra right now! In September 2018, the President of Ghana while in Washington DC, declared 2019 as the year of return for Africans in the diaspora and since then, as my late friend Byron would say, “it’s been up from there”.

The main aim of this initiative is to unite Africans on the continent with their brothers and sisters in the diaspora. This has seen an influx of people from celebrities to cousins showing up at the shores of the country, figuratively, but they actually turn up at the terminal 3 of the Kotoka International Airport. This move since 2019 has seen people with African descent reconnect with their ancestral roots through visits to the old slave trade castles in Cape-Coast, James Town, Osu and Elmina, as well as reconnecting with their actual families and locals over drinks and food at places such as Bloombar, Twist, Coco Vanilla and Serallio, just to name a few. There’s also events showcasing African arts and culture through music and exhibitions like Afrochella, Wildaland, The Bar Concert, Rapperholic, Bhim Concert, Promiseland, The Crusade, R2Bees and Friends, amongst others. Some “diasporans” have taken it a step further to explore business opportunities and also acquire property. Good news for the economy right? Yes. It is no wonder you see a Grammy award winning artiste like Chance The Rapper tweeting about how bad he wishes he’s in Accra, to American singer Ari Lennox relishing her visit to Ghana, to global Afrobeat superstar Burna Boy refer to Ghana as his peace haven and even global chart topping and Grammy winning singer Wizkid set up shop with his family here. Amazing right? Well, not quite. Looking in from the outside, one would never imagine how this socio-cultural and economic boom is being marred by certain things.

Let’s first look at accommodation. In December 2021 a 2-bed Airbnb was going for as high $500 a night. Why!? Upon first glance, I thought it was for a month so I was going to mildly debate the pricing but you should see how dumbfounded I was when I realized it was for a night. Now, this isn’t even accommodation that can easily make a two star rating but see, someone with terrible knowledge and judgement of demand and supply is sitting in their living room thinking, “yes let me charge this exorbitant amount and in dollars as well.” My fellow Ghanaians, why? Another phenomenon was the terrible overpriced goods and services. The prices of ride hailing apps Uber and Bolt were through roof, and oh, the taxi drivers? They were having a field day. The attitude of the taxi drivers reminded me of this Thanos quote from the MCU, “You Could Not Live With Your Own Failure, And Where Did That Bring You? Back To Me.”

Haha, these taxi drivers were literally snapping their fingers at passengers left and right, charging slightly lower prices from the ride hailing apps but more than what their regulatory body GPRTU stipulates. I was at an outdoor event midway through December and felt thirsty while I was there, I saw a hawker passing by with a pan full of bottled water so I stopped her to get my hands on a 500ml bottle and handed her a 10cedis note. This woman just turned walking away briskly after handing me a bottle, you should have seen the horror on my face when I blurted out, “wun ma mi nsisa?” Apparently, just that bottle cost 10cedis, which made me question my life choices leading up to that moment. Then to the one that takes the cake, cyber bullying people from the diaspora for posts they make on social media about their good experiences on coming here. I mean, what does an Ari Lennox post on Twitter talking about how spiritually fulfilling her trip was got to do with your government’s inability to adequately provide you with employment and basic amenities? How does Burna Boy updating his Instagram story with a video of him burning a zoot on the beach of Labadi influence the systemic issues riddling Ghana’s music industry? How does Wizkid riding a jetski in Ada be a contributing factor to the low standard of living in the country? Why don’t we channel all that energy into holding the government responsible and solving our own problems, rather than projecting them on people who have set aside a few thousands of dollars and weeks off their schedules to come reconnect with their roots?

It would be a big shame if we as citizens and a country, blow this very big opportunity to have our name up there with countries such as Dubai, Indonesia, Rwanda, Hawaii and others as people’s favorite holiday destination. Granted, we have our issues as a country and besides every country has its own issues, so let’s rather channel this energy we are putting in the wrong places to demand change from our government and make the country more welcoming to foreigners. December in Ghana is now a thing, and personally, I’m looking forward to it being an all year thing in the coming years.