Trans-Atlantic Migration by Toyin Falola Niyi Afolabi

Author:Toyin Falola, Niyi Afolabi [Toyin Falola, Niyi Afolabi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415542494
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2012-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

THE SETTLEMENT OF AHYIAYEM AND THE LAND DISPUTE

Ahyiayem is one of the numerous villages inhabited mainly by farm migrants from northern Ghana, a group among many who have established themselves between the ecological transition zone of the northern savanna and the fringes of the southern Akan forest. Labor migration from northern Ghana to the south dates back to the turn of the 19th century when the British colonial administration carved out the “North” as a labor reserve from which laborers were recruited to work in the mines, cocoa plantations and government public works.9 The phenomenon has continued in the post-independence era, with farmers leaving the dry savanna region of their own volition in search of more fertile lands in the south.10

Many villagers still remember the days when they started settling the area in the mid-eighties, a few years after the massive bushfires that swept through the entire forest of southern Ghana. In 1982/3 these fires decimated large sectors of food crops and cocoa farms. The devastation resulted in widespread shortages of food and basic supplies in the Ghanaian local markets. Lacking the hard currency from the cocoa exports to import food from elsewhere, the country was plunged into a severe food crisis. The forced repatriation of over a million Ghanaian migrants from Nigeria in the same year, amid continuing political instability in the country arising from the 1981 military coup d’état by Flight. Lieutenant, J.J Rawlings, exacerbated the food crisis.11 Most landowners, cocoa farmers, and even some traditional rulers in rural southern Ghana responded to the emergency by giving out on contract their ruined cocoa farms and bush fields (koya) to landless northern migrant farmers. These migrants settled and started producing food crops on a share-crop basis (Dominyenkye).12

During the 1980s, the political and economic conditions described above may have precipitated the founding of several settlements such as Ahyiayem, but in the case of this area there was an additional factor, a longue durée context that made the landowners welcome the migrants: a dispute over a colonially demarcated boundary.

I visited the market of Ahyiayem in February 2005, while conducting field work, and was warmly welcomed with calabashes of sorghum beer (pito). As we chatted over the drink, my host–called Dozie—commented on his recent expulsion from the village, as if to inform me that he was no longer a resident there. When pressed, he explained that he was expelled from the village by the Omanhene (i.e. paramount chief) of Wenchi (now deceased) because of the incident described above. I offered a few words of sympathy, but Dozie assured me that he felt much happier to be relocated within Chiraa’s territory which is under the Dormaa traditional authority. Given that Ahyiayem is very close to Chiraa(less than 3 miles), I asked why Ahyiayem is under the traditional authority of Wenchi- which is twelve miles away. My hosts first appeared amused at my question; then he told me what I later found out to be a popular narrative in communities neighboring Chiraa: “…the landowners

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