FEATURE - Young Protesters In Ghana Try To Leverage Government's Reliance On US

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st April, 2023) While US Vice President Kamala Harris tries to reaffirm relations with African countries like Ghana during her trip this week, a Ghanaian activist explained to Sputnik what the younger generation has been fighting for, and how they might take advantage of the growing geopolitical competition on the continent.

Oliver Barker-Vormawor was serving in the office of the president of Ghana when he decided to leave the country in 2015 after witnessing serious problems within the administration firsthand.

"I left the country in 2015. At the time, I was working as a Senior Legal and Policy Officer at the Office of the President. And I was disillusioned by how the country was going and the government's inability to step up and deal with corruption head on," Barker-Vormawor, 36, told Sputnik.

As someone who hoped to find solutions to his nation's lingering problems, Barker-Vormawor went on to pursue a degree at Harvard University before enrolling as a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. While he was completing his PhD studies, Barker-Vormawor understood that he had the power to bring changes to his country while residing in the United Kingdom.

"While I was in the UK working on my PhD, I became interested in mobilizing young people to become more active participants in reforming our politics. I was in the UK when I orchestrated and led the protests. I flew down to Ghana to participate in the protests. I did a lot of interviews, meetings and strategizing outside of the country," he said.

The activist's efforts paid off as millions of young people in Ghana answered his calls to action by joining demonstrations throughout the nation, while his "#FixTheCountry" hashtag went viral on Twitter.

Barker-Vormawor's role in leading the protests attracted attention from Ghanian authorities. Less than three months after initiating various protests in Ghana, Barker-Vormawor was invited to return to his home country by the government.

"By June (2021), the Minister of National Security had invited me down to the country. It was a meeting brokered by a general of the Ghanian armed forces. It was for us to sit down and talk about what was happening. And one of the things they were asking me to do was to call off what I was doing in exchange for an appointment. I turned it down, saying I wasn't interested. Then they made it clear that if I continued with the activism, they were going to come after me, which they eventually did when I came back to the country," he said.

When Barker-Vormawor flew back to Ghana as a guest speaker to talk about the rising violence and extrajudicial killings in Ghana in February last year, he was arrested at the airport after he landed.

"At the airport, I was arrested in connection with one of our ongoing protests against the new law the government was introducing to tax all mobile money transactions in a country, which we maintained was going to widen income inequality between poor and rich people and the regressive nature of the tax. I was arrested and detained unlawfully without access for 35 days before I was eventually released. And since then, the government has seized my passport. I've been I've been stuck in Ghana and unable to travel back to the UK for my (PhD) program," he said.

The activist argued that the treason felony charges against him lacked evidence.

"The case has been in court for a year now and the government is refusing to proceed because they have zero evidence. But they're keeping the matter in the court and the court is refusing to dismiss the charges. We've made several applications for the charges to be dismissed. They have refused to do so. Substantially, there's no trial happening," he said.

After experiencing rapid economic growth in the second half of the last decade, Ghana has been struggling with hyperinflation and Currency devaluation in recent years, as the government failed to manage its external debts properly.

"The economic situation is definitely one of the key things. People have seen their ability to survive the economic situation has decreased to the point that Ghana is seeing unprecedented levels of debt, accounting for about 98% of the GDP. When the government assumed office in 2016, the Ghana Cedi was exchanging at 4 Cedi for one US dollar. Now, it's exchanging at 12 Cedi per Dollar and, at some point, it declined to 17 Cedi per dollar. There has been over 500% depreciation of the local currency," Barker-Vormawor said.

As Ghana relied heavily on foreign imports for all kinds of basic daily necessities, the currency depreciation has driven prices to skyrocket in the country.

"The country imports 90% of its food. A lot of what is being bought is bought in foreign currency. The depreciation of the local currency has caused the food prices to quadruple. People's ability to afford food has become a real concern. Even persons who produce food, whether they're fish farmers or others, they import feed. And people involved in mechanized farming also rely on imported oil for their machinery. That has a direct impact on the food crisis," Barker-Vormawor said.

For a country with a median age of 21.5, the younger generation in Ghana has become increasingly frustrated over the impotence of the country's leaders, who are in their 70s and 80s.

"There're a lot more young people who are unemployed than ever. The average age of Ghanaians is around 17 with a population of 31 million. We have a president who is nearly 80 years old with a cabinet of officials who are mostly in their late 70s and 80s. There's a concern of exclusion and a clear path over how the economic anxieties are dealt with. Those are definitely the driving factors that so many people joined the protests, which were the biggest since the country became independent in the 1970s," the activist said.

When US Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off her week-long trip in Africa with a first stop in Ghana this week, the main purpose of her diplomatic efforts was to counterbalance the growing influence of China and Russia on the continent.

However, from Barker-Vormawor's perspective, the enormous Chinese investments in African countries, including Ghana, would not clash with the United States directly in the near future, as Beijing usually did not link their investments with political requirements.

"One thing with the Chinese investments is that they don't interfere with too much of the politics. They're more interested in investments without any sense of political involvement in the state. From my sense, in terms of Chinese policies in a lot of African countries including Ghana, they're not particularly egging on the government to be anti-West. They're not competing in that regard ideologically, forcing you in a particular direction. That's unlike the West or the US, who usually need assurances of love and affiliation. You don't get that from China. China has taken a more business-oriented approach," he said.

The activist did acknowledge the leverage China held through its massive investments in Africa.

"On a geopolitical sense, the level of Chinese investments and debt gives them enormous leverage. I don't think they've gotten to the point where they're already using that leverage in a direct way to chase out American competition. It's a more subtle approach. Maybe it's a long-term approach. But I don't think they see themselves as competing against the West, even (as) the West see themselves as competing against China," he said.

As a number of neighboring countries, including Burkina Faso, have faced security threats from various terrorist groups, the government in Ghana has also been seeking military support to prepare for similar threats.

Barker-Vormawor pointed out that African countries had to rely on Western military support at the moment, as China was unwilling to get involved militarily in Africa under its current policy stance.

"In terms of military support or questions of terrorism, China is not involving itself militarily on the continent. So many governments (in Africa) are susceptible to this fear over coups orchestrated by any of these Western countries. There's a level of direct threat to their abilities to hold government," he said.

The activist noted that the only alternative to Western military support on the continent appears to come from Russia.

"But I think the current government in Ghana has really chosen its side, to stay in the Western camp," he said.

Barker-Vormawor pointed out that the current government in Ghana had been very vocal in criticizing Russia's military operations in Ukraine as a member of the United Nations Security Council.

The Ghanian government's decision to maintain good relations with the Western countries also means that it has to try to uphold a positive image in the West.

"Even this (Ghanian) government maintains lobbyists in Washington. They're very sensitive to the soft power the US wields. There're a lot of pressure on them, not only about the question of just money, but also perception and how the government is viewed. This government is particularly sensitive to its public image," Barker-Vormawor said.

Barker-Vormawor believes that the Ghanian government's sensitivity to Western criticism could help the activists avoid harsh crackdowns from authorities.

"As pro-democracy activists, we need to be aware of how far the government is willing to go. We have to be strategically smart enough and be aware of what's at stake. We can't blindly assume that just waving the magic wand of the US could solve the domestic problems we have with the government," he said.

Barker-Vormawor believes that the younger generation in Ghana could find a pathway to a more independent approach to the country's development, without heavy reliance either on the West or on rising powers like China.