Migration In Africa

1.0 Background to the Study

Migration – as a necessary human activity – is as old as man himself. Its importance lies in the connection between it and development, when properly directed, managed and handled. The United Nations has equally noted that migration is a vital element in the development process. To this end, several conferences have held to discuss the issues arising from migrations and how these could be utilized to aid global development. Contemporary studies have shown that the more rapidly a population increases, the higher the desire of people to change from one environment to the other. In modern times however, migrations are “migrations of labour, not of people” (Amin, 1995). Thus, migrants in the modern day sense, simply

One fact should be sustained however, that migration in Africa has never been a homogenous affair as “various forms of movements across and within national boundaries have been promoted by commerce, pastoralism, natural disasters, warfare and the search for employment” (Addo, 1975). In the colonial era, the pattern, volume, intensity and direction of migration were altered by the colonial administration in support of the colonial economy. Nowadays, both educated and non-educated people are drawn to the allures and opportunities offered by the city life; “exchanging misery without hope in the rural areas for misery with hope in the cities” (Adepoju,

Ewe migration narratives from Nigeria and archaeological finds in the region put the earliest appearance of Ewe speakers at c. 1600. (Ember & Ember, 2001). The Ewe are closely related to the Fon. There are four main groups: the Ewe “proper,” who live in Ghana and southwest Togo; the Anlo Ewe, who live in Ghana west of the River Volta; the Watyi, who live in southeast Togo; and the Mina, a small group living on the Togo coast. A few Ewe also live in Benin. According to Ewe oral history, the Ewe migrated to their present lands from what is now Benin and Nigeria in the mid-1600s c.e. The Ewe people speak the Ewe language, which has several dialects. The Anlo Ewe dialect has become the main literary language of the Ewe. The Ewe language is the most widely spoken of a cluster known as the Gbe languages, which includes the language of the Fon people. The Gbe language cluster is part of the wider Kwa group of languages.

For many years, the coastal Ewe traded with Europeans, at first selling war captives as slaves and, when the slave trade ended, selling raw materials such as copra (the dried “meat” of coconuts) and palm oil. In the late 1800s, the western Ewe came under British colonial rule in what was then called the Gold Coast, while the Germans ruled the eastern Ewe in German Togoland. After World War I, Togoland became a joint British and French protectorate (colony). When the Gold Coast