Stampede, As Thousands Of Jobless Ghanaian Youths Besiege Stadiums For Survival

A deadly stampede ensued thousands of unemployed Ghanaian youth, on Monday, October 25, 2021, thronged the Baaba Yara Stadium in Kumasi, Ashanti Region, to line up for recruitment into the various security service.

A video of the thronging has sunk moods in the country as it captures desperate youths who have had their hopes dashed by government rhetoric scrambling over themselves dangerously on a traffic-choked highway chasing phantom jobs in one of the appeasing screening exercises organised by the Akufo Addo administration.

The Baaba Yara desperate job rush was similarly replicated at the El-Wak stadium in Accra where several thousands of job seekers queued up.

The queue was as far as the Ghana International School. The distance from the entrance of the EL WAK stadium to the Ghana International School is about 1.5 Kilometres.

And at the Ghana Fire Service recruitment centre at Bukom, a similar throng of desperados formed there for recruitment into the Fire Service.

As has been the case, most of the prospective recruits will not make it and would be exploited by job recruiters.

In June, financial clearance was given for 11,840 personnel to be recruited into the Ghana Education Service, Ghana Police Service, Ghana National Fire Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, and the Ghana Prisons Service to augment the staffing strength.

In a letter dated June 21, 2021, the Finance Minister had indicated the effective date for the recruitment starts from August 1, 2021, and that the clearance would expire on December 31, 2021. 

Per the clearance, the Ghana Police Service would recruit 5,000 while the Immigration, Prisons, and Fire services each would engage 2,000 personnel to augment their workforces. 

However, at the Baaba Yara stadium alone, the number of prospective job seekers were estimated at more than 30,000.

These job recruitments appear to be a façade to temporarily calm the nerves of the growing unemployed youth because recently, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta stated unequivocally that there are no more openings in public services and that graduates should be ready to start their own entrepreneurial ventures.