I’m working part time in my uni’s International Office in Belfast, answering emails from foreign students wishing to study in Belfast NI. There seems to be a disproportionatly high number of students applying from Ghana and Nigeria. Compared to the rest of Africa, enquiries from these two countries are quite frequent, many times that of the rest put together. Is there any reason for this? Do they just have the densest populations in Africa or are there other social and economic reasons?
Nigeria is the most populace country in Africa, Ghana is about the 12th or so most populace. Both countries are former British colonies (also both members of the Commonwealth)and in both countries English is the language with the most speakers (though I’m guessing as second language, serving as a lingua franca amid the various local languages).
Like most African countries neither is rich and neither’s government is great on the human rights front.
I once worked in the office of a Esperanto youth organisation in the Netherlands whose contact details were found in guides to volunteering in Europe. The office received quite a bit of mail from people in Ghana and Nigeria wanting to come to Europe under the pretext of volunteering, though they didn’t speak a word of Esperanto and the letters came in English. I too was puzzled why those two countries were so predominant.
My guess is that English is common enough there that they can communicate with English-language institutions, such as UK universities and NGO’s. People in many other African countries have only French as a foreign language in which they are proficient.
UnuMondo