From Migration to Art: The Legacy of the “Ghana Must Go” Bag

Mass-produced in Asia, the checkered plastic bag became more than an everyday object in West Africa circa the 1980s. Known widely as “Ghana Must Go“, it carries the weight of a nation’s political history, tied to the January 1983 mass expulsion of undocumented immigrants under Nigerian President Shehu Shagari. Following this policy decision, thousands of Ghanaians fled with hurriedly packed belongings stuffed into these durable, oversized bags, so much so that the bag itself became shorthand for the event. What was once a simple utilitarian object became a symbol of displacement, memory, and resilience.

But West Africa does not hold this history alone. Across the continent, the same woven polypropylene bag carries different names and associations. In South Africa, it has long been known as the “Shangaan bag”, linked to stories of migration under Zulu domination, where “Shangaan” was read as shiya ingane (leave the child behind). That phrase captures both the brutal ruptures of forced movement and the survival instincts of communities making do with what they had. In truth, you’ll find multiple accounts and local readings of the bag across the region, each tethered to personal histories of movement, separation, and belonging.

Beyond Africa, the bag has its own diasporic aliases. In Germany it’s called the “Türkenkoffer” — the Turkish suitcase. In the United States, it goes by the “Chinatown tote”. In other places, it’s simply known as the Refugee Bag. Across borders, its reputation is consistent: an object of migration, of working-class endurance, of starting over somewhere new.

Reclaiming the Bag in African Art and Fashion

The “Ghana Must Go” bag has since been reimagined by African creatives who understand its layered symbolism. Ghanaian artist Abdur Rahman Muhammad casts the ‘Ghana Must Go’ bag in oils as a potent symbol of migration in ‘The Allegory of a Seeker’.

The late Ghanaian-British designer Virgil Abloh during his time at Louis Vuitton tapped into the bag’s visual language, embedding it in conversations around movement and global Black identity.

Similarly, Zimbabwean artist Dan Halter has woven the bag into much of his practice, literally unpicking and re-stitching the material to interrogate histories of migration, labor, and colonial legacy.

From the Market to Paris Runway

High fashion has also taken notice. Paris runways have seen Louis Vuitton, Celine, and Balenciaga release reworked versions of the market bag, a deliberate blurring of utility and luxury. For Western houses, the bag is often an aesthetic gesture, like a wink at the everyday elevated into a luxury commodity. 

But for African designers, the stakes are different. The bags, which were cheap, durable, and commonly used by the displaced people, have become a powerful symbol of resilience, adaptability, and the enduring spirit of migrants. Rewriting a narrative of displacement into one of endurance and style.

The Bag as Archive and Symbol

Still, its resonance hits differently here in West Africa. For us, the “Ghana Must Go” bag is an archive that carries the stories of borders crossed, families uprooted, relationship strained and lives rebuilt. And when African designers choose to reshape it, they stitch into it a story of resilience, memory, and survival into the fabric of design itself.

What we see, then, is more than a bag’s journey. It is the transformation of a utilitarian object into a cultural symbol. In its checkered squares lies a reminder of how Africans have always turned necessity into innovation, and how memory itself can be reimagined as art.