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Unexpected Joy at Dawn is narrative of migration, identities and lives undermined by cynical and xenophobic politics pushed to its logical and terrible conclusion pertains to the Ghanaian orders of ‘alien compliance’ issued in 1970-1971.

The order was made to force all non-ethnic Ghanaians, so called illegal immigrants, to return to their – so stipulated – ‘home’.

The story thus touches on concerns of deeper relevance to the politics of race and migration in the twenty first century.

The novel received a commendation in the Best First Book Prize, Africa Region, of the Commonweath Writers Prize.

Summary of the Book

The novel recounts the tale of two long-lost siblings, Mama Olu Orojo and Nii Moses Tackie, who were split up by political events and are currently residents of Ghana and Nigeria, respectively.

Before the 1969 Alien Expulsion, their grandparents had immigrated to Ghana from Nigeria and had resided there for many years.

Since Nii Moses Tackie was still a baby, he was not able to make the dangerous trek from Ghana to Nigeria. He was therefore handed over to a neighbor who was friendly to look after.

Mama Olu Orojo, who was around eight years old at the time, was the only one who made it through the journey unscathed; her parents died en route and were interred beside numerous other tragic travelers.

Several years had gone by the time the book starts, and Mama Orojo is now a wealthy businesswoman in Lagos. She runs a candy business and a construction company.

Along with being a devoted Christian, she attends Amen Kristi, where she frequently preaches alongside Ibuk, a friend and fellow church member.

However, she has not yet tied the knot and has no family of her own, so her life is far from perfect. Although she thinks her brother Nii is still alive in Ghana, she has also not set her eyes on him. She decides to travel to Ghana in search of him.

Nii is now working as an accountant at Expense Bank in Accra, Ghana, after growing up. He is married to Massa, a 22-year-old who becomes ill early in the book and passes away while Nii is accompanying her to a spiritual place called God beyond Science.

The panic economic policies implemented by Ghana’s revolutionary government have caused so much suffering for its people, including Nii.

Even though Nii works as an assistant manager at the bank, he still needs to supplement his income by working as a part-time secondary school tutor since he cannot afford a nice apartment.

Apart from taking the 50 cedi notes out of circulation, the Ghanaian government blocked the bank accounts of anyone possessing more than $50,000 in them. People can only take money out of the accounts with the Attorney General’s approval, which they can only obtain after they have explained how they made every cedi.

Also, because banks are primarily focused on making a profit and cannot afford to waste time on initiatives that do not have rapid turnover and significant profit margins, it is challenging for business owners to obtain loans to finance innovative and creative ventures like Aaron Larshibi’s Ant Hill Bricks project.

Right now, the majority of Ghanaians have little choice but to leave the country for one of its neighboring nations, where there are greater economic prospects. When Massa eventually passes away, Nii takes this action.

When Aaron Larshibi’s loan application is denied by Expense Bank and he is criticized by government officials for his creative building concepts, he too takes the same action. The Chairman of the Suru Contribution Scheme took the same action after embezzling the funds that the market women had contributed.

Adventures abound during Mama Orojo’s trips to Ghana in pursuit of her brother Nii. She is first duped by a man she meets on the aircraft. After charging her 2000 cedis for a phony gold ring, he vanishes.

The man goes by Tally O and is referred to as I-put-it-to-me in the criminal community. A corporal at the police station follows Mama after she reports the fraud and offers to assist her in purchasing real gold.

He brings Mama to the Beyeeman building complex, where she meets Joe Boye, a businessman and nice and giving gold dealer. Joe’s gang is known as the Daga Gang, and it includes Tally O, the proprietor of the Beyeeman Restaurant, and other individuals. Joe is an illegal gold miner.

Naturally, the only reason their gold mining is illegal is that the government hasn’t yet regularized and regulated the industry for private enterprises.

Mama purchases gold from Joe and quickly departs for Nigeria, missing the opportunity to meet Nii. As Nii is taking Massa to the spiritual home on his last day of annual leave from the bank, it is actually by pure accident that Mama misses him.

Joe, Mama, and the corporal arrive at the Beyes Restaurant for dinner at this same moment.

However, because Mama is unaware that her brother works there, their meeting is canceled. Nii is also unaware of his sister’s appearance after all those years.

A few weeks later, Mama arrives to Ghana to find that Nii has already departed for Nigeria. This time, she plans to purchase more gold and diamonds. She has discovered that the gold industry is extremely profitable.

Although Joe appears to be a trustworthy business partner, he has already started to harbor romantic impulses for Mama. Mama is the one he plans to marry. Mama had learned that Nii is employed by an Accra bank from the village.

Joe, who is acquainted with Nii, brings Mama to the bank, where they encounter the manager, who informs Mama that Nii is out of the office and cannot be reached. In addition, he delivers Mama an odd letter from a Koforidua hospital concerning a body that Nii must have left there.

After leaving Massa’s body at the hospital, Nii departed for Nigeria with the intention of finding Mama. It is requested that a messenger bring Mama and Joe to Nii’s residence.

When Mama learns that Nii resides in a seedy part of town, she is astounded. Although Nii is nowhere to be found, his neighbors claim that he and his wife Massa resided there up until a few days ago, when they departed for a place where God exists outside the realm of science.

Joe and Mama go to the hospital where Massa’s body was left. Massa’s body is found and brought back to Sampa, Massa’s hamlet, for burial. Joe is finally able to pop the question to Mama not long after the funeral. Mama agrees to Joe’s marriage proposal right away.

After that, they proceed to God beyond Science, where they learn that, among other things, Nii had mentioned that he was heading to Nigeria. Mama hopes to find her brother when she returns to Nigeria. Joe was going to attend the marriage rites with her later.

Nii and Aaron are going through hell in Nigeria in the meantime. At the border, all of their money and possessions were seized from them.

Eventually, they are transferred to the Illere area to work on Officer Paleo’s farm in Miliki after being apprehended by the immigration officer.

Nii does not possess any documentation and does not speak any Nigerian language, hence it is impossible to verify his claim to be of Nigerian descent.

When Nii insists on being identified as Nigerian, Paleo takes his identity card and other documents. They will now be performing various tasks on Paleo’s farm in Illere.

According to Paleo, this is preferable to sending them to a jail that is already overflowing with undocumented immigrants.

Nii, Aaron, and Abbey are forced to work as slaves for Paleo until Nii can save up enough cash to search for his sister, who he finds out stays in the Ijase neighborhood of Lagos from a man named Tom Monday.

Nii has a brief but turbulent relationship with Marshak, a Ghanaian woman who lives in Nigeria as a prostitute. But Nii lets the ghost of Massa get in the way of his friendship with Marshak.

Unfortunately, Marshak dies at the conclusion of the relationship; it is unclear if she committed herself or had an abortion. Nii departs from Illere with Aaron, Abbey, and the money Marshak gives him in order to locate his sister, Mama.

At the bus stop, they run into the gracious Kwaku (KK), who assists them in paying their fare. After arriving in Lagos, they spend the night with other immigrants at a wooden complex in Ngoni, a seedy part of the city that used to be home to Ghanaian immigrant laborers but is now used as a rest stop before heading across the border. However, the house caught fire that night, so they had to relocate quickly.

Shortly after Nii and the others leave the wooden hut at Ngoni, the soldiers capture them and bring them to Hajj Camp, where illegal immigrants are detained until the time comes for them to leave the country.

There, Nii meets Linda, the typist who works for his bank in Accra. Linda had asked Nii to have an affair with her in exchange for Nii pretending to be her husband in order to help her obtain a visa so she could travel to the UK to see her spouse.

Nii also meets with the Chairman of the Suru Contributory Scheme, who is currently having a hard time going back to Ghana due to the massive debt he incurred there after wasting the Suru funds.

Nii and Linda are forced to organize a protest revolution because to the harsh conditions at the camp.

In addition to making a stirring speech that touches on pan-Africanism, patriotism, self-love, and human dignity, Nii uses his blood to inscribe his protesting words on a poster. When it’s said that a soldier attempted to woo a pregnant camper, there’s a riot.

Nii takes advantage of the chance to escape the camp with other immigrants. After obtaining her visa in Nigeria, Linda moves toward the airport with the intention of departing.

She had at last located a Nigerian man to fill the part that Nii had declined to take on back in Ghana due to morality, honesty, and love for Massa.

Nii and Aaron leave for the city in the hopes of making it to Ijase so they can carry on looking for Mama. In the meantime, the Suru Chairman has killed himself outside the camp.

Right now, Mama and Joe are in Nigeria getting ready to tie the knot. The church council is adamantly against the marriage, presumably because to Joe’s Ghanaian nationality and lack of Amen Kristi membership.

They even suggest that Mama wed Tom Monday, even if his proposal was made too late. However, Mama is willing to wed Joe even without the church’s approval.

She considers their objections to her marriage to Joe to be in opposition to church doctrine and teachings.

Nevertheless, the church chairman gives up and accepts the union after Mama saves his life during the Sahm Brotherhood incident at Egba. Sadly, Ibuk perishes in this uprising.

Nii and Aaron attempt to get employment at a construction site in Ijase, not realizing that it is Mama’s property. Aaron sustains injuries when a wall that is still being built falls on him.

The two think of dying in the midst of desperation, starvation, and poverty. Aaron perishes when he jumps from the partially constructed building they were sleeping in to escape an advancing mob that views Nii and Aaron as thieves.

In the end, Mama is shown to be one of the mafia members. Here, Mama suddenly reunites with her brother, who has been missing for a long time. This scenario embodies the title of the novel.

Themes in Unexpected Joy at Dawn

Here are the themes in the novel:

1. Conflict and Identity Crisis

Failure on the part of the leadership frequently results in conflict in any community; in Unexpected Joy at Dawn, the author describes a typical scenario of a failed state. 

Ghana is depicted by the author as a nation experiencing tremendous economic turmoil. The revolutionary government’s callous political and economic policies are to be blame for this.

The government is implementing many primitive policies in an attempt to stop corruption and restore order to the system.

These include forcing foreign nationals to leave their homes, killing people who are seen as government enemies and seizing their property, militarizing the marketplaces, and taking away people’s money by removing the “fifty-cedi denomination from circulation” (p. 24).

For instance, Marshak’s father was executed for being “a reactionary and a saboteur” (p. 154), and his belongings were then taken. The political and economic upheavals claim the lives of plenty of traders, including Auntie Joe.

Other themes in the novel are:

2. Pan-Africanism

3. Religious intolerance

4. Adoration

5. Reunion

6. Uncertainty

And whole lot of other thematic bearings contributing towards the full meaning of the text.