We want tourism, but we’re angry when the world looks at us — the IShowSpeed case (Opinion)

Contributor 14:40 - 28 January 2026

We want tourism, but we’re angry when the world looks at us — the IShowSpeed case

By: Evans Adjokatse

Let’s get this straight from the start: IShowSpeed’s visit to Ghana wasn’t insignificant. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t “just hype.” It was impactful brand diplomacy in action, raw, digital, expansive, and exactly the kind of global attention Africa has been begging for. Anyone who argues otherwise is either asleep at the wheel or so stuck in outdated definitions of relevance that they’ve forgotten how the world really works in 2026.

While some critics on GhOne TV and elsewhere sneer that Speed “didn’t add anything to Ghana’s GDP” or that giving him a Ghanaian passport was unserious, they are either ignorant of how modern perception economics works or intentionally misrepresenting the situation for cheap sound bites. This editorial isn’t here to tiptoe around feelings, it’s here to call out denial when it masquerades as critique.

Let’s talk facts before the skeptics start shrieking again:

IShowSpeed is not a small influencer with a small audience. As of early 2026, he boasts over 50 million subscribers on YouTube alone, with hundreds of thousands tuning into his livestreams at any given moment and millions engaging with his social content across TikTok, Instagram and beyond. When he walked Accra’s streets, millions around the world were watching in real time. That level of reach doesn’t come from coincidence, it’s modern soft power broadcasting itself.

Now consider what countries with purpose spend to get even a fraction of that:

Dubai pours almost $100 million annually into global tourism campaigns and media buys. Rwanda signs multi-million-dollar sponsorship deals with European football giants like Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain under the Visit Rwandabrand, not for a day’s visibility, but for consistent global imprinting. These aren’t whimsical expenditures, they are designed, studied, deliberate actions meant to place nations in the minds of travelers, investors, and world citizens.

And yet, when someone like Speed, organically, voluntarily, and authentically, broadcasts Ghana to tens of millions of young, globally mobile viewers, suddenly there’s a segment of media and opinion leaders who act like the country just wasted a stamp.

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This editorial isn’t here to coddle those people, it’s here to confront them

Let’s be clear: the world’s attention is currency. If your definition of “value” is bound exclusively to quarterly GDP sheets, then you are doing Ghana a disservice. Because interest precedes investment, and attention precedes action. Search trends and analytics clearly showed spikes in global searches for “Ghana tourism”, “things to do in Ghana”, and related terms directly after Speed’s arrival, meaning people around the world got curious about Ghana because of him. That alone is worth celebrating, and worth more than the critics want to admit.

Now let’s talk about the passport controversy, because if you think there’s anything “absurd” about giving a Ghanaian passport to someone who gives Ghana global visibility, then you aren’t paying attention.

The Foreign Minister made a strategic move, one that levers modern influence, not just old school ceremony. And yet, critics, emboldened by short attention spans, took to airwaves and timelines to sneer. They said Speed’s presence won’t instantly bump GDP figures. They griped that others like Wode Maya “deserved it more”. They behaved like bureaucrats tethered to hollow metrics while the world changes around them.

Here’s the historical context they conveniently omit:

Under President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Ghana granted citizenship to 524 members of the African diaspora on November 20th alone, a diplomatic effort meant to reconnect Africa with its global family. Very few of those recipients have the reach, global presence, algorithmic influence, and international resonance that Speed has. Not even close. Yet no televised riots broke out over 524 diaspora citizenship grants.

So let’s unpack the real subtext here: The anger isn’t really about the passport. The anger is about not understanding why global attention matters. The anger is about seeing Twitter metrics and deriding them because they don’t fit inside a dusty economic textbook.

Let’s call it what it is: The critics are anchored in the past.

Deliberate Diplomatic Marketing, a term that escapes many of these naysayers, refers to the intentional use of cultural interfaces, personalities and media influence to shape how a country is seen, felt, and remembered. Dubai does this. Rwanda does this. Every nation that understands global branding does this. And what Speed did, without a government contract, without a PR firm, without a press release, was functionally the same thing.

He broadcast Ghana. Not as an abstract destination. Not as a tourism quote in a brochure. But as a living, breathing, fun, vibrant place that people around the world now associate with joy, discovery, friendliness and culture.

That is not nothing. That is modern nation-branding at work. That is impact.

So if you think this editorial is too hard, too confrontational, too unfiltered, good. Because the conversation we need right now in Ghana isn’t polite obfuscation. It’s clarity. It’s courage. It’s the willingness to defend a good decision in the face of lazy, short-sighted criticism.

The passport was not a vanity gesture. It was not childish. It was strategic. It was visionary.

The problem isn’t that people disagree. The problem is that many of them are arguing with outdated thinking.