When my mother told me at 16 that we were going to Ghana for the summer holidays, I didn’t think twice. It seemed like a simple, short trip – nothing to worry about. Or so I thought.

One month in, everything changed. She dropped the bombshell: I wasn’t returning to London until I had “reformed” and earned enough GCSEs to continue my education.

I was deceived much like the British-Ghanaian teenager who recently took his parents to court in London for sending him to school in Ghana. In their defense, the parents argued they didn’t want their 14-year-old son to become “yet another black teenager stabbed to death in the streets of London.”

Back in the mid-1990s, my mother, a primary school teacher, had similar concerns.

I had been kicked out of two schools in the London Borough of Brent, associating with the wrong crowd – and becoming part of it. My closest friends ended up in prison for armed robbery, and had I stayed in London, I would have almost certainly joined them.

But being sent to Ghana felt like a punishment in its own right.

I can empathize, to some extent, with the teenager who said in his court statement that he felt like he was “living in hell.”

However, by the time I turned 21, I saw my mother’s decision for what it truly was – a blessing.

Unlike the boy at the heart of the court case, which he lost, I didn’t attend a boarding school in Ghana. Instead, my mother sent me to live with her two closest brothers. They wanted to keep a close eye on me, and they felt that being around other boarders might have distracted me even more.

I stayed with my Uncle Fiifi, a former UN environmentalist, in a town called Dansoman, just outside of Accra.

The lifestyle change was intense. In London, I had my own bedroom, access to washing machines, and the kind of independence I had recklessly abused.

In Ghana, my days began at 5:00 AM, when I would sweep the courtyard and wash my uncle’s often muddy pickup truck and my aunt’s car.

It was my aunt’s car that I would later steal – a moment that became a turning point in my life.

At the time, I didn’t even know how to drive properly. I treated a manual car like an automatic and ended up crashing it into a high-ranking soldier’s Mercedes.

I tried to run, but the soldier caught me and threatened to take me to Burma Camp, a notorious military base where people had disappeared without a trace in the past.

That encounter marked the last truly reckless thing I did.

What I learned in Ghana wasn’t just discipline – it was perspective.

Living there made me realize how much I had taken for granted back in London.

Washing clothes by hand and helping my aunt prepare meals made me appreciate the effort that went into every task. In Ghana, food – like everything else – required patience. There were no microwaves or quick meals.

Making fufu, the traditional Ghanaian dish, for example, was a laborious task. It involved pounding boiled yams or cassava into a paste with a mortar. At the time, it felt like punishment, but looking back, I can see it was shaping my resilience.

My uncles initially considered sending me to prestigious schools like the Ghana International School or SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International College.

But they were wise. They knew I might just find new troublemakers and cause chaos. Instead, I was given private tuition at Accra Academy, a state secondary school that my late father had attended. It meant I often had one-on-one lessons or studied in small groups, allowing for a more tailored and focused education.

The lessons were in English, but outside of school, people around me often spoke in local languages. I found it easy to pick them up, probably because it was such an immersive experience.

Back in London, I used to love learning swear words in my mother’s Fante language, but I was far from fluent.

When I moved to Tema to live with my favorite uncle, Uncle Jojo – an agricultural expert – I continued my private tuition at Tema Secondary School.

Unlike the British teenager who recently claimed Ghana’s education system was substandard, I found it to be challenging and demanding.

Although I had been considered academically gifted back in the UK despite my rebellious behavior, I struggled in Ghana. My peers were far ahead in subjects like math and science. The rigor of the Ghanaian education system pushed me to study harder than I ever did back in London.

The result? I earned five GCSEs with grades C and above – an achievement I once thought was out of reach.

But beyond academics, Ghanaian society instilled values that have stayed with me for life.

Respect for elders was a fundamental part of everyday life. Wherever I lived, it was expected that you greet anyone older than you, whether you knew them or not.

Ghana didn’t just make me more disciplined and respectful – it made me fearless.

Football played a major role in this transformation. I played in parks with rough red clay surfaces, scattered with pebbles and stones. The goalposts were makeshift, made from wood and string. It was nothing like the well-kept pitches in England, but it toughened me in ways I never anticipated. No wonder so many of the best footballers in the English Premier League hail from West Africa.