Smart casual with afro hairstyle: How fuel attendants in the 1970s showed up for work

In 1960, Ghana established an oil company named AGIP Ghana Company Limited, which initially produced fossil fuel products such as fuel, propane and butane, asphalt, and lubricants.

The shareholders of the company were AGIP SPA of Italy and SNAM S.P.A.

On December 16, 1968, SNAM S.P.A. transferred its 10 percent shareholding representing 95,000 shares to Hydrocarbons International Holdings of Zurich, Switzerland.

The company thrived until the government of Ghana in 1974 acquired 100 percent shares of AGIP SPA and Hydrocarbons International Holdings in AGIP Ghana Company Limited and by a special resolution changed its name from AGIP to Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL) in 1976.

Now in 2024, a rare image of how an AGIP fuel station looked back in the 1970s has surfaced on social media.

Notable is the unique attire that attendants at the fuel station wore to serve customers trooping in.

Clad in unique jumpsuits to sell the brand AGIP, one fuel attendant was seen with an afro – a unique hairstyle of most Ghanaians in the colonial and post-colonial eras.

See the image below.