Enough is enough, South Africa!

Xenophobia is fear or hatred of strangers/foreigners, but when this leads to physical or psychological harm, it becomes a criminal act. It is “madness.”

When mobs hunt down Ghanaians in South Africa, burn their shops, and chase them from homes they built with honest work, it is cowardice wearing a flag. And it is a betrayal of every principle the African Union claims to stand for.

Since 2008, wave after wave of attacks have targeted African foreign nationals in South Africa. Nigerians, Zimbabweans, Somalis – and yes, Ghanaians. Mechanics in Johannesburg. Traders in Durban. Students in Pretoria. Their crime? Being African in Africa. The attackers claim they are “taking back their country.” From whom?

From the Ghanaian teacher who tutors township kids after hours? From the welder from Kumasi who employs five South Africans in his shop? From the nurse from Accra who worked night shifts through COVID? This is not economic justice. It is scapegoating. It is weakness looking for someone weaker to punch.

South Africa’s liberation was not won alone. Ghana was the first to spend its own money to support the ANC in exile. Nkrumah’s Ghana gave passports, offices, and broadcast time to South African freedom fighters when it was dangerous to do so.

Our first president said, “The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa.”

Today, the grandchildren of those who sheltered your mothers and fathers are being stoned in the streets of Gauteng? If Pan-Africanism dies, it will not die in conference halls. It will die in the silence that follows a petrol bomb thrown into a Ghanaian’s shop.

South Africans should not forget that they, too, have businesses and citizens living peacefully in Ghana. MTN, Shoprite, Game, Stanbic, Multichoice, Woolworths, Protea Hotels, Lancet Laboratories, Engen Petroleum, Broll Ghana, Sasol – these companies employ Ghanaians and repatriate millions in profits to Johannesburg.

South African engineers work on our roads. South African teachers teach in our schools. South African tourists are welcomed on Osu Oxford Street without fear.

Ghana has not, and will not, answer violence with violence. But no nation should mistake hospitality for helplessness. If Ghanaians must live in fear in South Africa, then the moral basis for hosting South African interests here is eroded. We do not want that. Africa does not need retaliatory xenophobia. Africa needs mutual respect. Protect Ghanaians there, so that South Africans remain welcome here. Reciprocity is not a threat. It is a fact.

Press statements are not protection.

“Isolated incidents” is a lie when the pattern repeats for 15 years. The South African state has a constitutional and moral duty to protect every person within its borders. Failure to arrest, prosecute, and jail the ringleaders is complicity.

President Cyril Ramaphosa and the South African Police Service (SAPS) must answer: Why do mobs gather for hours before police arrive? Why are convictions rare? Why are political leaders who dog-whistle about “foreigners taking jobs” never sanctioned?

A state that cannot secure a Ghanaian’s right to trade is a state that cannot guarantee its own citizens’ future. Because the same impunity that burns a Ghanaian shop today burns South African trucks tomorrow.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs cannot keep issuing “we are monitoring the situation” notices while coffins come home. Ghana must:

1. Demand accountability through African Union and SADC channels, not just bilateral notes.

2. Evacuate citizens at risk and help them to resettle. No Ghanaian should choose between hunger and a mob.

3. Publish a registry of destroyed businesses and push for reparations. Dignity restoration requires both restitution and compensation.

4. Suspend non-essential state cooperation until South Africa produces a credible plan to end these attacks. Brotherhood without protection is abuse.

Every time a Ghanaian is attacked, South Africa loses. You lose nurses, artisans, and entrepreneurs who pay tax and rent. You lose the moral authority to speak on Palestine, Western Sahara, or anywhere else dignity is denied. You lose the dream of 1994.

The lie behind xenophobia is that there is a fixed amount of prosperity, and the foreigner stole your slice. The truth: the real thieves are in offices, not in container shops. They are the ones who need you distracted by the man from Accra so you don’t ask why your own children lack jobs after 30 years of democracy.

To Ghanaians in South Africa, you are not alone; you left home to build, not to beg. You send money to Suhum, to Tamale, to Cape Coast, to Tanyigbe. You have a right to safety. Document every attack. Organize. Link with the Ghana High Commission and with decent South African civic groups who march against xenophobia. Your courage shames the mobs.

Africa cannot rise if Africans are hunting each other street by street. The African Continental Free Trade Area is a joke if a Ghanaian cannot sell tomatoes in Yeoville without fear of being attacked. The AU’s “Silencing the Guns” agenda means nothing if we won’t silence the matches and machetes in our own townships.

South Africa must choose: Will it be the rainbow nation Mandela promised, or a nation that devours its own brothers? Ghana must choose: Will it protect its people with more than tweets? We are not foreigners in Africa. The Ghanaian in South Africa is home. And if home is not safe, then none of us are free. Never again must be more than a slogan. It must be policy. It must be arrests. It must be justice. Now!