Analysts and a presidential staffer have attributed the latest wave of xenophobic incidents in South Africa, including a viral confrontation involving a Ghanaian migrant, to unemployment, inequality, political manipulation, and an erosion of pan-African solidarity rooted in the post-apartheid generation’s disconnect from history.
The video, showing South African activist Victoria Africa, known as Queen Vee, stopping a Ghanaian man and questioning his right to remain in the country, sparked widespread debate across the continent over xenophobia, migration, and African unity. Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa held urgent diplomatic talks with his South African counterpart Ronald Lamola on April 22 and confirmed that the Ghanaian man in the viral video had been located and was receiving consular assistance, and that no Ghanaian life had been lost.
Speaking on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Thursday, University of South Africa (UNISA) lecturer Nkululeko Sibiya said the underlying causes were structural. Youth unemployment approaching 50 percent in some areas had created the conditions for frustration to build, he said, and that frustration was being channelled by what he described as “entrepreneurs of politics” who redirected public anger toward foreign nationals. Sibiya also linked the tensions to the declining dominance of the African National Congress (ANC), which he said had intensified political competition and amplified anti-migrant rhetoric.
“The problem is the lost promise of democracy,” Sibiya said, citing corruption and governance failures as factors that had eroded public trust in the post-apartheid settlement. He questioned the effectiveness of continental institutions, including the African Union, in narrowing the economic disparities that drive migration across the continent.
Sibiya was careful to distinguish widespread hostility from organised violence. “By and large, South Africans and foreign nationals live side by side peacefully,” he noted, adding that violence is typically driven by political manipulation rather than broad community sentiment. He called for political leaders to stop using migrants as scapegoats for complex national problems.
Presidential staffer Nana Yaa Jantuah, speaking on TV3’s New Day, pointed to historical amnesia as an additional factor. She argued that younger South Africans are often unaware of the solidarity African nations, including Ghana, provided during the anti-apartheid struggle. “In their mind, they don’t know what Kwame Nkrumah did,” she said. She argued this gap in historical consciousness had weakened the sense of African unity that once shaped interstate relations.
Jantuah also noted the particular dynamics of migrant labour. Many migrants, she said, occupy roles in hair braiding, salons, and small trade that local communities often leave unfilled. She called for a government-led civic education platform to help communities understand that migrants are not economic enemies.
Both analysts urged broader dialogue involving governments, businesses, and citizens to address the structural causes of resentment and rebuild trust between local communities and African migrants in South Africa.
