Ghana has Formally taken South Africa to the African Union, accusing the Country of Xenophobia, and that the AU take action against South Africa for alleged mistreatment of African migrants.

Ghana has formally taken South Africa to the African Union, accusing the country of xenophobia and demanding that the AU take action over the alleged mistreatment of African migrants. This is not a legitimate diplomatic complaint — it is disingenuous, alarmist, and pure populist grandstanding aimed at deflecting attention from Ghana’s own shortcomings while trying to isolate South Africa.

South Africa is once again being lectured on migrant rights by a nation with a long, documented history of institutionalised discrimination against fellow Africans. The hypocrisy is staggering.

Ghana’s Institutional Xenophobia Laid Bare

Ghana loves to point fingers, but its own record tells a different story. Under the Aliens Compliance Order in the 1960s and 1970s, Ghana expelled hundreds of thousands of West Africans — Nigerians, Togolese and others — purely for being foreigners. Even today, the 2013 Investment Promotion Centre Act bars non-Ghanaians from petty trading and small business activities, effectively locking other Africans out of basic economic participation. This is not occasional social friction — it is cold, legislated xenophobia.

Now compare that to South Africa. With an official unemployment rate of 32.7%, failing infrastructure, and intense pressure on housing and services, South Africa still accommodates millions of documented and undocumented migrants from across the continent — including over a million Zimbabweans, large numbers of Ghanaians, Nigerians and many others. Unlike Ghana and several other African states, South Africa has never institutionalised mass expulsions or passed laws banning African traders. In fact, Ghanaians and other African nationals hold senior executive positions in both the public and private sectors here, including top roles such as the Chief Financial Officer of the South African National Defence Force. Many South Africans rightly believe these positions should go to locals first, yet successive governments have resisted following the exclusionary path taken by countries like Ghana.

The Root Cause: Governance Failures Exported to South Africa

Any serious discussion at the African Union must address causality, not just convenient complaints. Why are so many Ghanaians, Nigerians, Zimbabweans and others leaving their own countries for South Africa? The uncomfortable truth is governance failure, rampant corruption, economic collapse and policy incompetence at home.

South Africa has become the destination of choice because, despite its serious challenges, it still offers relatively better opportunities and functioning institutions than many other African nations. Invoking Apartheid-era solidarity to shame South Africa, as President Mahama and others have done, is not only intellectually lazy — it is in extremely bad taste. Historical support against white minority rule does not create a permanent obligation for South Africa to absorb the consequences of other countries’ policy disasters without complaint.

South Africa has already paid a heavy political price for its restraint. The ANC government has been punished at the ballot box for refusing to implement the kind of hard-line, institutional xenophobia seen elsewhere on the continent. Yet it continues to host migrants while its own citizens face daily struggles with jobs, crime and service delivery. That restraint is now being turned against us.

This Move Looks Like an Attempt to Isolate South Africa

Ghana’s complaint appears less about justice and more about an effort to isolate South Africa — the one major African economy that has largely refused to adopt anti-African exclusionary policies. It punishes the country that bears the brunt of continental migration flows while others demand open borders without any reciprocity or self-reflection.

South Africans must reject this moral grandstanding. Our country should not be turned into the permanent welfare destination for Africa’s governance disasters. We must manage our borders, protect our resources, and preserve social cohesion like any responsible sovereign nation.

Citizens, civil society groups and the government need to monitor this AU case closely and mount a strong counter-response. Real incidents of crime against foreigners must be dealt with firmly under South African law, but we cannot allow hypocrisy and selective outrage to dictate the narrative. An honest continental conversation about accountability, good governance and national sovereignty is long overdue.

South Africa cannot keep subsidising the failures of others. The time has come for countries like Ghana to fix their own houses instead of exporting their problems and then condemning the nations that receive the fallout.

The future stability and prosperity of our republic demand that we push back firmly against this narrative. Enough is enough.