The first group of Ghanaian nationals accepted their government’s voluntary repatriation offer and departed from OR Tambo International Airport on Wednesday.
Recent Africa Day celebrations rang hollow in South Africa, where rising anti-immigrant sentiment has reached a tipping point. While the day is intended to celebrate unity, the reality on the ground is marked by fear, intimidation, and the dehumanisation of fellow Africans.
This surge in nationalism is not a spontaneous occurrence; it is fed by a pervasive fear rooted in the government's failure to grow the economy and address a staggering unemployment rate that stands at nearly 33 percent. But economic insecurity alone does not explain what we are witnessing. Certain politicians have chosen to weaponise that fear, cultivating anti-immigrant sentiment as a substitute for policy and a shortcut to votes. When scapegoating becomes an electoral strategy, it does not merely reflect public anxiety; it amplifies and legitimises it.
When citizens feel economically insecure and politically abandoned, holding those in power accountable for decades of policy failures and chronic mismanagement becomes harder when those same leaders are busy pointing fingers elsewhere.
