Xenophobia: South Africa’s Reputational Erosion is Not Theoretical

By Tim Akano

June 11, 2026 was a sad day for Africa.
And June 30th is just a few days away, the judgment day for African immigrants in South Africa.

I watched the world cup football opening match between Mexico and South Africa with mixed feelings.
Seeing an African country playing on Day one was historic, and its symbolism cannot be underestimated. On the other hand, seeing hundreds of Africans wearing the Mexican jerseys in the stadium and millions of African football lovers across the remaining 50 African countries praying for Mexico to defeat their African brothers was humbling, and equally historic and symbolic.

I ask: how did Africa get here? As a facilitator of a pan African NGO tagged ONE AFRICA INITIATIVES (OAI), this bitter divorce between South Africa and Africa is dangerous, because when you remove Africa from South Africa, what you get is South, and South Africa, indeed, went south on the field on the opening day.
And for a country that derives almost 10% of her GDP from travels and tourism, the reputational damage caused by xenophobia to the Brand South Africa is monumental.

But then, at a time like this, when the umbilical cord that connects the economic fetus of South Africa to the political economy placenta of the rest of African is about to be broken, silence is no longer golden. Trust is like an egg, once broken, it can never be salvaged again.
Those who are irrevocably committed to the ideals of One Africa’s transformation have to step forward with truth in plain language, not an ambiguous sophistry that says volume but means nothing.
I lead a foundation tagged One Africa Academy initiatives which consists of thousands of African youths from all over Africa. I owe this unbiased piece to them before the situation deteriorates further.

First, to Africans who feel betrayed by the few overzealous and hot tempered South Africans who have given June 30th as the deadline for certain categories of Africans to leave South Africa, I would like them to emphasize that over generalization of the issue is unhelpful.
Not all South Africans share this Xenophobic behaviors.

Two, two wrongs don’t make a right. Wishing South Africa Bafana Bafana failure in the ongoing world cup will not do the image of Africa any good, it’s like washing Africa’s dirty linen in public.
Three, I am not sure Africa leaders have exhausted all peaceful means to resolve the issue before each country began evacuation of their nationals.

Having said that, we also need to blame some few Nigerians and other Africans who go to South Africa to do drugs, prostitution and other criminal activities.
We should not sweep the issue of one misguided Nigerian who went to South Africa to crown himself KING. The action of one Solomon Ogbonna Eziko, the self crowned Igbo King of East London, South Africa, an action which begot this latest wave of xenophobia is a gross act of irresponsibility, insensitivity and lack of proper home training.
It is an abomination in the African culture to have 2 kings in one kingdom.
I recall a similar situation in Ghana, where one Eze Dr Chukuwdi Jude Ihenetu crowned himself as IGBO KING IN GHANA.
In both instances, both South African and Ghana youths were justified in rising to defend the sanctity and sacredness of their culture and institutions.

Tim Akano

I call on all our Igbo brothers in the diaspora to discontinue forthwith the practice of installing a king of Igbo extraction outside of their ancestral home. Freedom of association is human rights, but when a handshake is going beyond the elbows, danger is by the corner.
I can vividly see famine of Vision, and the betrayal of African Brotherhood on the leadership of Thabo Mbeki and Cyril Ramaphosa.
The two of them know what the South African youths of today don’t know: how Nigeria, which is 7000km away from South Africa became a Frontline state in the war against apartheid. Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, etc all gambled with their independence, while fighting for South Africa.

Thabo Mbeki knows how much of Africa resources went into ANC bank accounts, in ANC’s Long Walk to Freedom.

Assuming the youths don’t have the details of their history, it is incumbent on Thabo Mbeki and President Cyril Ramaphosa to speak truth to the mobs on the streets.

This is what Mandela would have done, if he were alive today.

South Africa stands today as a paradox — a nation liberated by the blood and treasure of an entire continent, now turning its fists against the very brothers who bankrolled its freedom. This is not mean social crisis. It is a color of a collapsing civilisation.
When Zambia opened its borders to ANC cadres in exile, when Tanzania gave land for training camps, when Nigeria donated millions of dollars to the anti-apartheid movement at a time when Nigerians needed those funds for infrastructure development— they did not ask for repayment. They asked only for solidarity. The covenant was simple: Africa’s liberation is indivisible. What is owed to one is owed to all.
That covenant has been desecrated.
The mobs that torch Nigerian businesses in Johannesburg, that drive Zimbabwean street traders from their livelihoods in Durban, that chant “foreigners go home” in the streets of a nation that would not exist in its current form without foreign sacrifice — these are not merely criminals. They are amnesiac heirs who have squandered their inheritance before understanding its provenance.
But the greater indictment belongs not to the mobs. It belongs to the leadership — or rather, the absence of it. South Africa suffers not just from xenophobia. It suffers from a famine of vision so acute, so prolonged, that its political class can no longer distinguish between a scapegoat and a solution. When unemployment rises, blame the foreigner. When services collapse, blame the immigrant. When corruption hollows out every institution, find an African face to carry the guilt that should rest on indigenous shoulders in government corridors.
This is the oldest deception in political history — redirect popular rage outward so it never turns inward toward those responsible. And in South Africa, it works with devastating efficiency, because the leadership vacuum is so profound that no credible voice rises to reframe the narrative.
Consider what is being destroyed in the process. South Africa’s greatest asset — beyond its minerals, beyond its infrastructure — is its continental symbolism. It was the miracle nation. The rainbow promise. The proof that negotiation could triumph over annihilation. Every African carried a piece of that victory. Mandela was not just South Africa’s president — he was the continent’s vindication.
That symbolic capital is being burned. Every video of a Mozambican trader beaten, every Nigerian pharmacy set ablaze, every Malawian family fleeing in the night — these images travel across the continent at the speed of a WhatsApp forward. And with each image, the mythology of South Africa as Africa’s beacon dims further. What was once admiration curdles into contempt.
The economic consequences compound the moral ones. African nations that once sent their best students to South African universities are building bilateral agreements with Rwanda, Ghana, and Mauritius instead. African investors who once considered Johannesburg as their continental headquarters are routing capital through Nairobi and Kigali. The reputational erosion is not theoretical — it is measurable, it is accelerating, and it is self-inflicted.
What South Africa needs — and what its current leadership cannot provide — is a statesman with the audacity to stand before his own people and say what Mandela would have said: “These Africans you attack are your brothers. Their parents paid for your freedom. Your rage is legitimate but it is misdirected. The enemy is not the Ghanaian selling bread on your corner. The enemy is the system that keeps you poor while those in power grow obscenely wealthy.”
That speech has not been given. That leader has not emerged. And in the vacuum, the demagogues thrive.
Africa is watching. History is recording. And the judgment will be unsparing — that South Africa, at the moment it most needed greatness, chose smallness. That it answered the generosity of a continent with hostility. That it inherited Mandela’s legacy and squandered it on the altar of cowardice dressed as populism.
The liberation of South Africa was a pan-African project. Its shame is becoming one too.
“A nation that forgets those who built it deserves neither its freedom nor its future.”

GOING FORWARD
The statistics says it all that all is not well in South Africa.
Here’s the youth unemployment figures: for individuals ages 15-34 years, unemployment rate is 55.6%, for ages 15-24 unemployment is 60.9% and for ages 25-34 it is 40.6%. That is the crux of the crisis.
Regarding land demography, the whites which accounts for about 7% of the population controls over 70% of the agricultural land.
I call South Africa a Partial Differentials Equation (PDE), i.e. mathematical equation that is too complicated to solve.

The crisis is resl,.. but the June 30th 2026 evacuation solution is like cutting off the head in an attempt to cure headaches!

The leadership needs creative solutions. Technical and Vocational training (TVET) is one solution. As I write, there are more than six million job opportunities globally in artificial intelligence, data analysis, and programming today. Within 9 months South Africa can produce one million ICT professionals to work remotely and earn dollars.

Two, to reduce crime, the hands that sin should be cut off. Government should stamp out corruption among the law. enforcement agencies so that criminals among immigrants cannot purchase justice.

Three, allowing the white farmers to exit is not a smart policy. Government should use progressive taxation to tax land owners 50% tax in order to get money to fund mass education of the youths which must be free and compulsory.
There are other creative solutions that can be made available to President Cyril Ramaphosa, if he chooses to behave as a Statesman.

Four, President Cyril Ramaphosa should call a meeting of selected African Presidents to discuss this issue of June 30th quit notice to certain African countries.
We have come a long way, what Africa should be striving to achieve today is ONE AFRICA, fragmentation of Africa through errors of ommission or commission is dumb, unintelligent and counterproductive.

*Tim Akano
Timakano1@gmail.com
President, One Africa Initiative