WeeklySA_AdminEXPULSION: Recent protests against Nigerians in Ghana drew condemnation amid fears of rising xenophobia…
By Nicholas Mwangi
Between July 26 and 29 2025, parts of Ghana’s capital and other towns saw protests under the slogan “Nigerians Must Go!”, demanding the mass expulsion of Nigerians living in the country. The protests are said to have been led by a vocal but small group of people in Ghana.
Placards bearing the slogan, videos, and similar messages trended on social media, a development that risks inflaming xenophobic violence in a region with deep historical and cultural ties.
Similar to the waves of xenophobic sentiments seen in South Africa over the past decade, the recent protests in Ghana point to a worrying continental trend in which social and economic frustrations are redirected toward migrant communities.
Across Africa, high unemployment, widening inequality, and inadequate public services create fertile ground for resentment. In such conditions, misinformation, often spread through social media or political rhetoric can be weaponized to scapegoat foreign nationals for problems rooted in systemic governance failures and global economic exploitation.
Migrants are frequently accused of “taking jobs”, “dominating markets”, or “driving crime rates”, narratives that obscure the deeper structural causes of poverty and unemployment.
In a statement, the Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG) condemned the July protests, describing them as a “backward and shameful display of xenophobia” that served the “divide-and-rule agenda of Africa’s elites and their imperialist masters”.
Citing revolutionary thinker Amílcar Cabral’s assertion that “there are no contradictions amongst the African masses only amongst Africa’s elites”, the SMG says that xenophobia distracts from the real causes of economic hardship: an international system of exploitation that keeps African nations dependent on foreign powers for trade, resources, and investment.
“The frustrated youth of Ghana should think clearly and reject the fantastical rumours spread by ignorant and vicious forces that seek to use them,” the statement read. “What will their xenophobia yield except reprisals by equally frustrated Nigerian youth? Who wins in such a senseless confrontation?”
The SMG called for unity between African peoples, stressing that pre-colonial communities often lived and traded across what are now artificial national borders. Warning that “colonial divisions” remain a tool for neo-colonial exploitation, enabling multinational corporations and imperialist states to dominate Africa’s cocoa, oil, gas, and mineral wealth while fostering dependency on imported food.
The statement also linked Ghana’s current tensions to broader instability across the continent, citing the conflicts in the Sahel, violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, and the erosion of regional institutions. The SMG invoked the vision of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, who championed African unity as essential for resisting exploitation.
“The solution to our problems is to collectively take control of our resources and use them to serve our people’s needs and not the West’s greed,” the movement declared, urging a shift toward a socialist Africa.
The SMG encourages Pan-Africanists, organized labour, student movements, and working-class organizations to counter xenophobia with education, mobilization, and demands for socio-economic rights including work, education, housing, and healthcare and fight for collective ownership and peaceful planned development of Africa’s vast resources to meet the needs of our people.
“We stand in solidarity with the Nigerian communities living in Ghana and against those who seek to victimize them,” the statement concluded. “Down with xenophobia! Forward to African unity! Forward to socialism!”
President John Mahama of Ghana has assured Nigeria of the safety of its citizens living in the country, making it clear that there is no place for xenophobia in Ghana. He made the remarks last week while receiving a special envoy from Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.
Mahama reaffirmed Ghana’s commitment to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) protocols that protect the rights and freedoms of West African citizens. He described the protests against Nigerians as isolated and triggered by a misleading 10-year-old video. He said the situation was quickly contained and involved only a few individuals.
Mahama urged Nigerians not to worry, emphasising the strong historical ties between Ghana and Nigeria, calling the two countries “brother nations.” Currently, an estimated two million Nigerians reside in Ghana, while an estimated 500 000 Ghanaians live in Nigeria.
On June 19 2020, several armed Ghanaian citizens demolished the residential building of the Nigerian High Commission in Accra with a bulldozer. This incident shocked the Nigerian community in Ghana, and the Nigerian administration of Muhammadu Buhari, which condemned the attack at the time.
At the time, Dr Adeoye O. Akinola, a senior researcher at the University of Johannesburg’s Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation in South Africa, warned that, in the absence of the establishment of political and legal mechanisms by ECOWAS governments to ensure mutual respect and effective mediation between local populations and migrants, xenophobia continued to be rife. The success of regionalism in West Africa, however, depended on the integration of the 385 million citizens, and not just of governments.
Thus, added Akinola, efforts should be directed at sensitising local populations on their shared history and the imperative of free mobility. – People’s Despatch, additional reporting by Weekly SA Mirror
