Delegates Across Africa Flock to Greet Ramaphosa at Pan African Event Amid Talks on Xenophobia – Ty
The Secret Reason African Delegates Are Flocking To Ramaphosa Despite The Glaring Xenophobia Crisis
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Imagine walking into a grand, beautifully lit conference hall filled with the most powerful political figures, diplomats, and decision-makers from every corner of the African continent. The air is thick with the scent of expensive cologne, the rustle of tailored suits, and the vibrant colors of traditional native attires. Suddenly, a single man walks through the double doors, and the atmosphere in the room completely shifts. Grown men and women, representing sovereign nations from the West, East, North, and Central Africa, begin to flock towards him like he is the undisputed king of the continent. They scramble just to shake his hand, to take a picture with him, and to whisper words of absolute reverence into his ears. One delegate even looks him dead in the eye and calls him the “President of Africa.” It is a scene of pure, unadulterated Pan-African unity, the kind of brotherhood that our founding fathers like Kwame Nkrumah and Nnamdi Azikiwe dreamed of.
But there is a massive, incredibly dark contradiction hiding just beneath the surface of these smiles and handshakes. How does a leader, whose own country has repeatedly been the horrific stage for some of the most brutal, targeted xenophobic attacks against these very same fellow Africans, walk into a room and get crowned the father of the continent? How do delegates from nations whose citizens have been harassed, beaten, and had their hard-earned businesses set ablaze in the streets of Johannesburg and Pretoria, bow so gracefully to the man at the helm of that exact same country? This is the grand illusion of African diplomacy. The answer to this staggering hypocrisy, and whether the African continent can ever actually survive the weight of this double standard, is a deeply complicated web of economic desperation, historical amnesia, and political chess. Keep reading, because we are about to pull back the curtain on the most confusing diplomatic dance happening in Africa today.
To truly grasp the magnitude of what just transpired at this recent Pan-African event, we must look closely at the unbelievable footage that is currently sending shockwaves across political circles. President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa was caught on camera holding court, essentially operating as the absolute center of gravity for the entire African delegation. The video is a fascinating, almost surreal study in diplomatic power dynamics.
First comes a delegate from Gabon, a Central African nation. Ramaphosa greets him with the charm of a seasoned statesman: “Gabon, of course, I must say to you, yeah, you must tell the President I’m coming.” Then comes Benin Republic, our next-door neighbors here in Nigeria. Ramaphosa casually admits, “Never been to Benin, I must go.” It sounds like a wealthy uncle promising to visit his distant relatives.
But the interactions only get more intense and revealing. A delegate from Djibouti steps forward, brimming with sheer excitement, and declares, “Mr. President, I am from Djibouti… you are my leadership… President of Africa!” Let that sink in for a moment. “President of Africa.” It is a title that carries the weight of a billion people.
The roll call of nations continues like a geography lesson of the African Union. Madagascar, Malawi, Tunisia, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Guinea, Cameroon, and Tanzania. When the delegate from Tanzania introduces himself, Ramaphosa’s eyes light up with a specific kind of historical recognition, responding, “Tanzania… our permanent home.” He promises to visit Cameroon, casually accepts requests for photographs, and gracefully handles the chaotic adoration of his peers. It is a masterclass in soft power. On the global stage, South Africa is firmly projecting itself as the undisputed, welcoming big brother of the continent.
Yet, for any Nigerian or African who has ever had to navigate the harsh realities of living, working, or doing business in South Africa, watching this video feels like a sharp, painful slap to the face. The sweet words exchanged in that air-conditioned conference hall stand in absolute, jarring contrast to the bitter, bloody realities on the streets of South Africa.
Let us address the elephant in the room—the monstrous scourge of xenophobia, or as it is more accurately described, Afrophobia. For the better part of the last two decades, South Africa has been a highly volatile, dangerous environment for African migrants. From the horrific, fiery riots of 2008 to the widespread looting and violence of 2015, 2019, and the ongoing, simmering tensions driven by movements like “Operation Dudula,” the message from a significant portion of the South African populace has been terrifyingly clear: Foreigners, particularly black Africans, are not welcome.
Nigerians, Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Malawians, and Congolese nationals have frequently been made the scapegoats for South Africa’s staggering internal domestic failures. When the unemployment rate skyrockets, when the electricity grid completely collapses (the infamous load-shedding), and when crime rates soar, the political elite and the frustrated masses rarely look inwards. Instead, they point a bloody finger at the Nigerian shop owner in Sunnyside, the Zimbabwean waiter in Cape Town, or the Congolese mechanic in Durban. Our people have been profiled, harassed by the police, denied basic services, and in the most tragic cases, brutally murdered in broad daylight while crowds cheered.
So, when you see a delegate from the DRC or Malawi rushing to take a smiling selfie with the South African President, you are forced to ask a very painful question.
If you were a diplomat representing a country whose citizens are currently being treated as second-class human beings and hunted on the streets of another nation, what would you have done in this situation? Would you have smiled for the cameras, or would you have demanded absolute accountability?
The truth is, African diplomacy operates in a realm completely detached from the suffering of the common man on the street. In the corridors of power, the reality of the struggling Nigerian hustler in Johannesburg simply does not matter. What matters is leverage, capital, and survival.
Why is South Africa so revered despite its glaring flaws? The answer boils down to raw, undeniable economic and institutional power. Despite its current internal struggles, South Africa remains the most industrialized, technologically advanced, and structurally sound economy on the continent. They have the infrastructure, the financial markets, and the global standing (being a member of the BRICS nations and the G20) that other African countries desperately crave access to. When a delegate calls Ramaphosa the “President of Africa,” they are not speaking to the man; they are bowing to the sheer economic might of the South African state. They are hoping for investments from South African telecom giants like MTN, retail chains like Shoprite, and mining conglomerates. They are begging for a piece of the pie, even if it means completely ignoring the cries of their own citizens who are being marginalized within South Africa’s borders.
This brings us to the highly complex, often fiercely competitive relationship between Nigeria, the Giant of Africa, and South Africa, the Powerhouse of the South. For years, these two nations have been locked in a silent, high-stakes battle for the soul and leadership of the continent. Nigeria boasts the largest population, the most massive GDP (though currently heavily battered by inflation and currency devaluation), and an unstoppable cultural dominance in music (Afrobeats) and film (Nollywood). South Africa, on the other hand, boasts superior infrastructure, global institutional trust, and a highly diversified economy.
Whenever the issue of xenophobia flares up, it is the Nigeria-South Africa relationship that takes the most brutal hit. We all remember the intense diplomatic standoffs, the recalling of ambassadors, and the retaliatory attacks on South African businesses (like Shoprite and MTN) here in Nigeria. The Nigerian government, pushed to the absolute wall by the cries of its citizens, has had to engage in aggressive diplomatic “gbas-gbos” with Pretoria. Yet, when the dust settles, the Ogas at the top simply shake hands, issue beautifully worded joint statements about “brotherhood,” and go back to business as usual, leaving the ordinary Nigerian migrant to continue navigating a hostile environment.
The historical irony of all this is enough to make a grown man weep. When Ramaphosa looked at the delegate from Tanzania and said, “Tanzania… our permanent home,” he was referencing a deeply profound piece of history that the current generation of xenophobic attackers in South Africa has completely forgotten, or deliberately chosen to ignore.
During the darkest, most brutal days of the Apartheid regime, when the white supremacist government was violently oppressing the black majority in South Africa, it was the rest of Africa that stood up to fight for their liberation. Tanzania, under the leadership of Julius Nyerere, offered its lands as a safe haven, a literal permanent home, and a training ground for the freedom fighters of the African National Congress (ANC). Nigeria, though thousands of miles away in West Africa, poured massive, unquantifiable resources into the anti-apartheid struggle. We established the Southern Africa Relief Fund (SARF). Nigerian civil servants voluntarily suffered deductions from their monthly salaries just to fund the liberation of South Africa. We provided passports to South African leaders like Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki so they could travel the world freely when the apartheid government rendered them stateless. We boycotted international sporting events, risking our own global standing, just to isolate the racist regime in Pretoria.
Africa bled so that South Africa could be free. We opened our doors, our wallets, and our hearts. And yet, decades after the fall of apartheid, the reward the continent receives is the horrifying spectacle of our brothers and sisters being chased down the streets of Johannesburg with machetes, simply because they speak a different dialect or run a successful corner shop. The sheer, devastating amnesia of it all is mind-boggling. How quickly they have forgotten the sacrifices made by the very people they now label as “aliens” and “criminals.”
This massive disconnect between the elite Pan-African agenda and the grassroots reality is the single biggest threat to the future of the continent. Right now, the African Union is aggressively pushing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The dream is beautiful: a completely borderless Africa where goods, services, and people can move freely from Lagos to Cape Town, from Cairo to Nairobi, without the suffocating bottlenecks of visas and tariffs. It is a vision designed to finally unlock the trillions of dollars of intra-Africa trade that we have been missing out on.
But how can we possibly have a free trade area when the people meant to execute this trade are terrified for their lives? How can a brilliant Nigerian tech entrepreneur or a fiercely hardworking Ghanaian merchant freely set up a business in South Africa when the threat of an angry mob burning down their life’s work is constantly looming? The visa policies alone are a nightmare. While European and American passport holders breeze through South African immigration with a smile and a stamp, Africans are subjected to rigorous, humiliating, and incredibly expensive visa processes just to visit a fellow African nation. The hypocrisy is deafening.
When those delegates flocked around President Ramaphosa, they were validating this broken system. They were sending a loud, clear message to Pretoria: You can continue to treat our citizens terribly, you can maintain your harsh visa restrictions, and we will still treat you as the royalty of the continent because your economy is bigger than ours. It is the ultimate betrayal of the common African citizen. It shows that as long as the champagne is flowing at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, the blood spilling on the streets of the townships is simply considered collateral damage.
The diplomatic dance we witnessed in that video is a symptom of a much larger disease affecting African leadership. Our leaders suffer from a chronic inability to speak hard truths to one another. There is an unspoken rule in the African Union: “Do not criticize your neighbor’s internal affairs, so they do not criticize yours.” Because almost every African leader has skeletons in their closet—be it electoral fraud, human rights abuses, or deep economic mismanagement—they all cover for each other. So, when the issue of xenophobia is brought up, it is immediately watered down. They use sanitized language, calling it “criminality” rather than admitting that it is a systemic, deeply ingrained hatred of foreigners fueled by reckless political rhetoric.
But the reality on the ground cannot be sanitized with nice words. The reality is the Nigerian mother crying over the casket of her son who was murdered in a senseless xenophobic attack. The reality is the Malawian factory worker who goes to work every day looking over his shoulder, terrified that today is the day the mob decides to cleanse his neighborhood. Until the leaders of Africa are willing to look President Ramaphosa in the eye, not to call him the “President of Africa,” but to hold him absolutely accountable for the safety of their citizens, all this talk of Pan-African unity is nothing but a beautifully orchestrated stage play.
Do you think true African unity will ever be achieved if our leaders continue to prioritize diplomatic photoshoots over the actual safety and dignity of the common African citizen?
We have finally arrived at the heart of the great contradiction. How does a man leading a country plagued by Afrophobia get crowned the father of the continent? Because in the grand, cut-throat theater of international politics, the illusion of unity is far more profitable than the hard, messy work of actually holding each other accountable. The delegates bowed to Ramaphosa not because they are ignorant of the suffering of their people, but because they are entirely disconnected from it. They inhabit a world of private jets, diplomatic immunity, and VIP treatment, far removed from the burning tires and the screams in the townships.
As long as we, the citizens of this great continent, allow our leaders to trade our dignity for a fleeting moment of diplomatic prestige, the true dream of a united Africa will remain exactly that—a dream. We must demand better. We must force our leaders to realize that true brotherhood is not measured by handshakes at a summit, but by how a Nigerian, a Cameroonian, or a Senegalese is treated when they walk the streets of Johannesburg.
This is the ultimate wake-up call for the entire continent; we cannot build the Africa of tomorrow on the bloody hypocrisies of today.
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