There are reports coming from Ghana that Ghanaians have been demonstrating and calling for the removal of MTN and other South African businesses from their country. This is deeply troubling — and it must be addressed with honesty and urgency before things spiral in a direction that shames us all.

If we are not careful, our response to South African xenophobia, hatred, looting, and violence can make evil win. We must think clearly about this.

South Africans who are attacking foreigners, looting their goods, burning their shacks and small businesses are demon possessed. Let us not follow what they are doing in our own countries.

We are torchbearers. We are meant to lead people the right way, not to descend into the same darkness that we rightly condemn. Let us not kill because some evil South Africans are killing foreign nationals. Instead, let us do good to South Africans who are living in our countries.

Why Revenge Punishes the Wrong People

• Mob violence and acts of revenge kill innocent people who bear no guilt.
• It destroys African brothers and sisters who are themselves victims of circumstances.
• It harms people who genuinely love us — including South Africans who chose to live among us.
• It turns us into the very thing we are fighting against.

South Africans who come to our countries obviously love us. They have made their homes among us, traded with us, driven their trucks through our roads. Don’t harm them. Not their business owners, not their truck drivers who pass through our borders. Don’t chase or hate South African immigrants. Let us help them instead.

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Do not pay back what their evil brothers are doing to foreign nationals in South Africa. Please, do not listen to the wrong voice. If we start harming innocent South Africans, we become evil — just like those committing these atrocities. There is nothing righteous or powerful about revenge. There is everything powerful about choosing a higher road.

There is power in forgiveness and doing things the right way — in obedience to our country’s laws and in the strength of our shared humanity.

Let us preach love toward foreigners: tolerance, charity, and our common humanity — during this painful time of violence, looting, shack burning, hatred, and deep poverty that is tearing at the fabric of South Africa. Africa does not heal by spreading wounds. Africa heals when we model what justice and dignity truly look like.

Let Ghana, and every African nation, be an example of what we want South Africa to become. Not a mirror of its ugliest moments — but a beacon of what is possible when we choose conscience over vengeance.

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CM

Collen Makumbirofa

Advocacy Journalist & Human Rights Advocate

Founder & Director, Makumbirofa Farms (Pty) Ltd

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