Stop Acting Like Heroes: African Leaders Must Accept Their Role in Africa's Migration Crisis

 

 African Leaders Created the Crisis They Now Condemn

By Noko Maleka | InsightJoziNews.org

Every time xenophobic violence erupts in South Africa, the script never changes.

African leaders rush to microphones. They condemn South Africans. They demand action. They speak of African unity, dignity and brotherhood as though they have spent decades protecting their own citizens.

But where was this passion when their people were starving at home? Where was this outrage when corruption hollowed out their economies, when unemployment reached devastating levels, when political instability forced families to flee, and when millions lost hope in the very countries they called home?

It is easy to condemn South Africa.

It is far more difficult to confront the failures that forced your own citizens to leave.

Let me be clear: there is no justification for violence, intimidation or humiliating anyone because they are foreign nationals. Every person deserves to be treated with dignity, and the South African government has a constitutional duty to protect everyone within its borders while enforcing immigration laws fairly and lawfully.

But there is another truth that many are too uncomfortable to discuss.

South Africa did not create Africa's migration crisis.

Migration is often the consequence of failed governance across parts of the continent. People do not abandon their homes, families, cultures and identities because life is comfortable. They leave because they believe survival is possible somewhere else.

Many who arrive in South Africa are escaping circumstances that no human being should have to endure.

Yet somehow the conversation has been reduced to one dangerous lie—that migrants are responsible for South Africa's unemployment, corruption, collapsing municipalities, crime, failing hospitals and broken infrastructure.

That is political convenience, not honest leadership.

South Africa's deepest problems were not created by desperate people crossing borders. They were created by years of poor governance, corruption, weak institutions and failed leadership. Blaming vulnerable migrants may win applause, but it will never repair a broken economy or restore public services.

Equally, African leaders cannot wash their hands of responsibility.

If opportunities existed at home, if governments created jobs, respected democracy, fought corruption and invested in their people, millions would never have felt compelled to seek a future elsewhere.

That is the conversation Africa keeps avoiding.

And what of the African Union?

Too often it appears stronger at issuing statements than delivering solutions. Summit after summit, declaration after declaration, while ordinary Africans continue to endure poverty, instability and conflict. Continental unity cannot survive on speeches alone. It demands courageous leadership, accountability and measurable action.

South Africa must secure its borders, enforce its immigration laws and confront xenophobia with firmness and fairness.

But other African governments must also stop pretending to be innocent spectators.

You cannot neglect your citizens for years and then suddenly become their loudest defenders once they have crossed into another country.

Real leadership begins at home.

The greatest betrayal of Africa has never been committed by the poor migrant searching for dignity.

It has been committed by leaders who had every opportunity to build nations where their people never needed to flee.

Until Africa's political elite accepts responsibility for that failure, the cycle of migration, anger, division and violence will continue.

The time for heroic speeches is over.

The time for accountable leadership has arrived.

— Noko Maleka
Founder & Editor, InsightJoziNews.org