Ingratitude at its best! South African attacks on Ghanaians - Brig. Gen. Dan Frimpong (Rtd) writes
To say the last days of May 2026 were eventful might probably be an understatement.
At the Ada Senior High Technical School, video footage of four machete-wielding students menacingly threatening fellow students late at night went viral.
But for the timely intervention of a Police patrol-team around midnight that day, the outcome could have been fatal, starkly reminding Ghanaians of the September 2024 stabbing to death of an 18-year-old student of O’Reilly SHS by a colleague.
A paediatrician at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr Beatrice Nyann, stated on Joy FM that there is an alarming increase in kidney diseases among children in Ghana.
She made a direct linkage between the increased kidney diseases and heavy metals like cyanide, arsenic, lead and mercury in our food and water, with galamsey certainly a major contributor.
At Akomadan in the Offinso-North District, on May 27, 2026, a Road-Traffic-Accident (RTA) claimed the lives of 12 people on the spot, while two were left in a critical condition.
Cambodia?
An undated Kingdom of Cambodia letterhead purportedly signed by the Secretary of State, Ministry of Interior, which went viral on WhatsApp on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, stated:
“The Royal Government of Cambodia, through the Department of Immigration, Ministry of Interior, wishes to inform all African nationals, including citizens of Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda and others that the waiver granted to you will officially end on May 31 2026.”
I asked myself: Is this the same Cambodia I sacrificed one-and-a-half years of my life as a UN peacekeeper for, together with Ghanaian colleagues, with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) from 1992-1993, not seeing my family for 18 months, to bring peace to that war-ravaged failed state?
Until I went to Cambodia, I had not heard of dengue fever! It made malaria fever very ordinary and a child’s play.
Interestingly, on a letterhead of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs on May 29, 2026, Ghanaians were told that the letter from Cambodia was fake.
Meanwhile, the message continued, “It is worth noting that arrangements are ongoing to equally facilitate the evacuation of an additional 76 Ghanaian nationals who are currently in Cambodia and have expressed the desire to return home!”
As a friend would exclaim when confounded, “Wonderful!”
South Africa
But perhaps, Shakespeare’s “the most unkindest cut of all,” as Brutus inflicted on his friend Julius Caesar, was the xenophobic attack on Ghanaians in South Africa, which resulted in the air-lifting of about 300 Ghanaians back to Ghana on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, as the first batch of evacuees from South Africa.
I asked myself, how ungrateful can South Africa be to Ghana and other African countries, which all contributed to their liberation from apartheid in 1994?
The current location of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) at the Airport Residential Area, Accra, had buildings from the 1960s called the “International Students Hostel.”
This hostel accommodated many black South African students brought in by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah to study/train in Ghana as part of his Pan-Africanist drive, and the fight against white apartheid rule in South Africa.
Additionally, young Ghanaian Military officers operated clandestinely in the early 1960s in South Africa and the Frontline States, such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique, at great risk to their lives, to help dismantle apartheid.
More recently, between late 1993 and early 1994, Ghana quietly trained black South African officers just before their independence in April 1994. Indeed, one of them would later become the Chief of Defence Staff of South Africa and visit Ghana.
So, for black South Africans who have benefited from the education, training, hospitality, generosity and moral support of Ghana, Nigeria and other African states, how come this xenophobic attack on Africans?
In a post attributed to radio presenter Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, she said, “South Africa is for South Africans.
The following countries must leave South Africa: Nigeria, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Mozambique, Malawi, Ghana, Tanzania, Swaziland and Congo.
We are tired.
South Africa is not a refugee camp! Deadline 30 June!
No foreigner must be found in South Africa!”
Such a display of ignorance of their history and ingratitude to Ghana, Nigeria and the Frontline States, who supported the blacks in South Africa in their hour of need, and made independence possible in 1994, is unfortunate/sad.
Lessons
Ungrateful and painful as actions by the blacks in South Africa have been to us, there are lessons to learn from their misdirected anger, ignorance and xenophobia.
They have told us to go home and fix our countries and live there.
Unfortunate as this may be, coming from people Ghana has sacrificed so much from the 1960s, it is a fact that we must fix Ghana so that leaving for perceived greener pastures does not become the norm it has, because of prevailing harsh economic realities at home.
This makes the average Ghanaian think that anywhere is better than home.
Therefore, Ghanaians are prepared to pay huge sums of money they could have invested in Ghana to unscrupulous middlemen who promise to ferry them across the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea, perilously to Europe. Some die in the process.
As for Cambodia, apart from Ghanaian UN peacekeepers who served there from 1992 to 1993, most Ghanaians do not know where it is.
Asking Ghanaians to leave by May 31, 2026, therefore, has been treated as an amusement.
Meanwhile, Foriegn Affairs Ministry says the letter was fake!
For our leaders, please stop the verbal warfare of indecent language and solve our numerous problems of galamsey, sanitation, health, education (schools under trees), RTAs and the annual ritual of floods, especially in Accra.
If you do, Ghanaians will not leave home in droves to be subjected to South African indignities as economic refugees.
Remember, “a good name is better than riches!” Let us fix Ghana so that we do not allow ungrateful South African males to show their strength in beating up a poor Ghanaian female hairdresser. Such ‘machoism’ is not only inhumane and shameful, but ingratitude to Ghana!
On Saturday, May 30, 2026, Mozambique blocked 5,000 vehicles passing through its country to South Africa.
Some Ghanaians quickly questioned the Mozambican action.
Perhaps to them, a more appropriate response is Matthew 5:39, “whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the left cheek to him also!” Typically in Ghana, fa ma Nyame (give it to God) Amen!
In a similar twist of logic, some South African politicians are complaining that Ghana’s evacuation of its citizens' homes is painting South Africa in a bad light! Really?
As for the African Union, your silence on this matter is deafening! Leaders! Lead by example/integrity/humility! Fellow Ghanaians, wake up!
The writer is a former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association, Nairobi, Kenya; Council Chairman, Family Health University, Teshie, Accra.
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