“If Africans Must Go… But to Where” Seidu Agongo Warns Against Xenophobia Ahead of June 30 Ultimatum

Story by Fada Amakye

Ghanaian businessman and philanthropist Alhaji Seidu Agongo has condemned the wave of harassment and threats against fellow Africans in South Africa, asking a pointed question as a June 30 ultimatum by vigilante groups approaches: “If Africans must go, then where should they go to.

In an opinion piece titled _“Africans must go… But to where?”_, Agongo said the scenes of Africans being beaten and told to “go back home” are “unsettling to every conscience across this continent.

He argued that the borders being invoked were “imposed by colonists” to serve extractive interests, not African realities. “Before these borders, Africans moved, traded, and lived across vast spaces defined more by culture and coexistence than by rigid territorial barriers. That history must count for something.

Agongo said migration within Africa is a “natural response to uneven development,” not an anomaly. Africans move to South Africa because opportunities exist there that locals are “unable or unwilling to take advantage of.

“Telling these people, who are filling a void, to ‘go back home’ without addressing the structural imbalances that drive migration is not a policy. It is an attempt to deflect responsibility,” he wrote.

While acknowledging youth unemployment in South Africa is real, he warned that blaming fellow Africans is “inaccurate and dangerous” and only “deepens the crisis rather than resolving it.

The businessman stressed that Africa is at a pivotal moment as the world competes for critical minerals like gold, cobalt, lithium and bauxite.

This moment offers an opportunity not only for resource extraction, but for industrialization, value addition, and shared prosperity. Yet such an opportunity cannot be fully realized in isolation… It requires coordination, integration, and unity.

He warned that expelling migrants would backfire economically: “African migrants in South Africa are not merely job seekers. They are entrepreneurs, traders, and service providers… Their abrupt removal will not automatically translate into employment for South Africans. On the contrary, it may lead to the closure of informal enterprises, disruptions in supply chains, and reduced economic vibrancy.

Agongo called on South Africa’s government to engage youth grievances through legitimate channels and “firmly reject any descent into mob action or unlawful expulsions.” He said the spectacle of repatriation flights “unwinds the visions and successes of true Africans like Dr Kwame Nkrumah and Nelson Mandela who saw through the colonists’ attempt to divide and rule Africa.

“So again, we must ask: if Africans must go, where should they go to? Surely not away from one another… Instead, we must forge forward towards deeper integration, stronger cooperation, and a renewed commitment to the idea that, despite our diversity, we are one people with a shared destiny.