AU and Ghana must rise up against xenophobic attacks – Rev Opuni-Frimpong
By Lydia Kukua Asamoah, GNA
Accra, Sept 6, GNA – The Reverend Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, a Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, said the African Union (AU) should go beyond the condemnation of xenophobic attacks in South Africa and show leadership by sanctioning the country through threatening.
“The AU must express a displeasure with some kind of admonition and sanction, “that this cannot continue, but if South Africa continues like this, then we will advise ourselves” Rev Opuni-Frimpong said in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Friday.
According to him, the AU needed to remind the country of its responsibility towards bilateral relations with other sister-countries, and for that matter, the need to protect all people who lived and worked in South Africa.
He particularly called on the Ghanaian Government who plays a key role in the issues of Africa to “put in a word” in the on-going attacks of other black nationals in South Africa as “it is getting serious”.
Rev Opuni-Frimpong also urged other African leaders to step in to help address the issue once and for all, and to halt the repressive attacks going on in Nigeria and other countries.
He urged South African businesses in other countries to call for calm and talked to their people to stop attacking other nationals in South Africa.
Rev Opuni-Frimpong expressed regret that over the years, South Africa had failed to deal with perpetrators who loot, burn and maim other black nationals in the name of “foreigners taking our jobs”.
“We still must build the African family” and so those who are using boycott and those who are using counter-attacks as a means of retaliation may also not be the best way, because we have agenda 2063-the Africa we want.
“We want to open our economies, free-trade and all that. So if you are now going back to withdrawing, then we will be back to square one”, he stated.
He said the Nigerian Government’s intent to send a free flight to pick its citizens from South Africa would not make the case any better, “it will rather make it worse, because these are the leading economies in Africa- Nigeria and South Africa, and if they go that way, it will divide the continent even the more.
And so some voices must come in from all sides and call for calm and peace Rev Opuni-Frimpong noted.
GNA