Editorial
Indeed,Africa can not continue to preach unity on paper while allowing violence against Africans on African soil. The recurring xenophobic and Afrophobic attacks against Africans and other nationals in South Africa have once again laid bare a contradiction at the heart of our continental project. It is against this backdrop that President Bola Tinubu’s formal report to the African Union, delivered on Sunday at the 21st Extraordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Assembly in Luanda, Angola, must be read not as mere diplomacy, but as an imperative.
The President, represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, did not mince words. Nigeria expressed “concern over the recurring xenophobic and Afrophobic attacks against Africans and other nationals in South Africa” and warned that such incidents “undermine African solidarity, unity and peaceful coexistence”. According to him,to call these attacks, a bilateral problem between Nigeria and South Africa would be to miss the point entirely because when one African is attacked for being African, the wound is continental.
What makes President Tinubu’s petition urgent is its framing. He acknowledged South Africa’s “sovereign right to enforce its immigration laws and acknowledged its contributions to the continent”, but insisted that violence and targeted hostility can not be excused under the guise of law enforcement. He posited that rights without dignity are empty and that sovereignty without solidarity is self-defeating. Tinubu’s assertions are correct because the AU was built precisely to mediate that tension.
What Tinubu is specifically asking is both modest and strategic: place the matter on the agenda of the 40th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly scheduled for January, 2027 for “consideration and appropriate action”. This is not a call for sanctions or grandstanding. It is a call for a structured and continental conversation. By routing the issue through the AU’s highest decision-making body, Nigeria is demanding that xenophobia be treated as a threat to the African Union’s founding ideals, not as isolated criminality.
History also demands this elevation. From the evacuations of over 1,490 Nigerians in seven batches to the repeated incidents that have scarred communities across Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and beyond, the pattern is clear. Dialogue alone has not been enough. Preventive diplomacy has stalled without enforcement. President Tinubu,therefore, called for “stronger continental efforts to combat xenophobia and Afrophobia, stressing that dialogue, preventive diplomacy, and collective action remained essential”.
The timing equally matters for West Africa. Earlier at the 69th ECOWAS Summit in Lungi, Sierra Leone, Tinubu had urged the sub-region to “present a united voice” and to “table the matter before the next session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the African Union”. He reminded South Africa that “the freedom it currently enjoys is the result of the sacrifices and liberation efforts of African countries, including Nigeria”. That reminder is not nostalgia. It is a call to honour a debt of Pan-African solidarity.
Critics will argue that airing the matter at the AU risks embarrassing a leading member state. But silence has cost us more. Silence has cost lives, businesses, and the trust of millions of young Africans who migrate across borders seeking opportunity. If the AU can not protect an African trader in Johannesburg, a Nigerian student in Pretoria, or a Zimbabwean worker in Cape Town, then what exactly is “Agenda 2063” protecting?
Tinubu’s intervention also aligns with a broader security vision. At Luanda, he backed the Luanda Action Plan and argued that “conflict prevention remains more cost-effective and sustainable than conflict management”. Xenophobia is a low-intensity conflict. Left unaddressed, it metastasizes into diplomatic rows, reprisal attacks, and the erosion of intra-African trade under AfCFTA. Addressing it now is cheaper than cleaning up its aftermath later.
In the considered view of Nigerian Horn, the imperative, therefore, is twofold. First, the AU must adopt concrete measures: monitoring mechanisms, rapid response protocols for victims, public education campaigns on African citizenship, and peer review on how member states treat foreign nationals. Second, African leaders must reaffirm “their commitment to the safety, protection, and dignity of all African nationals”. Rights must travel with the passport.
It needs no argument that President Tinubu has done what leadership requires.He has named the problem, located it within our shared institutions, and proposed a continental path forward. “Enough is enough,” is the import of his message.
The AU’s 40th Ordinary Session in January, 2027 must not become another talking shop. It must produce action. If we allow Africans to be made strangers in Africa, we would have betrayed the very idea of Africa.
