Major hallmark of time in the annals of African history is the history that has repeated in Africa over the long procession of years till present moment. Africa is one big continent that can no longer be looked down as it has come a long way finding her seat with the other continents of the world. Thus, there are some certain things that can never be forgotten about her. And this is primarily because of the repetitiveness of some of its historical events.
Everyone’s heard the saying that history repeats itself. Sometimes it’s in the context of being told to learn from our mistakes so that history doesn’t repeat itself. Other times it’s when a current event feels eerily familiar as if you remember this happening before. Sometimes, people will question the idea that history repeats itself, but it’s hard to deny that there are many events throughout both human and natural history that feel like things that had happened before have happened again.
Africa has had some serious historical events which had happened in the far past that still have chosen to happen in the very recent history. However, amidst several things here is one particular history that has repeated itself in Africa
The History that has Repeated in Africa.
A very popular and most recent history that has repeated itself in Africa and within different geographical boundaries of the same continent undoubtedly discussed is the case of xenophobia and it is acutely analyzed below:
XENOPHOBIC EVENTS IN AFRICA
Xenophobia means dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries. It does often involve racism or cultural discrimination, but anyone can express xenophobic ideas, that is, this kind of expression is not exactly limited to the western whites against Africa. It could be found extant among Africans against Africans too. Though the most common reasons for this unfavorably unhealthy decisions is majorly economic and psychological, yet it was never expected such brutality could ever happen let alone recur itself in Africa.
REPATRIATION BETWEEN GHANA AND NIGERIA
The xenophobic events that repeated themselves in Africa first came about in recent history around Ghana and then Nigeria. In 1983, Nigeria expelled two million undocumented West African migrants, half of whom were from Ghana. This event was following Ghanaian government first decree against Nigerians.
It should also be noted that there had existed an old wound in the Nigeria-Ghana relationship back in 1969 when the Ghanaian government effected the Alien’s Compliance Order. Nigerians and other African immigrants were deported on the claim that Ghana was in recession.
More than half of those deported were Ghanaians who had come to Nigeria in search of better living in the 1970s when Nigeria was experiencing oil boom while Ghana, on the other hand, was witnessing political and economic hardship.
This deteriorated the Ghana-Nigeria relationship to the extent that in 1982, Rawlings raised an alarm that Shagari wanted to help Limann overthrow his government, and in response, Nigeria stopped the shipping of crude oil on a loan deal to Ghana. As this beef continued between the government, so did it go on among the citizens.
The deportation was due to the fear that Ghanaians were taking over Nigerian jobs. The exact same thought of the Ghanaians when they sent home all Nigerians living in Ghana back in the late 1960s.
REPATRIATION BETWEEN SOUTH AFRICA AND OTHER AFRICAN CITIZENS.
Before 1994, immigrants from elsewhere faced discrimination and even violence in South Africa. After majority rule in 1994, contrary to expectations, the incidence of xenophobia increased.
Between 2000 and March 2008, at least 67 people died in what were identified as xenophobic attacks. In May 2008, a series of attacks left 62 people dead; although 21 of those killed were South African citizens. The attacks were motivated by xenophobia. In 2015, another nationwide spike in xenophobic attacks against immigrants in general prompted a number of foreign governments to begin repatriating their citizens.
A Pew Research poll conducted in 2018 showed that 62% of South Africans viewed immigrants as a burden on society by taking jobs and social benefits and that 61% of South Africans thought that immigrants were more responsible for crime than other groups. Between 2010 and 2017 the immigrant community in South Africa increased from 2 million people to 4 million people.
Immigrants from Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique living in the Alexandra township were “physically assaulted over a period of several weeks in January 1995, as armed gangs identified suspected undocumented migrants and marched them to the police station in an attempt to ‘clean’ the township of foreigners.”
In May 2009, one year after the attacks the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CORMSA) said that foreigners remained under threat of violence and that little had been done to address the causes of the attacks. The organization complained of a lack of accountability for those responsible for public violence, insufficient investigations into the instigators and the lack of a public government inquiry.
Lastly, xenophobic statements were commonly made by politicians from a wide range of political parties during the 2019 South African general election. This has intensified as the ruling party risks losing its dominance of the political landscapes and parties from across the spectrum have relied on anti-immigrant messaging to bolster electoral support.
