The likelihood of xenophobic attacks in Ghana, as is happening in South Africa, is not remote as long as the circumstances that lead to such incidents are created, former Foreign Affairs Minister Hanna Tetteh has said.

Speaking on the anti-immigrant wave sweeping across the globe, including the recent assault of African migrants in South Africa, Donald Trump’s immigration policy, and the recent Trump-like immigration programme announced by Argentina, Ms Tetteh noted that economic challenges are good fodder for xenophobia.

“In Ghana, by the way, we are not any different. …I think anything can happen anywhere given a certain set of circumstances, and, so, it’s important for us to make sure that we don’t allow those circumstances to be created. What was the basis for the Aliens Compliance Act? I don’t want to go back into that history but let’s face it, at that time, it was felt that foreigners were controlling this economy much more so than Ghanaians. Therefore, there needed to be some form of regulation and as a result people were asked to move away in the 1960s,” she told host Etse Sikanku on World Affairs on Class91.3FM on Friday 3 March when asked if such attacks were possible in Ghana.

“When I was at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we did a project with the National Identification Authority and Immigration [Service] where we had the foreigner registration and you had these foreigner ID cards that were issued. We discovered at that time that we had over 120 nationalities living in Ghana. When you look at what has happened or comments that come up about the Chinese and the way that they do business in Ghana or Nigerians and the way they do business in Ghana or Liberians as former refugees in Ghana who have stayed or as Ivorians who left as a result of the crisis that took place in their country a couple of years ago who are still here, how do we react to them? And generally we are not really as hospitable as we make ourselves out to be.”

Explaining how economic hardships lead to violence against foreigners, the former Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya West noted: “Over the last decade, the world has gone through some economic challenges and [if] there is some amount of stagnation, then of course people begin to become more possessive and more selfish and want to see that the space they consider to be their space is protected.”

She disclosed that xenophobic attacks were not new as they happened many years ago when the Italians and Irish moved in their numbers to settle in the United States but said people were becoming more aware of them presently due to improved access to information.

“I think because we have many more communication tools available we are becoming much more aware of some of the challenges that immigrants face and some of the negative sentiments whipped up against immigrants in different parts of the world. …When did we use to pay attention to what happens in Argentina in terms of what goes on in the news? What is happening in far places like in the Philippines, which really didn’t have much bearing on what happens in Ghana but with information access we know what is going on?” she asked.