[ 2015-04-18 ]

NPP man links SA xenophobic attacks to booing of deputy ministers
NPP’s Mike Ocquaye Jnr has said he is not
surprised by recent xenophobic attacks in South
Africa.

The NPP lawyer, who condemned the xenophobic
attacks in the rainbow nation, attributes the
underlying cause of such violence to frustration
over seeming inattention by leadership to
citizens' concerns.

According to him, when leadership of a country
remains insensitive to the demands of its
citizens; they have the tendency to vent their
frustration on those whom they perceive to be the
cause of their woes.

He said he witnessed the passionate booing of
President Jacob Zuma during the burial of
statesman Nelson Mandela last year.

“I was shocked. Look ANC boss Zuma? booed?
Especially at an ANC giant’s funeral? It
doesn’t happen in South Africa and one of the
reasons is because he doesn’t seem to handle
anything properly”.

Mike Oquaye stated that his checks revealed that
"the people [South Africans] don’t think Zuma is
doing a good job". They are economically
frustrated "and frustration is one thing that
leads people to attack others".he said, they will
first vent their ire on leadership.

The South African economy, he said, has gotten so
bad that the country, which has had stable
electricity for years is finally experiencing
"dumsor".

"Now they have started experiencing dumsor" like
Ghana, and this is "affecting the economy badly",
he said.

To him, the booing of the South African president
was a sign that ordinary South Africans are not
being heard. He believes the intransigence of the
South African government has fed the
“undercurrent” of frustration which some
sections have translated into xenophobic attacks.

Always, he said, a frustrated peoples will first
vent their ire on leadership and when their
problems are still not addressed, they will then
turn that frustration into violence.

Although he could understand how such a situation
could arise, he condemned the attacks outright,
insisting that they are "unjustifiable,
unpardonable, and unacceptable".

The phenomenon is not localised to South Africa
alone, he opined.

Ocquaye Jnr argued that the recent booing and
heckling of some deputy ministers is a sign to
Government that the concerns of ordinary people
are not be heard or addressed.

Deputy Education Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
and his colleague Felix Kwakye Ofosu were
Wednesday morning heckled and humiliated by
students of the seven Colleges of Education in
Kumasi.

The government officials were on a tour as part of
a programme they have described as "Campus
Connect" but the students used the occasion to
protest the withdrawal of teacher trainee
allowances (allawa) by the John Mahama
administration.

Although Mike Ocquaye Jnr described the action as
“unacceptable” he also argued that the anger
had “built up”.

“When they shout campus connect, then the people
respond ‘y3 gye allawa’ [we are demanding our
allowance]. They are so angry. Why have you gone
to take their allawa and tell them about campus
connect? it doesn’t connect”.

He called for the situation with the teacher
trainees to "be resolved before it escalates to
further violence".

Source - MyjoyOnline

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