The Nigeria Labour Congress has called on the Congress of South African Trade Unions to lead a mass educational and sensitisation campaign across South African communities and workplaces to combat xenophobia and protect migrant workers.
In a letter dated May 7, 2026, and addressed to the President of COSATU in Johannesburg, NLC President Joe Ajaero warned that South Africa could not claim to defend the working class while allowing African migrants to be hunted and killed.
Ajaero said, “We cannot claim to fight for the working class while allowing a section of that class to be hunted like wild animals. We therefore call upon COSATU to lead a mass educational and sensitisation offensive within every union, every community, and every workplace in South Africa. We must teach that the migrant worker is not a cause of poverty but a victim of the same system.”
The labour leader added, “We must break, once and for all, the racist myth that a fellow black African from across a colonial border is our enemy.”
The NLC condemned the recent killings and destruction of businesses owned by African migrants in South Africa, describing the attacks as a consequence of economic hardship and failed government policies.
Ajaero said the labour movement in Africa had a long history of solidarity dating back to the anti-apartheid struggle, which Nigerian workers supported.
He said, “We extend our hand of solidarity and kinship to you as co-travellers in the long and bitter struggle against exploitation, racial capitalism, and neoliberal savagery. We write to you today with the urgent alarm of a fellow labour centre that is watching with horror as the ghosts of nativism and xenophobia once again stalk the streets of South Africa.”
The NLC president lamented that African migrants were being murdered “not for any crime, but for the sin of being African in Africa.” He stated that unemployment, housing shortages and poor social services in South Africa were genuine concerns, but warned that political and economic elites were redirecting public anger towards vulnerable foreign workers.
“Our common enemy is not the migrant worker hawking goods in Soweto or mining in Rustenburg. Our common enemy is neoliberalism, capitalism’s most vicious mask. It is a failed government policy that failed to address the needs of workers and people but panders to profit,” Ajaero said.
The NLC urged COSATU to go beyond issuing statements and mobilise workers against xenophobic violence.
“We therefore call upon you, our sister labour centre, to lend your powerful voice without equivocation and condemn these xenophobic attacks in the strongest terms, not as a mere press release but as a mass mobilisation, so that every trade union hall, every shop floor, and every picket line carries the message that an injury to one is an injury to all,” it said.
The Congress also demanded immediate intervention from the South African government, accusing security agencies of failing to protect migrants.
Ajaero said, “The passivity of the security forces in the face of these attacks amounts to complicity, and we call for the full deployment of state resources to protect migrant workers and their property. Perpetrators must be swiftly prosecuted, and families who have lost their loved ones, as well as workers who have lost their livelihoods, must be compensated by the state.”
The NLC further warned that xenophobia threatened working-class unity across Africa and weakened labour’s collective bargaining power.
“Xenophobia is not good for anybody, especially the world of work, because it fractures working-class unity and weakens our collective bargaining power against capital. We must organise a pushback against this latest eruption and change the mindset that propels it before it destroys our collective unity across the continent,” Ajaero stated.
The Congress proposed an emergency meeting of African trade union centres under the African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation and the Organisation of African Trade Union Unity to develop joint mechanisms for protecting migrant workers across borders.
Ajaero warned that xenophobia could spread beyond South Africa if left unchecked. “Xenophobia is a cancer that, if not excised in South Africa, will metastasise across the continent,” he said.
He added that the crisis affected the entire African working class and called for stronger continental solidarity. “There is no emancipation without solidarity. There is no liberation without the liberation of all African workers, regardless of passport,” Ajaero said.
The PUNCH had earlier reported that former Edo State Governor and Senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, called for the revocation of the licences of South African companies operating in Nigeria, including MTN and DSTV, following renewed xenophobic attacks against Nigerians in South Africa.
Oshiomhole had urged Nigeria to take stronger measures after reports that two Nigerians, Amaramiro Emmanuel and Ekpenyong Andrew, were killed in separate xenophobic incidents in South Africa.
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