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On June 8, 2026, the Government of Ghana evacuated the final batch of Ghanaians living in South Africa following the latest wave of xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals residing in the Rainbow Nation. However, what was meant to reassure a worried public instead handed hostile actors their most effective weapon.
One of the sparks that bad actors seized was an announcement made by Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, on his Facebook page that the government would evacuate 600 more Ghanaians after registering them at the country’s High Commission in Pretoria on May 30, 2026 (it is archived here).
The Facebook post attracted 31,338 interactions as of June 2, 2026, making it the single post with the highest engagement in the entire dataset of 553 posts scraped from X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook using Apify. A hostile narrative dominated many of the comments targeted at the post.
An OSINT analysis of data collected between May 24 and June 2, 2026, identified a structured, multi-layered hostile narrative campaign targeting Ghana’s diplomatic response to anti-immigration protests in South Africa. The dataset revealed Mr Okudzeto-Ablakwa as the primary focal point, Ghana’s President John Mahama as the secondary target, and South African corporate interests Goldfields and telecoms giant MTN as economic targets.
When DUBAWA ran the dataset through its AI Triage analysis, a framework developed to measure the hostility score, the overall picture that emerged was one of moderate risk, not an emergency, but not something to ignore either.
Think of it as a smoke alarm going off in a neighbouring room. No visible fire yet, but enough to make you stop and check. None of the individual posts was dangerous enough on its own to warrant immediate escalation. But taken together as a cluster of coordinated narratives pushing in the same direction, they present a pattern that the appropriate authorities need to watch closely.
For instance, one post flagged for leading a hostile narrative campaign was viewed 109,000 times at the time the data was collected, and another made an unverified foreign-agent conspiracy claim (archived here). The patterns in the hostile narratives suggest a coordinated effort to delegitimise Ghana’s government before the diplomatic fallout has fully settled.
Who is being targeted, and misinformation strategy
The OSINT analysis identified five political figures and a civil society activist across the coded posts. The Foreign Affairs Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, led the targeting count with 11 direct mentions and 10 cross-reference mentions, followed closely by President Mahama with 12 in the Ghanaian cluster. South Africa’s Julius Malema, whose criticism of Ghana’s evacuation as an “overreaction” and as having “wrong timing” provided hostile accounts with a high-credibility anchor appearing in 14 posts, making him the single figure with the most direct mentions in the entire dataset. He was also closely followed by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with five mentions in the Rainbow Nation dataset.
Chart of personalities targeted in xenophobic hostile narratives
| Political Figure | Post Count | Primary Context |
| Julius Malema | 14 | His post was used to legitimise the ‘Ghana’ overreaction narrative |
| President John Mahama | 12 | His official comment was used in some hostile framing |
| Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa | 11 | Top engagement source and conspiracy target |
| Okudzeto (surname alone) | 10 | Hostile post targeting the same figure |
| Cyril Ramaphosa | 5 | Posts were demanding accountability. Commentary critically framed South Africa’s comment on the anti-migrant protests |
| Ben Quarshie (High Commissioner) | 3 | Primarily informational |
| Kofi Bentil (IMANI VP) | 2 | Economic retaliation framing |
The analysis further showed that the foreign affairs minister, whose post generated more engagement than any other news organisation in the dataset, was the most exposed political target. The same credibility that made him the dominant signal amplifier for the government’s position on the evacuation of Ghanaian migrants in South Africa also made him the most efficient pressure point for hostile actors.
President Mahama’s exposure to the hostile narrative was more indirect. DUBAWA observed that hostile accounts were using his own words against him. His Chatham House address, in which he stated:
“It’s not the first time South Africans have displayed xenophobic behaviour, but there has been no breach in our relations with them. This is the first time Ghanaians have directly experienced South Africa’s xenophobia.”
The excerpt was viewed 44,200 times on a tweet reshared by @askghmedia on X, making it the third-highest-reach item in the Ghana-specific dataset (archived here). At the time of data collection, the post had 34,234 views, and by June 9, 2026, that figure had grown to 44,200, indicating a significant increase in engagement.
The quote by President Mahama was used by X users in two ways. Pro-Ghana accounts used it to validate Ghana’s intervention against anti-migrant protests, while hostile accounts used it as evidence that Ghana applies double standards to itself.
Image of post by @askghana/Source: X (formerly Twitter)
To understand the scale of the online environment in which these narratives were operating, DUBAWA used the social listening tool Talkwalker to measure the broader conversation around xenophobia. Africa, where the crisis is unfolding, recorded the highest mention count of any region, with 24,700 mentions and 91,900 engagements, and negative sentiment at 83.6%, almost identical to the global average.
(Image of key metrics on Xenophobia/Source: Talkwalker)
In Asia, negative sentiment was slightly higher at 84.6%, despite far fewer mentions. The Asia metrics showed 2,700 mentions and 13,400 engagements.
(Image of key metrics on Xenophobia/Source: Talkwalker )
In Europe, negative sentiment was 79.4%, with the highest positive sentiment of any region at 6.1%, suggesting a more mixed conversation, possibly more policy-oriented than emotionally charged.
(Image of key metrics on Xenophobia/Source: Talkwalker )
Similar patterns were observed in North and South America and Oceania. Globally, the word xenophobia generated 53,600 mentions, 263,900 engagements, and a potential reach of 4.4 billion people, with negative sentiment averaging 83.8%. This means the hostile narrative campaign targeting Ghana’s government was not operating in a vacuum. It was feeding into an already angry, globally charged conversation.
(Image of key metrics on Xenophobia/Source: Talkwalker )
The three hostile cluster narratives identified in Facebook & X datasets
Cluster (1): Depiction of Ghana as hypocritical
The first cluster identified in the dataset depicts Ghana as hypocritical. There were 40 posts across both X and Facebook that were pushing this hostile narrative. One of the most structurally dangerous ones was one made by X user @ChrisExcel102.
Image of tweet by @ChrisExcel102/Source: X
The post argued that Ghana has no moral standing to call South Africa xenophobic because Ghana itself legally bars foreigners from operating small businesses within its borders. That claim is not without basis.
At the time the data was collected, the tweet had garnered 109,386 views, 5,699 likes, and 1,162 retweets. By the time of publication, it had grown to 152,800 views, 7,400 likes, 1,500 retweets, and 123 comments. It was not classified as the most hostile post because of its tone, but because it is the most resistant to rebuttal.
“This is followed by a string of tweets that make coordinated posts reinforcing the argument that when South Africans seek to implement the same policy, Ghanaians call it racism, but when Ghana does it, it is called national interest.”
What makes this narrative particularly dangerous is not that it is false, but because it is true. Ghana has a law that reserves certain small businesses exclusively for its citizens. Hostile actors identified in the dataset were not making it up; they were using it as a weapon. And that is precisely what makes it so hard to dismiss because you cannot fact-check your way out of an argument that is built on facts.
Image of @Stayela’s post on X/Source: X (formerly Twitter)
Excerpts of some of the tweets by @Stayela206 and @MicahDaMusic
“When Ghana prioritises citizens in small business, it’s in the national interest. When South Africans raise the same concern, it’s called xenophobia. Interesting.” — @Stayela206, 4,949 views
“Ghanaians in Ghana are pushing their people to open tuck shops and salons in South Africa. When we say the industry must be reserved for South Africans, they cry Xenophobia, isn’t that Hypocritical?” — @MicahDaMusic, 1,749 views
Cluster (2) the conspiracy and foreign agent narrative
The second pattern DUBAWA identified goes beyond criticism. It enters the territory of conspiracy. And it operates on two levels.
Some posts claimed that South African politicians were bribed or pressured into cooperating with Ghana’s evacuation, that they did not act out of goodwill or diplomacy, but because someone paid them or twisted their arm. X user @Kay6kanye put it bluntly, claiming South African politicians “got paid” and “have no backbone.”
@Kay6kanye posted: “South African politicians really don’t care about its people, they were pressured by ghana n stupid xenophobia claims and a small AU threats n they folded, but we know they got paid, and now Ghana is with its people, our politicians have no back bone n no love for this land.” (archived here). This post scored 10 on the hostility framework, 2 on conspiracy framing, and was flagged with a misinformation score of 2.
Fact check: This is false. There is no public evidence of bribery between Ghanaian and South African officials. Rather, Ghana is exploring possibilities of taking the South African government to court over xenophobic attacks on its citizens. Ghana has also petitioned the African Union over the incident. The action was not taken to threaten the South African government, but to draw attention to the breach of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The second misinformation pattern identified by DUBAWA, which is more alarming, is the introduction of a foreign state actor at play in Ghana’s response to the xenophobic attacks on its citizens.
More structurally significant is a post by @Bramaisho1, which reads, “RSA needs to stay vigilant. ISRAEL is funding March and March for Afrophobia and financially backing Ghana to challenge South Africa globally over issues of Afrophobia and xenophobia. This is a strategic geopolitical move to watch closely. #SouthAfrica #Xenophobia #DIRCO.”
This post scored 8 on Hostile narrative framework elevated primarily on Conspiracy (score: 3). It introduces a named foreign state, which is Israel, as the covert financier of both South Africa’s anti-immigration movement and Ghana’s diplomatic pressure campaign. There is no evidence in this dataset or in public reporting to support either claim. The post had low reach at the time of collection but represents what intelligence analysts term a narrative seed, a low-volume claim with high structural escalation potential if picked up by a media outlet or amplified by a high-follower account.
The @Bronx_wrangler post, which scored 10 on our framework with a Conspiracy score of 3, references “the third force” as an orchestrating actor behind the xenophobia attacks, framing the entire crisis as a manufactured event. It reads: “Xenophobia and racism are close family members. I find it astounding how some try to frame the ‘third force’ and the possible reasons behind the latest Xenophobia attacks in SA. It is a basic reality in SA.”
A fourth account, @mr_shimmy, stated directly: “The only reason the Ghanaian government is behaving the way it is towards South Africa is because of its close relationship with Israel. They appear to be taking the so-called xenophobic attacks in South Africa out of proportion, rather than considering the full context and facts surrounding the situation.”
What makes this post particularly worth monitoring is not its reach but its method. Instead of openly defending xenophobia, @mr_shimmy dressed the argument up as calm, reasonable geopolitical analysis. The effect is the same. It plants the idea that xenophobia never really happened, or that Ghana is exaggerating it for political reasons. When conspiracy claims are packaged as sober analysis, they are harder to dismiss and easier to spread.
Fact check: There is no public data to support the claim that Ghana’s diplomatic response was influenced by Israel. Even though South Africa’s relationship with Israel had reached an all-time low as early as February this year, the South African government confirms that it has a strong relationship with Ghana, one rooted in historical struggles and values.
Image of @mr_shimmy tweet/Source: X
Cluster (3) Economic retaliation framing
The economic retaliation narrative straddles legitimate policy debate and targeted corporate delegitimisation. On one end sits IMANI Africa Vice President Kofi Bentil, whose stated position is that Ghana should not renew the mining lease of Goldfields, which was amplified by Facebook page De Rich to 185 reactions and 16 comments, and by @Agble Seli to 3 reactions, both linking the lease decision directly to the evacuation context.
On the other end sits @Marcelo04664800, whose post “A warning to that xenophobia network called MTN. We are getting rid of MTN soon.” scored 7 on our framework (Conspiracy: 2, Misinformation: 2) and received 1,741 views and 17 retweets. A second post by the same account reads: “Xenophobia MTN, right now,” linking MTN directly to the xenophobia label without evidence of any specific MTN conduct (archived here). The move from policy criticism (Goldfields lease) to direct corporate labelling (MTN as a “xenophobia network”) marks an escalation in targeting specificity.
Facebook user Esther Nortey offered the fullest summary of the economic retaliation logic: “So let me get this straight. South Africa wanted Africans out of their country. Ghana sends a plane to evacuate its citizens, revokes Goldfields’ (a South African company mining Ghana’s gold) mining license, and now South Africa says Ghana is overreacting? Smh.”
This framing, which treats the evacuation, the Goldfields decision, and the overreaction criticism as one connected story, is the foundation on which more hostile content is being built.
Who is calling for action, and what kind?
Nine posts in the dataset were coded as primary mobilisation. DUBAWA found no post in this dataset that contains a direct call to physical violence against a named individual. The most severe mobilisation content is directed at economic targets.
The post by Mthembu Princess on Facebook, which reads … “You see marching alone is sending these Foreigners back home. Just lock those shops so they can’t operate them. Do not loot. Do not use physical violence, just tell them to go home & lock those shops,” scored 8 on the hostile narrative framework’s section under mobilisation.
It received 10 reactions and 9 comments. It is notable for its explicit framing of economic coercion as a non-violent alternative to looting, a rhetorical move that legitimises the goal of ‘forced expulsion’ while distancing itself from the method of ‘looting’.
@Ethio_patriott offered a longer-term frame: “The retaliation is justified but should not be chaotic and emotional, rather strategic and long-term — let South Africa feel the economic pain long-term. Xenophobia and the brutal attack on fellow Africans have been happening for over 20 years now; there must be consequences.”
Five posts by @MpeseProud across the collection period repeatedly invoked the Rwanda genocide as the inevitable endpoint of South Africa’s current trajectory. “This March and March tribalism and xenophobia will trigger a civil war in South Africa very soon. This is exactly how tribalism sparked a genocidal civil war in Rwanda.” These posts present escalation as inevitable, not as a call, but function as a normalisation of civil conflict as an expected outcome.
The misinformation inventory
Our analysis flagged six distinct unverified or false claims circulating in the dataset:
| Claim | Source | Risk Level | Verification Status |
| SA politicians were ‘paid’ to cooperate with Ghana’s evacuation | @Kay6kanye | HIGH | Unverified — no evidence |
| Israel is funding March and backing Ghana diplomatically | @Bramaisho1 | HIGH | Unverified — no evidence |
| The xenophobia narrative was fabricated by Ghana as a pretext for a pre-planned evacuation | @AwaitedOne1 and others | MODERATE | Contested claim |
| Ghanaian evacuees from SA should test for HIV due to the high SA infection rate | ‘We love Ghana’ (Facebook) | MODERATE | Misleading health framing |
| A ‘third force’ orchestrated the xenophobia attacks | @Bronx_wrangler and others | MODERATE | No evidence |
| MTN is a ‘xenophobia network.’ | @Marcelo04664800 | MODERATE | No evidence — label applied without basis |
The HIV post by the Facebook page ‘We love Ghana’ warrants specific attention. It generated 3,080 reactions and 588 comments, the highest engagement for any misinformation-coded post in the entire corpus and the fifth-highest engagement item overall. It was outperformed only by Ablakwa’s official post, News Central TV, eNCAnews, and GHBRAIN TV Studios. The claim that Ghanaian returnees from South Africa should undergo HIV testing because of South Africa’s HIV rate constitutes stigmatising health misinformation with a domestic Ghanaian audience. The fact that it is framed as concern rather than hostility makes it more, not less, dangerous.
The key amplifiers: who is driving this discourse?
Hostile and delegitimising accounts
| Account | Platform | Top Post Reach | Narrative Signal |
| @ChrisExcel102 | X | 109,386 views | 5,699 likes | 1,162 RTs | Ghana hypocrisy — the highest reach in the dataset |
| @hlovo_ | X | 43,118 views | 3,010 likes | 575 RTs | Ambiguous framing; high amplification |
| @Stayela206 | X | 4,949 views | 243 likes | 85 RTs | Double-standard framing |
| @MicahDaMusic | X | 1,749 views | 68 likes | 31 RTs | Hypocrisy + SA nationalist framing |
| @Marcelo04664800 | X | 1,741 views | 17 likes | 2 RTs | MTN boycott / corporate targeting |
| @Bramaisho1 | X | Low — not reported | Israel-conspiracy narrative seed |
| @Kay6kanye | X | 10 views | 1 like | Corruption / ‘got paid’ conspiracy |
Pro-Ghana and official signal amplifiers
| Account / Page | Platform | Top Engagement | Signal Type |
| Samuel Ablakwa (personal page) | 31,338 total engagement | Official government narrative — dominant voice | |
| @askghmedia | X | 34,234 views | 725 likes | 104 RTs | Mahama Chatham House statement |
| News Central TV | 19,490 total engagement | Neutral mainstream reporting | |
| eNCAnews | 12,209 total engagement | South African neutral reporting | |
| GHBRAIN TV Studios | 11,796 total engagement | Pro-evacuee / government supportive | |
| @MbhazimawaGaza | X | 17,196 views | 1,241 likes | 433 RTs | Anti-EFF counter-narrative |
A significant finding on amplifier dynamics shows that the pro-Ghana official signal, led by Ablakwa’s personal post, dominates engagement on Facebook. The hostile signal, led by @ChrisExcel102, dominates reach on X. These are different audiences with different information consumption patterns. A government counter-messaging strategy effective on Facebook will not automatically reach the X audience where the delegitimisation campaign has its highest velocity.
Scoring framework: how we assessed each post
Each post in the 553-post corpus was scored across six dimensions on a 0–3 scale:
| Dimension | Score 0 | Score 1 | Score 2 | Score 3 |
| Hostility (H) | Neutral | Mild criticism | Strong accusation | Direct attack/dehumanisation |
| Conspiracy (C) | None | Vague suspicion | Implied secret motive | Explicit secret deal/fabrication |
| Mobilization (M) | None | Passive suggestion | Active call | Urgent/immediate action demand |
| Political Targeting (PT) | None | Institution only | Named figure incidental | Named figure as primary target |
| Misinformation Risk (MI) | Verifiable | Likely verifiable | Unverified/speculative | False or fabricated claim |
| Reach (R) | <100 eng | 100–500 eng | 500–5,000 eng | 5,000+ eng |
Total scores were then translated into four priority tiers:
| Total Score | Priority |
| 0–5 | LOW |
| 6–9 | MODERATE |
| 10–13 | HIGH |
| 14+ | CRITICAL |
Additional escalation triggers were applied regardless of the total score. These included: Mobilization ≥ 3 AND Political Targeting ≥ 2 appearing in the same post; Reach ≥ 3 AND Conspiracy ≥ 2; or any post containing a threat against a named individual.
Priority distribution: what the numbers show
| Priority | Count | Percentage |
| CRITICAL | 0 | 0% |
| HIGH | 7 | 1.3% |
| MODERATE | 58 | 10.5% |
| LOW | 488 | 88.2% |
The seven posts that cleared the HIGH threshold are: @Kay6kanye (score: 10, corruption conspiracy), @Bronx_wrangler (score: 10, third-force conspiracy), @ZAFARAHMADABDU2 (score: 11, mobilisation in adjacent xenophobia discourse), @Bramaisho1 (score: 8, Israel-funding conspiracy seed), Mthembu Princess on Facebook (score: 8, shop-locking mobilisation call), ‘We love Ghana’ on Facebook (score: 8, HIV misinformation), and @Marcelo04664800 (score: 7, MTN targeting). The Bramaisho1 and @Marcelo04664800 posts were escalated on the strength of their conspiracy and targeting dimensions, respectively, notwithstanding lower total scores.
The verdict
Ghana’s evacuation of its citizens from South Africa was a legitimate exercise of consular responsibility. But the information environment surrounding it has been shaped, in part, by a hostile narrative architecture that is now actively working to undermine the diplomatic credibility of the government that ordered it, and specifically the minister who executed it.
The double-standard narrative led by @ChrisExcel102 is not fabricated disinformation in the classical sense. It leverages real Ghanaian policy to align with Ghana’s position and has reached over 109,000 people on X alone.
The conspiracy cluster, the ‘got paid’ claim, the Israel-funding narrative, and the ‘third force’ framing have not yet broken through to mass reach. That is the window of intervention. The @Bramaisho1 post introducing Israel as a covert actor is the single most structurally dangerous item in the analyst review queue, not because it is widely believed today, but because the architecture of such claims does not require majority belief to do harm. It requires only amplification by a credible-seeming account at the right moment.
The Goldfields and MTN economic retaliation narrative is accelerating. IMANI Africa’s Kofi Bentil provides an institutional anchor for the Goldfields argument; @Marcelo04664800 has already moved from policy argument to direct corporate labelling. The distance between “Ghana should not renew Goldfields’ lease” and “MTN is a xenophobic network” is shorter than it appears, and traversed faster than governments typically respond.
Three conditions would elevate this assessment from MODERATE to HIGH. First, if the Bramaisho1 Israel-funding claim achieves more than 10,000 views or is cited by any media outlet. Second, if the Goldfields or MTN economic targeting crosses from social media commentary into confirmed government action framing. Third, if any post achieves a mobilisation score of 3 combined with a Political Targeting score of 2 or higher against a named official.
None of those conditions has been met as of 2 June 2026. The risk is Moderate. It will not remain so without a direct and platform-specific counter-messaging response, one that addresses X, not just Facebook, and that confronts the double-standard argument on its own terms rather than restating the evacuation’s legitimacy.
Conclusion
The patterns show that Ghana’s diplomatic response to the anti-migrant protests in South Africa has turned the digital space into a battleground where that decision is being twisted and weaponized. Some of the attacks are built on inaccurate claims, none of which have any evidence behind them. The most dangerous attack, however, is the argument that Ghana is a hypocrite for protecting its own businesses while criticizing South Africa. This claim has already reached over 150,000 people, and you cannot fact-check your way out of something that is technically true. A false claim about HIV risk among returnees quietly racked up over 3,000 reactions, proving that the most harmful content is often the kind dressed up as concern rather than hostility. If Ghana’s government does not fight this narrative battle on the same platforms and with the same precision that its attackers are already using, the story people will remember is not the successful evacuation but the controversy that followed it.
