Kente and Fire at ECOWAS Parliament – Afenyo-Markin Slams Xenophobia, Mourns Killing of Tomato Traders

Dressed elegantly in a striking, multi-coloured kente fabric, Osahen Alexander Afenyo-Markin, the Third Deputy Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, has delivered a blistering address before the legislative body, demanding that South Africa move beyond “ceremonial words” and begin arresting and prosecuting perpetrators of xenophobic violence targeting West African nationals.

Afenyo-Markin, who also serves as Minority Leader of Ghana’s Parliament and Member of Parliament for the Effutu constituency, spoke on Tuesday, May 5, at the ECOWAS Parliament for 18 minutes under Rule 71 of parliamentary procedure, which governs Personal Statements of Public Interest. The address took place during the 2026 First Ordinary Session of the Sixth Legislature in Abuja.

Speaking from the floor, Afenyo-Markin used the traditional kente cloth to project a proud Ghanaian identity onto the regional assembly, calling it a “statement of pride in our culture and identity.”

Afenyo-Markin first honoured the memory of the slain Ghanaian tomato traders who crossed into Burkina Faso to engage in cross-border commerce, which he described as an economic activity he described as precisely what the ECOWAS Community was founded to enable.

“The Ghanaian traders who travelled to Titao, Madam Speaker, were making precisely the intra-regional commercial journey our protocols were designed to protect. They moved through compounding layers of insecurity — physical, institutional, and legal — with inadequate protection. We cannot only mourn them. We must ask ourselves what we have failed to build that might have kept them safer. The illegal checkpoints and border harassment that persist across our region impose massive costs on small traders and market women every day — a de facto tax on poverty, levied by our own officials against our own citizens. This Parliament must end it”, Afenyo-Markin noted

The MP for Effutu then turned his focus to what he called the “raging xenophobic violence” in South Africa, where he said Ghanaians, Nigerians and other Africans have been targeted, attacked, displaced and killed in successive waves of violence.

While acknowledging South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s condemnation of the attacks during Freedom Day observances, Afenyo-Markin delivered a sharp rebuke.

Afenyo-Markin noted: “We take President Ramaphosa at his word. But it is precisely because we take him at his word that I say, through this forum and for the record: words delivered from a ceremonial platform do not arrest a single perpetrator. Condemnations, however eloquent, do not bring a single attacker before a magistrate. Calls to uphold the law ring hollow when the perpetrators of mob violence, arson, looting, assault, and murder walk free — their faces visible in videos that every African has seen.”

The Third Deputy Speaker also raised a pointed critique of his home country, noting that Ghana hosts the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat in Accra — the headquarters of Africa’s free trade dream — yet the country remains among the vast majority of African Union member states that have still not ratified the right of Africans to move freely across their own continent.

“We cannot, in good conscience, continue to host that institution” under such circumstances, he said.

The parliamentary session, which runs from May 4 to May 17, brings together representatives from across ECOWAS member states to address matters of pressing concern to West Africans, including protection of citizens engaged in cross-border trade, the security of West African nationals abroad, and the strengthening of regional frameworks that uphold the dignity, safety and freedom of movement of all ECOWAS citizens.

“I remain firmly committed to the principles of the ECOWAS Treaty and to the vision of a West Africa in which every citizen may live, trade and move freely and without fear,” Afenyo-Markin said.

Following his address, the lawmaker posted on his official Facebook page: “Eighteen minutes on that floor. Every second was for our people. Some battles are worth fighting. Today was proof of why.”