I’ve often lamented in this column the African Union’s (AU’s) dismally impotent threats whenever a military coup occurs in one of its member States, a pattern that has likely contributed to the democratic backsliding we have witnessed since 2020.

But now, on an issue where even one of those hollow condemnations would be the proverbial half loaf better than no bread at all – the deportation of illegal migrants from the US to third countries in Africa – the AU has remained utterly silent. Not even a whisper of disapproval from Addis Ababa.

This lack of leadership has facilitated the piecemeal normalisation of African countries being used as dumping grounds for migrants who are unwanted by their own countries.

The first batch landed in South Sudan in early July. It comprised eight individuals, all with criminal convictions and only one of whom was a native of the East African country. Owing to the secrecy surrounding the deal, the nationalities of the other seven are unclear.

Only days later, Eswatini received a further five. The shroud of secrecy was lifted just enough for us to know that they hail from Cuba, Laos, Jamaica and Yemen, that the crimes they committed prompted US officials to describe them as “uniquely barbaric” and that their own countries are avoiding them like the plague, similar to the group that found itself in South Sudan.

It has emerged that Rwanda agreed in June to accept up to 250 deportees, with an initial list of ten having been vetted. A Rwandan government spokesperson elaborated that those who qualified would be provided with workforce training, healthcare and accommodation support to jump-start their lives in the country.

Uganda has also jumped on the bandwagon, announcing two weeks ago that it had inked a deal with the US that will see it receive an unspecified number of deportees. It highlighted provisos it had imposed: the individuals must be citizens of African countries with no criminal record and must not be unaccompanied minors.

The motivations behind these deals are depressingly familiar: economic desperation or geopolitical bargaining. Take Uganda. With an economy still reeling from pandemic-era shocks, border insecurity and a refugee burden estimated at 1.7-million people, President YoweriMuseveni’s government is in constant need of financial support, and the deal with Washington provides just that – in exchange for complicity in Washington’s clearly unethical scheme, which is possibly illegal too.

In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame’s government has gained a reputation for leveraging such arrangements into geopolitical capital, first with the UK’s now-stalled deportation agreement and now with the US, but this turns governance into transactional diplomacy where unwanted migrants and favour are exchanged.

Regular readers of this column will recall that, many years ago, both Rwanda and Uganda took in thousands of mostly African migrants whom Israel had decided it no longer wanted. As we now know, the scheme collapsed.

In the midst of the ongoing scandal (no word more aptly describes what Donald Trump is doing) the AU and both the regional blocs to which the current recipient countries belong – the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community – have maintained a deathly silence. The only voices we have heard have come from individual countries, notably Nigeria. A spokesperson at the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the media last month: “We have our own issues we are struggling with. We will not allow ourselves to be pressured into accepting deportees, regardless of what other nations are doing.”

To its credit, South Africa, as a neighbour, has lodged a formal protest with Eswatini.

I wish the AU’s, and not the Nigerian government’s, voice would be the most strident in condemning this scheme. The continental body’s silence is not neutrality; it’s tacit approval. It creates a precedent; once a handful of African governments open their doors to the unwanted deportees in exchange for US goodwill, others are likely to follow suit – not because the scheme is just, but because the AU’s silence has normalised it.

Where is the outrage we saw in 2021, when the AU rebuked Denmark for passing a law allowing asylum seekers to be sent abroad while their applications were processed?