Derb, your correspondent is right. Since the Nineties, West Africa has seen huge population displacements, driven by various nutso coup leaders. Liberia’s Charles Taylor alone is credited with having displaced not just (at one time or another) the entire population of his own country but significant chunks of his neighbors’. First, 400,000 Liberians fled to Sierra Leone, prompting 100,000 Sierra Leoneans to flee to Liberia. Then, one million Liberians and Sierra Leoneans fled to Guinea and Ivory Coast, prompting half-a-million Ivorians to flee to Guinea and nelsewhere.

No doubt some of those Sierra Leoneans in Liberia would like to flee back to Sierra Leone, and some of those Liberians in Sierra Leone would like to flee to Ivory Coast, and some of those Ivorians in Guinea fancy checking out the displaced persons’ scene in Burkina Faso. But, if you’re on the receiving end of the incoming traffic, a certain antipathy toward immigration would not be surprising.