President of the Nigerian Union South Africa (NUSA), Mr Smart Nwobi, shares his thoughts with Chukwudi Akasike on the ban on Nigerians and other foreigners in South Africa from accessing healthcare in the country’s public hospitals by an anti-migrant group and measures taken to address the challenge
What is your group all about?
The group is known as the Nigerian Union South Africa. It is the apex Nigerian organisation that caters for the general interest of Nigerians in South Africa. It was established in 2008. It has been in existence for 17 years.
What is the current situation in South Africa? Is it true that foreigners, including Nigerians, are not allowed to access healthcare in government-owned hospitals?
The current situation is very appalling. I would say it is quite an unfortunate situation because the people who are carrying out this act are not government officials or officials of the department of the healthcare system.
I can tell you as a human rights lawyer that access to public healthcare is guaranteed under the South African Constitution, Section 27 of 1996, under the post-apartheid regime of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela. The section clearly says that everyone, without any exception, is entitled to the public health system.
This constitution was further given flesh by the enactment of the healthcare systems and law. As you can see, it is a xenophobic and unlawful act by a set of people called ‘Operation Dudula’. The group wants to take the law into their own hands.
What is the South African government saying about Operation Dudula’s barring of Nigerian patients and other foreigners from accessing public hospitals in the country?
The Minister of Health in the country, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has spoken on the matter during a national interview, saying if members of the group do not want foreigners, including Nigerians, to access the public healthcare system in the country, and it is an issue of law, they cannot come to a public health facility where pregnant women and children are helpless, and want to stop healthcare workers, including doctors, from treating the patients.
The minister said if they wanted stopping foreigners from accessing public hospitals in South Africa to become the norm, they should simply go back to the law, vie for elections, win, and implement it in the National Assembly or the parliament in South Africa. He said the law should be changed for such action to take place legally.
What else did the health minister say about the situation?
Motsoaledi was of the view that they (members of the anti-migrant group) were violating the law regarding access to the healthcare system in the country. According to him, stopping doctors from attending to foreigners in the country is illegal.
The doctors also told the group that, by their oath, which was taken before they were admitted as medical practitioners, they could not simply ignore anyone. But what these people are doing is that they stay at some of the health facilities and begin to unlawfully deprive foreigners of medical attention.
Let me tell you one of the consequences of what they are doing; according to statistics, there are some South Africans who have not even got their citizenship documents, so they are also not allowed to get medical attention. Indirectly, the action of the group is also affecting their people.
Whatever they are doing is not scientific; it is not researched. What they (Operation Dudula members) do is that they will come to the hospital and ask for your identification card; if you don’t have the South African citizenship Green Card, they will simply say you should go out of the hospital.
Why are those who are citizens not protesting to the South African government about the situation?
A lot of people have complained that they are citizens, but they have not received their documents. For most of us who are here, even if you are a foreigner and you have earned your citizenship, for the fact that you are not speaking the language, but you are a taxpayer; they simply order you out of the hospital. It doesn’t matter if you have documents or not.
So, what they are doing is simply illegal. NUSA (the Nigerian Union South Africa) has condemned it; we are collaborating with progressive associations in South Africa, the Office of the Human Rights for Refugee Affairs, and the Office of the African Diaspora Forum on the matter. We have resolved to seek legal intervention for those affected, including Nigerians.
But the Operation Dudula group you mentioned accused foreigners of overstretching public health facilities in South Africa. How would you react to this?
We disagree because for them to assert that, there must be statistics to say, for example, that over the last 12 months, this is the percentage of foreigners who were treated, and this is the budget that was made for the entire people in the country, and this is the number of foreigners that will amount to overstretching the public health facilities that we received.
These are just claims that are not backed by facts. It is simply afro phobia and xenophobia. This is their modus operandi; they started targeting foreigners, especially Nigerians and people from other African countries.
They were saying South Africans should be allowed to trade, but nobody is stopping anybody from trading. It is just that their people do not want to trade, and this informal sector has been assisting in developing the economy of South Africa. That was the target in the past three to four months ago. Now, they have left that and come into the healthcare sector.
During one of their interviews, they (the anti-migrant group) said that by next year, they would go to schools where foreigners, including Nigerians, attend to stop them from attending public schools.
These public schools are not entirely free; foreigners pay, but it is just that the education here is subsidised. It is not actually that they (Operation Dudula) are focusing on one sector in the country; they have threatened to go to other sectors, including schools. This means that these actions are coordinated.
When did the ban on foreigners from public healthcare start?
It started at the beginning of this year, but it was intensified around July and August (this month).
How are Nigerians in South Africa affected?
As a human rights lawyer, I get numerous calls daily about the situation. This is appalling. Some of these foreigners are citizens of South Africa by naturalisation.
Apart from collaborating with some groups to find a solution to the issue, what other measures is your group taking to ensure that Nigerians begin to gain access to public hospitals for treatment?
We have written to the Nigerian Consulate to reach out to their South African counterpart on the matter. We will write to them once again to intensify efforts in reaching out to the groups involved in all this and tell them that this is unacceptable.
They (consulate officials) are politicians and diplomats; we are trying to push our diplomats from here (South Africa) to also reach out to the Nigerian President (Bola Tinubu), as well as our Senate, to be in contact diplomatically with their South African counterparts.
Secondly, internally within the country, because this is a legal issue, we are cooperating with other African migrant unions. As of last week, the Nigerian Union South Africa had an official briefing with the African Diaspora Forum, and they agreed to collaborate with my group (NUSA) to mount a legal approach and ask questions.
Are you saying no intervention has come from the Nigerian government on the issue?
No, they have not been able to intervene; the consulate and the embassy have not intervened. We tried to reach out to them, but they have not said anything; they have not given us any progress report about what they are doing so far.
We are calling on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to kindly intervene. He might be here in September for the G-20, which South Africa would be hosting; world leaders would also be there.
With the inability to access public healthcare, what alternative measures are Nigerians embracing?
Nigerians have resorted to self-medication, which is detrimental to their health. Some of them are losing their lives every day. The statistics are there. Nigerians are now afraid of going to public hospitals in South Africa to avoid being beaten to death or assaulted. That is the unfortunate part of it. So, this requires urgent intervention.
Now, as it is getting close to election time, foreigners, especially those doing business, are always the target. That anger against the ruling party, government is transferred to foreigners. Nigerians are always among the victims when this happens.
How is your group assisting members who cannot afford high medical bills in private hospitals there?
The Nigerian Union South Africa, in one of the provinces, organised a medical outreach to assist Nigerians in the country. Under the scheme, African doctors are paid to carry out tests and treat Nigerians for free. This is done within a limited budget because we do not benefit from any funding outside of members’ contributions.
In a video, a leader of a group suspected to be an anti-migrant group was heard telling some foreigners to go back to their countries, encourage their governments to fix their economies, and stop the migration surge to South Africa. Are there lessons African leaders can learn from this?
There is a great lesson to be learnt from the statement. The lesson to be learnt here is that if various governments in Africa can fix their countries, there will be less influx of migrants to other well-to-do or rich countries.
Such steps will reduce xenophobia and afro phobia, which means Africans attacking Africans. In this case, South African blacks against blacks (who are non-South Africans).
How long have you been in South Africa?
I came to South Africa in 2008; that means I have been here for 17 years. I went to school here; I did my master’s here.
Are you practising law in South Africa?
Yes, I am practising law in South Africa. My chamber, Nwobi (Smart) Attorneys Inc., is one of the leading chambers in South Africa. I am an employer of labour.
What has been your experience in South Africa?
South Africa has a very good system, and the majority of South Africans are good people, especially those who have travelled far and wide. Those who are well-travelled understand what is obtainable on the continent.
Only a few of them are involved in this anti-migrant campaign. Those involved are not exposed. I always tell them that what we have in Africa are artificial boundaries because we used to be a united Africa.
What are the infrastructural facilities you enjoy there, which you think are absent here in Nigeria?
One of them is this issue at hand: health facilities. I can also tell you that 20 per cent of the doctors here are foreigners, and out of this, 40 per cent are Nigerians. Our best doctors are in South Africa just as they are in other parts of the world.
The public healthcare facilities in South Africa are even better than what they have in private hospitals in the country because the private hospitals cannot afford to buy some of the medical equipment we see in public hospitals in the country. Again, in South Africa, the government provides what is called a social grant for the elderly, the unemployed, and the poor.
Are medical doctors well remunerated in South Africa?
Salaries for the doctors and other health workers are quite good. If you are a healthcare practitioner here, you will earn three times what your equals earn in Nigeria or elsewhere. So, the government pays health workers very well.
Is it the same story with power supply over there?
Power supply is steady here. Some of these health facilities cannot work without power. Investors will not even invest without power. Last year or two years ago, South Africa had a challenge with ESKOM (South Africa Electricity Supply Commission); people experienced power outages because of load shedding, but this was stabilised without delay.
So, one of the investments in this country is a 24/7 power supply. I can tell you that most of our Nigerian governors and other leaders come here for different conferences, and they can see that South Africa is stable economically, socially, and politically. We have a lot to learn from them.
How many Nigerians are currently in South Africa?
The survey in 2023 puts it at 500,000, but we are currently 800,000 Nigerians here in South Africa.
