The ongoing World Cup in the USA, Mexico and Canada allowed South Africa to have a foretaste of the form and nature of their relationship with the rest of Africa, post xenophobia. Julius Malema made a post on Facebook, calling for the continent to support South Africa in its opening match against co-host, Mexico. At the time I came across the post, there were more than 4,500 comments. I took time to review the sentiments of the comments, and more than 098% of them were in support of a Mexican victory
That is the outcome of the xenophobia that has seen South Africans ask thousands of other Africans living in their country to go back to their home countries. And they are not mincing words: telling all Africans, especially black Africans living in their country, documented and undocumented migrants, to leave their country. Forget the lie about limiting the quit notice to only the undocumented migrants; South Africa is telling every black African that they should leave their country.
‘We are black too, quite alright; but we are not equal with you, even in all our shared blackness’. This appears to be the unspoken words from South Africans to the rest of Africa, as flight after flight is being arranged to ferry citizens away from the country, which, a few years ago, was the object of a liberation struggle for all other black nations on the continent.
It is ironic that a player. Ime Okon, with a South African mother and a Nigerian father, is in the South African team at the ongoing World Cup, and he is igniting national pride. But just months ago, a lady, Chidinma Adeshina, was prevented from participating in the Miss South Africa pageant because she was, by virtue of having a Nigerian father and a South African mother, deemed not South African enough to be in the contest
For other black African countries, especially Nigeria, it is a slap in the face. Nigeria fought for the liberation of South Africa as if it were a territory belonging to Nigeria that was in dispute. Nigeria did not put up the fight it put up against the annexation of the Bakassi Peninsula by Cameroon, as it did against apartheid rule in South Africa and Namibia.
In my primary school days, I got familiar with the term Frontline States, as something that was associated with the struggle against apartheid rule, and the countries that were leading the struggle.
In my university school days, I got familiar with South Africans on scholarship at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. One, that was in my department, Mass Communication, was famous for his association with the ANC, and names such as Oliver Thambo and Thabo Mbeki were frequently mentioned by him as his associates in the struggle against white minority rule.
There were hundreds, if not thousands, of others in many other Nigerian universities; they were treated like our suffering brothers who deserve our collective compassion and support on their way to freedom.
The entire Nigeria gave them grounds to walk and work. They had everything: free education, free food, free space to think.
When freedom was won in 1991, all of them returned home, and must be in senior political positions today. It seems strange that none of these people have found it necessary to stand up to speak in Nigeria’s favour, as their countrymen and women are up in arms against Nigerians living in their country, demanding that they leave.
They were sent to Nigeria to gather some education that would serve them and qualify them for the future management of their country. The fact that none of them has spoken up in Nigeria’s favour speaks as much for their nature as human beings as for the regard they have for what they must have gained from their stay in Nigeria as scholars and exiles.
The university alumnus creates strong bonds among her graduates and compels returns, physical and emotional, and givebacks. If Nigeria, these people lived in for many years as exiles and scholars have failed to exert the needed pull on them, and their alma mater does not make them remember where they are coming from, them it is hopeless to expect anything good from this bunch of human beings.
South Africa has become like the deviant child who told his siblings they deprived him of important life lessons after being saved from a ravaging inferno. To treat fellow Africans the way they have done for more than seven to 10 years now is absolutely reprehensible: they have maimed fellow Africans, killed and dragged their bodies on the streets.
The xenophobia slowly morphed from street fights and subtle discontent, until this year when the language changed to, ‘leave our country or face the consequences’.
In many parts of the world, there has been an increasing push for nationalism, with natives demanding more control of their resources and politics. In the United States, the charge is led by the President, Donald Trump himself. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been hounding undocumented immigrants and bundling them back home, not minding the extent of rights abuses they are often subjected to.
The United Kingdom are also slowly waking up to its own. Although it is not yet as aggressive as it is in the United States, nationalism is also rearing its head; Ghana has been managing its anti-Nigerian chants quite diplomatically. It has spilled onto the streets sometimes, but I guess the country’s relationship with Africa’s most migrant nation. Nigeria has ensured it hasn’t gone out of hand. In Ireland as well, the police had to use water cannons and other tools to contain an anti-immigration protest that erupted in that country.
South Africa has been claiming that crime is being imported into their country through immigration. They have also claimed, rather lamely, that foreigners have taken all the jobs meant for the indigenous South Africans.
These claims have both fallen flat in the face of statistics. In the area of crime, statistics state that a vast majority of the crimes which occur in the country are perpetrated by South Africans. In the area of employment, whoever hires workers does so based on qualification and capacity to deliver. If South Africans are qualified and willing to work, an employer would hire them rather than unqualified foreigners.
I think that, among the problems South Africans have, the most worrisome of them is what is called ‘punching down syndrome’. The people have looked around the continent and concluded that the only ones they could ‘beat’ and vent their white minority apartheid rule on are fellow black Africans, who appear weaker, and by virtue of the poor leadership in most of the countries, and the economic challenges forcing the people to flee their own countries of origin, South Africa is stronger.
South Africa is Africa’s strongest nation brand. But a culmination of the xenophobic issues the citizens are bringing upon it looks will most likely lead to the erosion of the brand and all the gains associated with it. The country is going to suffer immensely in the immediate term in the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) tourism area. Many people are headed for Kigali already, and the traffic is likely to get even busier on this route. It is the strongest and most stable economy south of the Sahara. Poverty rate in the country is around 55%. Compared to Nigeria, which is currently at 63%, according to recent statistics from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), that is a wide difference. So it is understandable why it feels it could punch down on the other African countries.
It is true that vocal South African opposition leader, Julius Malema, and some other political leaders in that country, have strongly condemned the xenophobic behaviour of their countrymen, but these have been insufficient deterrence, as Ghana, Nigeria and other nations have desperately commenced the airlifting of their citizens out of South Africa.
‘Stop xenophobia’, Malema had wailed back in March, ‘there is no foreigner that took your job. If you fail in business, do not blame other people. Xenophobia stands condemned. Africa helped South Africa defeat apartheid’.
Malema may be correct for those who have a sense of history. But the problem is that South Africans are actually telling Africans to go away because having helped them to defeat apartheid should not be a good ground for them to subject them to a different kind of economic and social domination.
Sithole, a South African player who was red-carded during the game between South Africa and Mexico, was trolled. He even had his name changed to shit hole by internet trolls
On the streets, South Africans are angry about the prosperity of other Africans in a country in which they still cannot find a grip; they are not owning businesses, the white South Africans still own all the means of production and distribution; they cannot even take care of their women, and other Africans, such as Nigerians, rather than help them do better in this enterprise, are drawing the women to themselves.
Making matters worse is the knowledge that the people who are obviously prospering in South Africa are fugitives from countries whose leaders are running aground with bad, visionless leadership. Nigerians, for instance, have no business running to South Africa as economic refugees, but the leadership back home have refused to do the simple, proper things.
So the South Africans are saying, ‘We are aware that you helped us fight and defeat apartheid, we are grateful for that, but you have to go back and fix your political leadership and stop being a burden for us here. You are a country of potential abundance, but you are causing an avoidable nuisance here. Leave us and go back to your own country.
As a Nigerian, this is quite painful. I met a Nigerian on a visit to Cape Town some years ago, and I was heartbroken by what I learned. This young man, apparently living homeless, had his parents sell their family land for the trip to South Africa. He swore not to come back to Nigeria until he ‘makes’ it.
To make it, from what I saw, was going to take a miracle. He had no money, obviously not a lot of education. The night I saw him, he had loitered for the day and had bought some snacks (dinner) and was looking for a cheap or free cab home. He had to deceive me to travel his way to enable him to get to the dingy pub where he was going to settle for the night. I had to convince my friend to give him all the cash on us, since we were leaving the country the next day.
His determination not to set foot in Nigeria until he ‘makes’ it convinces me that even if the xenophobes kill every foreigner in South Africa, this guy was not going to return home.
So what of Africa says to South Africa, ‘we will leave your country for you and your Caucasian friends’, and departs en masse, how would this country at the bottom tip of the African continent manage? How would they survive down there without the plurality that ensures every society thrives?
The truth is that the long-term implications of the xenophobic (many now call it Afrophobia) behaviour of South Africans towards the rest of black Africa are yet to begin to manifest. South Africa, besides the active role most African countries played towards ending apartheid rule, benefits from Africa more than any other country on the continent.
In terms of banking, South African banks are the biggest on the continent. They have spread all over the continent and are doing big business without inhibition. In telecom, MTN, a South African company, is the biggest on the continent. With more than 300 million subscribers across the continent, MTN is present in 16 African countries and dominating the markets. In the area of entertainment, there is DSTV, the dominant pay television operator on the continent.
There are many businesses belonging to South Africa that are doing great on the continent. But in the course of this article, I came across another business named Optasia, an AI-led platform that provides solutions to mobile network operators (MNOs), mobile wallet operators, and financial institutions, enabling them to tap into the vast potential of underserved markets. I am told that this company is in Nigeria and sitting on a business that moves more than N3 trillion annually. And it is even a monopoly that is contesting its monopolistic status with the Nigerian regulator, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC).
As wounded as Nigeria has become in the hands of South Africa, I doubt if it will be all smiles if Nigeria wakes up to send these businesses packing by nationalising them or forcing them to shut operations.
It is ironic that a player. Ime Okon, with a South African mother and a Nigerian father, is in the South African team at the ongoing World Cup, and he is igniting national pride. But just months ago, a lady, Chidinma Adeshina, was prevented from participating in the Miss South Africa pageant because she was, by virtue of having a Nigerian father and a South African mother, deemed not South African enough to be in the contest
