By Oguwike Nwachuku
It was Pieter Williem Botha, former South Africa’s apartheid president who once berated blacks as a people incapable of organising themselves.
He told a global audience in 1988 that blacks do not have the brain and mental capacity to rule themselves in an organised setting.
“Give them guns, they would kill themselves; give them power, they will steal all the government money; give them independence and democracy, they will use it to promote tribalism, ethnicity, bigotry, hatred, killings and wars,” Botha said.
When I watched on social media on Tuesday, September 3, the video of South Africans looting foreigners’ shops in their country I did not immediately relate their attitude to crime even though it is criminal.
What they did is something deeper than crime.
It touches on the character of the black people and regrettably, brings to the fore the pejorative description of the nature of the blacks by Botha.
On the same Tuesday, videos of Bongani Mkongi, South Africa’s Police Deputy Minister and that of Julius Malema, politician and leader of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa, also trended.
The message from Mkongi’s video was ludicrous and got many, including yours sincerely thinking, not because of the ordeal visitors to South Africa are facing, but on how we got to this level of bestiality in a continent we are supposed to be equal stakeholders.
According to Mkongi, foreigners do not have the right of 80 per cent presence or occupancy or residency in South Africa as visitors.
His reason is that doing so creates problems of possible economic sabotage, displacement of the indigenes from their land and jobs, as well as organised crimes.
To Mkongi, the presence of the foreigners poses serious challenge to the development of South Africans, and there is no way they would allow such to take place.
For more than a week now, the news emanating from the Rainbow country depicts ugliness despite the thought a solution was being worked out.
On August 29, 2019, there was report of attacks on Nigerians in South Africa. There were earlier incidents that led to loss of lives, maiming, destruction and looting of property.
One of such latest ugly incidents that made Nigerian and South African leaders disconcerted was the report of a group of eight South African policemen who allegedly killed a Nigerian businessman in Eastern Cape Province.
Reports said the South African policemen killed the Nigerian at his home during interrogation.
The matter was so embarrassing to the international community that when President Muhammadu Buhari and his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa met at the recently concluded seventh Tokyo International Conference for Africa Development (TICAD7) in Yokohama, Japan, Ramaphosa promised to recommit himself to the security of lives and property of Nigerians in South Africa.
But Ramaphosa had hardly got home after the TICAD 7 conference when fresh reports captured greater intensity of xenophobic attacks on foreigners by South Africans, who have continued to kill, maim, destroy and loot without shame property that do not belong to them.
In the latest xenophobic attacks, South African men, their wives, children, and maids unabashedly looted shops of foreigners with such brazenness that indicates the country has turned into a breeding ground for implacable urchins.
Fathers and mothers were heard dishing out directives to their wards on what to loot, in clear demonstration that the looting was carried out according to the needs of the perpetrators.
No wonder you could see men clutching television sets and refrigerators, women carting away microwaves, blenders, pampers, beverages and other household items, while the boys and girls went for perfumes, creams, toiletries, wines, spirits, and the likes.
Recall that in June this year, Mrs. Obanuju Ndubuisi-Chukwu, a deputy director with the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria who was attending a conference in South Africa and had lodged at Emperor Palace Hotel in Johannesburg died mysteriously.
The Director-General of South Africa’s Department of Health carried out an autopsy report that said she died of “unnatural causes”, but the hotel, out of conviction the woman must have been strangulated, refused to release the CCTV footage.
Ramaphosa told newsmen in Japan the situation in his country is “upsetting”.
He said it necessitated a meeting of Nigerian and South African leaders to take a critical look at the protracted killings.
Ramaphosa however reiterated that his country’s justice system had already taken up the matter of killings, but did not give details.
He said he is not in support of the killings and that there is no justifiable reason for anybody to be killed.
But is that the situation now?
Ramaphosa described his meeting with Buhari as a “good forum” to renew the bond of unity between them.
Disturbed by threat of reprisal by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Ramaphosa retorted: “We are going to be discussing all that because we have very good relations. We‘ll talk about the issue of Nigerians who are dying in South Africa. We feel very upset about that.
“Obviously, our criminal justice system is working on it. We don’t support killings. Nobody should ever be killed, but it’s also good to use this opportunity here in Japan to renew the bond between us, to talk about common things between South Africa and Nigeria. We know we have to play key roles in the overall development of the continent.”
For years now, South Africans have been involved in xenophobic attacks on foreigners that resulted in the death of many Nigerians. They give all manner of reasons for doing so – from the banal to the serious.
For instance, you often hear stuff like Nigerian men being better lovers than South African men, Nigerian boys snatching South African girls from their boyfriends, and generally, Nigerians or foreigners denying/robbing South Africans of job opportunities in their own county.
Going by the position Mkongi took in the video earlier alluded to, one does not need special skill to establish the reason South Africans are emboldened in their frequent hostilities to foreigners.
Mkongi’s position also speaks volume about why the government is often lethargic in taking decisive steps to nip the problem in the bud, assuming Ramaphosa is serious about his suggestion.
As events got worse during the week including threat of reprisal by Nigerians, President Muhamamdu Buhari dispatched a special envoy to South Africa, summoned the South African envoy to a meeting, approved evacuation of Nigerians from South Africa willing to return, pulled out of the World Economic Forum taking place in South Africa, among other measures that obviously depict a stain in Nigeria’s diplomatic relations with Pretoria.
Geoffrey Onyeama, Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister told newsmen that a red line had been drawn between the two countries because South Africa was being stiff-necked about compensating Nigerians who are victims of xenophobia.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who was scheduled to represent Nigeria at the World Economic Forum in South Africa from September 4-6 was directed not to attend.
On Thursday, September 5, Nigeria’s envoy in South Africa, Kabiru Bala was recalled by the presidency.
Tension mounted in Lagos and Abuja as Shoprite and MTN outlets were visited by hoodlums, apparently to carry out a quick fix approach to compensate for the treatment meted to Nigerians in South Africa. The outlets were eventually shut.
The South African Consulate in Nigeria also followed suit and announced an indefinite closure till further notice.
The whole scenario oozed a diplomatic schism in the making between Nigeria and South Africa, and borne out of Ramaphosa’s failure to rise to the occasion of his earlier resolve to commit to deal with Xenophobia attacks against foreigners of which Nigerians are in the majority.
A trite comment credited to Ramaphosa on Thursday in Cape Town did not suggest serious commitment on how to solve the madness.
“We face a huge challenge. A number of people (are) taking the law into their own hands. Taking action against people of other countries is not right. South Africa is home for all. We are not the only country that has become home for people fleeing.”
Such bland comment refreshed the memory of many about Ramaphosa’s electioneering for South Africa’s presidency. Then, he repeatedly talked about criminals in his country and the challenge foreigners presence poses to the economy, security and welfare of South Africans.
Weighed side by side with Mkongi’s comment, one sees no coincidence, particularly as both are part and parcel of today’s South Africa’s leadership.
But their logic sharply contradicts that of Malema, who feels the tendency by government, whether South Africa or another, to treat fellow Africans as visitors, defeats the spirit of a people who share common cultural affinity and problems.
Malema believes the government’s position on foreigners serves the interest of the colonial masters or apologists of apartheid regime who constantly want to see blacks in disunity or disarray.
Malema would want a South Africa where all blacks live in harmony and are treated equally. He expects same in any other African country, and may not be the only African who shares such sentiment.
Unfortunately, Malema is in the opposition in South Africa, which makes the views of Mkongi, an official of the government in power, as representative of the thinking of his bosses, including Ramaphosa.
The renewed attacks on Nigerians, looting and destruction of their property had consequences back home that evoked memory of Nigeria’s journey with South Africa during the dark and gloomy days of apartheid.
That explains why, despite the anger, the Nigerian government advised her citizens to be law abiding and not take to foolish reprisals when pockets of protests in Lagos and Abuja at Shoprite and MTN outlets were reported.
What is happening to Nigerians in South Africa reminds one of the value blacks place on themselves.
It reminds one of how much love blacks are ready to share with fellow blacks and what emphasis they place on brotherliness and neighbourliness.
Unarguably, South Africa remains one of the greatest beneficiaries of Nigeria’s magnanimity when the country was in the trenches as a result of apartheid system.
Even with the wall of apartheid broken and freedom declared, South Africa has continued to benefit from Nigeria’s big brother’s generous heart, going by the windows of economic opportunities Nigeria has opened to the South Africans whose numerous businesses dot Nigeria’s landscape and are flowering without let or hindrance.
Nelson Mandela of blessed memory acknowledged the lavish love Nigeria showers on South Africa on the day of his inauguration when he was elected President after 27 years in prison.
A few others of Mandela’s mental, physical and spiritual hue hold the same view and would not be party to the treatment meted to Nigerians today in the name of xenophobia.
But there will always be a time when a king who does not know Joseph will be on the throne. And that is the irony of today’s South Africa’s leadership.
Never in the history of Nigeria and South Africa’s relationship has ferocious attacks been visited on the former’s nationals than of recent.
It started like a joke in the days of former President Jacob Zuma and has continued unabated now that Ramaphosa is in the saddle.
Under Ramaphosa’s leadership a police chief is erecting walls of discord instead of one of peace, harmony and good neighbourliness in South Africa with comments that underscore Botha’s erroneous assessment of blacks.
Ramaphosa’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Naledi Pandor has no qualms heaping all the drug trafficking businesses in South Africa on the heads of Nigerians.
No time in the history of South Africa has the lives and livelihood of Nigerians living in that country been destroyed with such wantonness, carelessness and recklessness. The development leaves one wondering if apartheid has not been returned in South Africa.
It is from the forgoing that prominent Nigerians like former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, also one time Speaker of the Parliament of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), have advised Buhari to suspend Nigeria’s diplomatic ties with South Africa.
Ekweremadu said: “I find the incessant xenophobic attacks on Nigerians and other African nationals in South Africa very un-African, barbaric, and unparalleled acts of ingratitude. It is quite disturbing that the Government of South Africa has not taken decisive steps to end these attacks, which have led to wanton loss of lives and properties of fellow Africans, especially Nigerians.
“The attacks defy and desecrate everything African brotherhood stands for, especially for a country that gained freedom with the support, sweat, and sacrifice of fellow African nations among which Nigeria clearly stands out. The attacks have reached scary and desperate degrees and call for desperate actions on the part of Nigeria, other African nations, and the African Union.
“It will therefore not be out of place for the Federal Government to suspend diplomatic relations with SA until full assurance of safety of Nigerians and their properties in South Africa are secured, adequate compensation paid for the damages, and the perpetrators also brought to book.”
Also, Chairman of Nigeria’s ruling the All Progressive Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole not only asked Buhari to nationalise South Africa’s businesses in Nigeria, but urged Nigerians to boycott goods and services from such businesses. Many other Nigerians have volunteered diverse views not favourable to the Rainbow nation.
I am not so much persuaded to believe that Botha has an infallible knowledge and therefore absolutely right on blacks because some South Africans have openly condemned the xenophobic attacks on Nigerians.
Not when Botha, like any other racist, will never see anything good in the black race, particularly if such blacks are opposed to their domineering and exploitation tendencies.
However, it goes without saying that the time to take a second look at the leadership recruitment process in Africa as well as our capacity to help ourselves is now.
Using South Africa as an example, only a fool will be blind to the leadership deficit that has gripped the country, few years after the passing of Mandela.
Not only have the recent leaders of South Africa eroded the few legacies Mandela left behind, they have also shown lack of capacity to govern a country that holds so much hope for the African race like Nigeria.
Many South Africans are hungry and poor and cannot handle the presence of foreigners in their midst who are doing well out of envy, jealousy and hatred.
Many are lazy drones whose only strength lies in chanting aluta songs at the slightest opportunity as a way of life, and to reaffirm their ethnic base and aboriginality.
The many years of apartheid rule turned a lot of South Africans as liberation “choristers”, but it is also unfortunate that the leadership has not seen potentials in those voices which many have only resorted to unleash when opportunity to protest calls.
When a people are looting foreigners’ shops for bread, butter, milk, sugar, rice, beans, soap, cream, and other basic items for sustenance, what comes to mind is that they are battling poverty, hunger, illiteracy and survival.
That, to me, is the bigger challenge in Africa as a whole than xenophobia as a crime against humanity and looting, and Ramaphosa and his colleagues must rise to the occasion of providing leadership to the citizens that will deal with poverty, hunger, diseases, illiteracy and survival instincts.
Telling the people that their survival and future lie in foreigners in their midst quitting is nothing but blatant lie that lends credence to the derogatory and belittling characterization of the blacks by Botha.
