Neutralising South Africa’s xenophobic excesses
By Chidi Amuta
Nelson Mandela must be churning in his resting place. An exemplary life lived and a myth created on a dream and a vision is now literally reduced to ashes. The rainbow nation with prosperity for all races as a vision has been badly damaged. Its previously thriving post-apartheid economy is now literally in coma with frequent power outages, labour unrest and the return of racial divide and violence. Irate mobs are back on the prowl.
Donald Trump, America’s rascally President has frequently cited the return of racial violence to South Africa to buttress his mostly unfounded charges of discrimination against whites in South Africa.
More directly relevant, South Africa has in recent months witnessed a wave of xenophobic mob protests and attacks against other Africans who have since come to settle and regard South Africa as home. Hundreds of thousands of these Africans have been chased out of South Africa by angry mobs of black South Africans. Ostensibly, these mob attacks are motivated by immigration concerns. It is strange that a state resorts to mob violence to enforce immigration restrictions.
Of specific relevance to us is the series of violence and crude treatment that has been meted out against Nigerians as a select group. Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians settled in South African for decades have been hounded from their homes and businesses. Property acquired over the years have been dispossessed. Businesses that have for long been thriving and providing employment and livelihood to South Africans have been torched and sacked suddenly. Admittedly, efforts by Nigerian authorities to evacuate these unfortunate Nigerians has been less than impressive if not outrightly incompetent.
This dastardly treatment of fellow Africans by South African mobs with the tacit and obvious collusion of the government in Pretoria is, in every way, a subversion of the history of the country. Africa sacrificed to end apartheid in South Africa. For decades, how to end apartheid was the cardinal foreign policy thrust of most African countries. Countries with the resources even located far away like Nigeria were branded “front line states” in the battle against the last vestiges of apartheid.
It is in this spirit of continental solidarity that many Africans migrated to the newly independent and democratic South Africa. The rainbow nation welcomed all and sundry as it freed its economy from the stranglehold of apartheid and white domination of the economy. The sacrifice of fellow Africans was never lost on successive regimes in South Africa. Mandela upheld it. Mbeki kept faith. So did Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma before the present unravelling under Cyril Ramaphosa.
For Nigeria, the recent treatment of Nigerian citizens in South Africa does not show sufficient appreciation of the country’s contribution to South Africa’s democracy and freedom.
Nigerian owned businesses have been shut down and looted by irate mobs, people who have for decades made South Africa their home have been forcefully evicted from their homes, assaulted, visited with violence and rendered homeless and hopeless. And to observe the cavalier attitude of the South African government over these months is even more disheartening. Calls for more compassionate treatment and minimal compensation have fallen on deaf ears.
The jobs lost, the businesses closed, the opportunities shut and the services lost will invariably lead to a hemorrhage of the South African economy. There is hardly evidence that the local South African black population understand the long term damage they have done to their economy. It is doubtful that they have the entrepreneurial capacity and energy of the Nigerians and other Africans they have rudely hounded out. In the months and years ahead, the South African economy is likely to tank and shrink, further worsening the plight of the national economy.
The recent xenophobic assault on Nigerians in South Africa has led to calls for retaliatory measures by Nigerian authorities. Such calls may not fully understand the differential nature of the presence of Nigerians in South Africa or vice versa. Nigerians were mostly in ‘’South Africa as small to medium scale business operators – car dealers, restaurant owners, shop owners and general traders. An anti-immigrant assault on them was bound to root them out in huge numbers without huge consequences for the Nigerian economy.
On the contrary, South Africa is present in Nigeria mostly in the form of huge corporations like telecommunications, banks, entertainment networks and super market chains, often employing hundreds of thousands of Nigerians and rendering very strategic services across the Nigerian stretch. More importantly, the South African multinationals operating in Nigeria make very huge tax payments to the Nigerian government, making their presence crucial to the Nigerian economy which is still in dire need of foreign direct investment. Prominent South African players in the Nigerian market include Shoprite, MTN, Stanbic/IBTC, DSTV etc.
Nigeria cannot afford to hound out and expel these huge South African companies from Nigeria without dire consequences for our economy and people. Many jobs will be lost. Tax revenue will be lost. Strategic entertainment and financial services will be disrupted.
However, the command and control of South African businesses in Nigeria can be partially decapitated. Nigeria can limit the number of senior South African managers that these companies send to manage their affairs in Nigeria. This may not amount to outright nationalisation but a considerable loss of control by South Africa.
Towards a resolution of the relationship hiatus between the two countries, diplomacy could play a role. But one-sided adversity does not help diplomatic exchange. The South African economy is now creaky and troubled. Nigeria is also in bad form as well. Economic adversity has led to popular disquiet and political uncertainty.
But we are in a new world ruled by the selfishness of nations fueled by migration pressures and anti-immigration violence.
The pull of African brotherhood is strained by the pressure of national survival. Isolationism has suddenly become an attractive option for nations under the pressure of migrant invasion. Mob rule has overwhelmed rational governance and the muscle of parties in power. Under these forces, the strength of governments has withered considerably.
The apparent face-off between Nigeria and South Africa calls for a different type of diplomacy. The imperative is for retributive economic diplomacy, diplomacy guided by the national economic interest and the welfare of our citizens wherever they may be on earth. The protection of our citizens as carriers of our economic interests has become paramount. Our over $25 billion annual home remittances from the Nigerian diaspora boils down to our people working and doing business around the world and sending money home for welfare and development.
It does not look like the current Nigerian government has thought deeply about the options open to Nigeria in relating with South Africa in the aftermath of this xenophobia outrage.
