The shove has turned to push. This handshake has extended beyond the palm. It has crept perilously to the elbow. It’s even creeping dangerously to the shoulder. Now is the time to shout, yell and howl at the perfidious brood of invading vampires. The xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in South Africa has gone beyond a slap on Nigeria; it’s morphed to a brutal battery of the sovereignty of Africa’s largest economy and by far the most populous nation on the continent.
Strangely, South Africa media has carefully under-reported these killings and brutality. The South African government has relapsed into a disturbing silence mode. Even more worrisome, Nigerian government has barely stirred a finger. Nigerian governments merely ejaculate in fitful diplomatic spasms. From Goodluck Jonathan administration to the incumbent, there is no redemptive fervour to suggest they ever care for their citizens in other lands. With no fewer than 118 Nigerians already hacked or strangled to death in South Africa in a show of primitive savagery visited by blacks on their black brothers, you would expect a responsible and responsive government to stand up for its people.
But never! Nigerian governments are no models for responsiveness and responsibility. They are cowardly when the enemy is a foreign vampire. Yet, the same governments would roll out its military might and allied appurtenances of power to run over unarmed demonstrators at home. The same government would give orders and directives to its Army and other garrisons in its security apparatchik to kill and maim hapless and helpless women protesting the avoidable killings of their husbands by foreign jihadists. And you ask: Who Nigeria government help?
I have always had my fears about the crass irresponsibility of Nigerian governments. I have always been disturbed by the irksome timidity of our governments against the bullying of Nigerian citizens in other countries. Ghana has bullied us, closed down Nigerian businesses. Libya has raped our citizens, stripped them of their humanity and dignity; sold them as articles of trade in a neo-slavery market fuelled by bad leadership at home. In Europe, Nigerians are hounded on the streets and tubes. We are the scum of a scorched earth. Disdained, disrespected and dehumanized! They kill us in bits and batches. And our governments stand aloof, unburdened by our cries and tears.
The most vexatious of this ogre of butchery on Nigerians is the xenophobic killings in South Africa. It is not just Nigerians that are killed, harassed and harangued in South Africa, it is the soul of our nation that is murdered with bayonets and batons. In South Africa, Nigeria dies. She dies of grief, of betrayal and crass ingratitude. What grieves most is the attitude of the Nigerian government. At his screening for his ministerial position last week, Geoffrey Onyeama, who functioned as Minister of Foreign Affairs at the height of the xenophobic brigandage stood before Senators to extricate, without prompting, the government of South Africa from the murderous fire unleashed on Nigerians.
I am a huge fan of Onyeama, a man of urbane mien and scholarship but he has no business absolving the South Africa government from the xenophobic attacks and killings. Truth be told, South Africa government is vicariously complicit in the bloody madness of black South African mob. So also is the Nigerian government. Its silence and inaction suggest a disquieting acquiescence in the gory gorging of the lives of Nigerians. South African government should do more than condemnation of the evil deeds of its cops and the band of misguided black vermins. It should bring the killers and perpetrators of such mindless attacks to book. Out of a harvest of 118 lives, how many people including the blood-sucking South African police have been convicted?
But if the South African governments show ghoulish ambivalence on the matter, what about the Nigerian government. This matter has gone beyond the dialectics of diplomacy. It’s time to take concrete action against South Africa, a virulently ungrateful nation.
Yes, South Africa is ungrateful. She is the symbol of international ingratitude. It was this same South Africa that Nigeria burnt her energy, goodwill and resources to salvage from the ruinous stronghold of minority white apartheid rule. It is on record that between 1960 and 1995, Nigeria spent over $61 billion to push for the abrogation of apartheid. No nation in the world has ever spent such amount according to records from the South African Institute of International Affairs, the equivalent of our Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA). It was this same South Africa that Nigerian students were taxed in what was then called Mandela Tax. Students in Nigeria skipped meals to make donations to a common purse tagged the Southern African Relief Fund (SARF). By June 1977, the contribution to the Fund grossed over $10.5 million. It was a record contribution in six months. The Fund helped to ship the first batch of 86 South African students to Nigeria because their education was disrupted in a carefully choreographed war of attrition visited on blacks by the white minority.
What are brothers for? Brothers fight for brothers. Nigeria fought for black South Africans in the stormy apartheid years with various sanctions against the minority white government. Specifically, Nigeria declined to sell crude oil to South African government as a show of solidarity for black South Africans. This country lost over $40 billion during that period just to salvage the dignity of the blacks. Yet, this same black South Africa has turned round to kill Nigerians and murder Nigeria. She forgot too soon. South Africa is indeed an ungrateful brother, an irritant.
In the event of a major diplomatic showdown, who loses? South Africa has more to lose. The aggregate remittances from Nigerians and Nigerian businesses in South Africa is a mere fragment of the hefty profits siphoned from Nigeria by South African business interests who have recently found in Nigeria a fertile grazing ground for humungous profits. MTN, Multichoice (DSTV), Shoprite, PEP retail stores, Stanbic Bank, South African Breweries (SAB Miller) among others have reaped the heftiest profits from Nigeria. And I just wonder their tax status. That should be of interest to FIRS at this time. Do they really pay their commensurate taxes?
At this point, resolving the xenophobic matter should not be left to the minister of foreign affairs. President Buhari should step out, raise his voice and strut his clout on the continent and in the world. No more grammar. Recall the Nigerian envoy in South Africa and ask the South African envoy in Nigeria to return to his base. Conduct an audit on South African businesses in Nigeria. How many of them are playing by the rules here? Buhari should act fast. Show South Africa that she has more to lose than Nigeria. He must not continue to watch while Nigerians are being murdered at the whims of demented black South Africans and their obviously biased police. There must be a more decent way to relate with a brother, especially one who sacrificed his meal to feed you in your hour of need. South Africa has not only been ungrateful, she has been disrespectful to say the very least.