I blame Nigeria leadership for the mass exodus of Nigerians to South Africa as last resort for survival. I painfully rue over the constant attacks of South Africans on Nigerians.
South Africa is just one of the foreign countries Nigerians migrate to, because of the inhuman conditions they face at home. I was confronted by some friends with the question of the attacks on Nigerians when it occurred. I told them I was angry with the attackers, because it’s not proper, but angrier with the Nigerian system that forces the citizens to migrate to South Africa like their lives depend on it.
Don’t misunderstand me on this, because even citizens of rich nations migrate to poorer countries so far as they would make a living there. But to them, it is a choice rather than a compelling need like it is for Nigerians to run away from Nigeria.
But in the case of attacks on Nigerians in South Africa, our poor leadership caused it, because even when citizens of richer countries migrate to poorer ones, they are never attacked in mob actions, but treated with dignity as people who even come to assist.
This position of mine does not in any way stand as defence for Nigerians living in South Africa or in any country and involved in activities against the law. Yet, no matter how viewed, every country has a decent and lawful way of handling dissidence or crime, therefore, nothing on earth exculpates the South Africans from the criminal liability of killing Nigerians in the streets and destroying and looting their property. Those acts have belittled South Africa and whatever civility they would lay claims to. Put simply, South Africa is a backward country. It is a lawless and crude world that doesn’t know the enormity of the stain of killing fellow human beings, like a state decreed act on the streets.
In civilized worlds, aliens are treated with decency. In the rules of migration and alien status in international law, even illegal aliens are treated well, because immigration offence is civil and not criminal. Those that engage in crime are tried and punished in accordance with the law. So, for South Africa to lynch foreigners in their streets and the government watches and just condemns it, there is a huge question mark on the reputation of that country.
South Africans whom other African countries assisted in their apartheid struggle show themselves as people not yet weaned of the psychosis of the hen peck order or transferred aggression or learned helplessness. South Africans had entrained the psyche of mental helplessness and their failure to rise above the poverty imposed on them by the former order is what they take out the anger on people who are innocent of their predicament. These acts make me lose my respect for South Africans that claim civility. They are just not civilized and they need reeducation.
On the Nigerian diplomatic shuttle, I commend the administration for taking the step. I never heard in the past where Nigeria placed emphasis on human or citizen diplomacy. Until sometime in 2011 when Goodluck Jonathan sent airplanes to rescue Nigerians from Libya at the wake of the Arab Spring, the lives of Nigerians abroad never mattered to the government. So this step is commendable.
While I say well done, I still have my reservations against it as typical example of lily-livered diplomacy. I read the full report of the meetings by the two Ministers that took part in the trip. But I was galled to see FM Geoffrey Onyeama beaming with smiles while taking photos with his South African counterpart. That was negative diplomatic body language and poise. It was off the mark. I never knew what was so amusing in the mind of a man that went to discuss the killing of his nation’s citizens.
Before that trip even held, it took the alarm raised by the President’s Adviser, Abike Dabiri-Erewa that South Africa had killed over 160 Nigerians extra-judicially in the past one year to wake Onyeama up. It doesn’t matter how they view it, but I applaud Abike for applying her journalistic instincts to raise her voice against the maltreatment of Nigerians in South Africa, just the same way she did in asking Nigerians without genuine reasons not to go to USA. Onyeama faulted her, but without substance.
In South Africa, his counterpart, Maite Nicoana-Mashabane kept hankering that no Nigerian was killed in the last attacks. But nobody reminded her of the figures Abike dropped which South Africa government and the embassy in Nigeria or back home never disputed. Again, she said not only Nigerians were victims as other foreigners were attacked. Really? Is that exoneration or credit? She said again that the government condemned the attacks. So what? What is the diplomatic remedy value of such vapid comment? Does that imply government taking action to punish the attackers? No! Why didn’t Onyeama take her up on that to remind her that it wasn’t adequate for the government to just condemn and not prosecute or punish attackers? How does the condemnation assuage or mitigate the losses of the victims?
When some Nigerians were interviewed they said the South Africa police stood by and watched the attackers without assisting the victims. In the 2015 attacks, the police were even accused of joining in killing and battering foreigners. I recall the testimony of the man that killed great musician, Lucky Dube, a South African on October 18, 2007, saying he saw the man’s big car pull up and attacked him because he thought he was a Nigerian. So, this is a tradition in South Africa, to kill Nigerians like chickens in the streets.
The testimony that South African authorities watched while these attacks were carried out confers a heavy burden of criminal state responsibility on her. Covertly, the attackers act for the state or for the interest of the state, because they say their victims commit crimes and steal their jobs. And as far as their acts are not in protest against the state, the state is criminally liable for complicity.
In International Law, it is only when a mob acts against the state and harm foreigners that the state is exonerated of the liability of their act. A good instance is the Home Missionary Society Case of 1920 between USA and Great Britain. In 1898, the local people of Sierra Leone while in protest against British tax laws harmed and killed some US missionaries. The world Arbitration body refused US claims of damages against Britain on reason that the protesters that caused the injury were not acting for the state, but against it.
But in the case of South Africa’s vile and uncivilized attackers, they covertly acted for the state and South Africa is grossly liable, especially for failing in her duty to protect the victims and the only reasonable thing for Nigeria acting on sound diplomacy is to press for damages against the country as deterrent and if they fail on bilateral discussions, there should be an action instituted against them at the World Court.
So, Onyeama’s diplomacy was half hearted and questionable. He started well, but didn’t end well. And he has to know and get it clear that with the way they went genuflecting to South Africa, the attacks will happen again. It’s a matter of time.