By Olukorede Yishau
THERE IS a video of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo I once saw. It was an interview he granted on black-on-black violence. The video was from an interview he granted while Jacob Zuma was South African president and anti-foreigner violence broke out.
Very instructive in what he said is the fact that South Africa was a leader and a model on the continent and naturally would attract people from other countries on the continent.
He added that if South Africa was unwilling to play this role of accommodating other Africans, then it should not be regarded as a leader or a model.
At the time, ace South African comedian and author Trevor Noah said over 80 per cent of South African wealth was in the hands of the white.
The rest, he said, is shared between the black and the coloured elites. The per cent in the hands of foreigners, including Nigerians, is less than one per cent.
I remember Obasanjo’s and Noah’s statements because of the renewed Xenophobia or the black-on-black violence in South Africa.
I also recall a South African girl saying their men are jealous of Nigerians because they have snatched all the fine babes in the cities.
She accuses their guys of being lazy and unable to take good care of them. “Leave our Nigerian men alone,” she pleads.
But the men accuse Nigerians of taking less money to take their jobs and corrupting their girls and youth with drugs.
Recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa have targeted African migrants, especially Nigerians, Zimbabweans, Ghanaians, and Ethiopians, amid rising unemployment and economic frustration. In cities such as Johannesburg and Durban, migrants have faced assaults, harassment, and looting of foreign-owned businesses.
Anti-immigration groups, particularly Operation Dudula, have been accused of fueling hostility. The Nigerian government has condemned the attacks and begun repatriation efforts for affected citizens.
South African authorities have denounced the violence, but critics argue that anti-migrant rhetoric and worsening economic conditions continue to drive recurring xenophobic tensions across the country.
Beautiful things attract. South Africa is beautiful. Very beautiful. Durban, one of its prominent cities where I once spent a week or so, so dazzled me that I longed for a replica back home in Nigeria. Abuja, our best, does not have Durban’s charm, not to talk of the glitz of Johannesburg, Cape Town or Pretoria.
I have seen London, Liverpool, Singapore, Houston, Chicago, New York and many other great cities in the world and I dare say Durban can stand almost shoulder to shoulder with them all.
Accra, the Ghanaian capital despite all the hype, is a work in progress. It does not even glow like Abuja. Nairobi, to the best of my knowledge, is not better than Abuja.
What I am driving at is that South Africa remains a model in Africa and is a leader. On a continent with people struggling to make ends meet, South Africa is bound to entice people willing to escape the concentration camps that many an African nation is.
When an average Nigerian has the opportunity to travel out, they always lament the poor state of things back home. Not a few have refused to return. Given South Africa’s elegance, it should not surprise anyone that many Nigerians have chosen it as their second home.
America, the United Kingdom and other advanced nations are also homes to Nigerians. Like in South Africa, the Nigerians in those advanced democracies comprise of the good, the bad and the ugly.
The good guys are always in the majority. The bad and the ugly are always in the minority. But, in a world, where evil sells, the bad boys catch the headlines all the time.
The black-on-black violence in South Africa is blamed on the few Nigerians and Africans who are into drugs and other devilish enterprises. We have great Nigerians and Africans in the universities, hospitals and other sectors of the South African economy.
We hear less of them and more of the bad eggs. Some of them are even known to kill themselves in gang-related violence.
In the past, the statements of some South African leaders, didn’t help matters. Zuma’s predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, who lived in Nigeria during the Apartheid madness, broke my heart by saying Nigerians were not attacked. He said only criminals were attacked.
And I asked: Where are the criminals from?
Mbeki claimed that the attackers had reported these criminals to the police and never got any good out of this. Who is to blame if South African police fail in their responsibility? And does South African laws allow citizens to take the law in their hands?
The truth is that in these attacks, business premises have been affected. Auto shops had been set ablaze. I had wondered at the time if Mbeki was telling us that the owners of these businesses were also into the hard drugs business? Were the looters of shops owned by foreigners also protesting against criminals? This, to me, was like criminals trying to fight criminals.
Like Mbeki, the then South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, in an interview, begged the Nigerian government to come and help them get rid of our criminals in their country when she should have activated the law against them and jail them if found guilty.
The United States and the United Kingdom will never ask Nigeria to come and get out its few bad eggs in their system. What these two nations have kept doing is using the law to rein them in.
Many of them are in jails in prisons across these nations. Not once have they sought Nigerians help in dealing with the few bad guys.
My final take: South Africa has had a troubled past. Many of its young population are still troubled and need to be redeemed.
The laws are there to deal with criminals; South Africa should activate them instead of allowing mobs to combine the roles of prosecutors and judges.
Quote
South Africa has had a troubled past. Many of its young population are still troubled and need to be redeemed. The laws are there to deal with criminals; South Africa should activate them instead of allowing mobs to combine the roles of prosecutors and judges.
—
Do you have a news tip for JKNewsMedia.com? Please copy and email us at jkmediapress@gmail.com.
