Naijaphobia
my countrymen and women abroad in circumstances that would shame their families back home, but on balance the good that Nigerians do worldwide is greater that their evil.
The retaliatory attack on a South African company in Abuja is not the answer to the problem. It will hurt Nigeria more than it will hurt South Africa. You don’t use hate to fight hate. In the same vein, South Africans have to grow up and realise that they are poorer without foreigners than when they receive others with open arms.
To the Nigerian government, it is about time we initiated a programme to monitor Nigerians abroad through the embassies with a view to helping in the peaceful repatriation of those of them not legally resident or who are constituting themselves into a nuisance in their host countries. Let’s do our own bit to win back respect for ourselves.
To our South African brothers and sisters, I commend the words of a Zambian, Mighti Jamie, who was so horrified by your thirst for foreigners’ blood last year that he wrote:
“You bring down statues of hate and yet you build the biggest statue of all. To kill the very people who helped liberate you. You have made this soil a monument of hatred for your brother. We trained Mandela, we funded and armed Umkhonto we Sizwe. Chief Albert Luthuli was born in what is now Zimbabwe. The Greek lives safely in this country. The Asian lives safely in this country. The American lives safely in this country. The English, the
Dutch, the Jewish, the Indian lives safely in this country. Yet the brother who shares your story, the very sisters who share your bloodline - this is who you burn on the streets, axe and slaughter…”
KUDOS TO EMIR SANUSI
The Emir of Kano, HRH Sanusi Lamido Sanusi drew widespread commendation (and some muted condemnation at the same time) for his assault on polygamy as practiced in Nigeria today. Apparently concerned about the millions of Almajiri children who are forced to live like vagrants under the guise of being Koranic students, the emir went for the problem’s jugular by proposing a new family law.
“The law will address what Islam says on marriage, it will outlaw forced marriages, it will make domestic violence illegal, it will put in conditions that you need to fulfill before you can marry a second wife, it will spell out the responsibilities of a father beyond producing a child”, said Emir Sanusi.
“It is a big law which covers a whole range of issues from consent to marriage, to maintenance to divorce, to maintenance of children and inheritance. It will be the first time in northern Nigeria that a Muslim law on personal status will be codified.”
For Emir Sanusi’s candour and progressive initiatives, I say … ‘Long live the Emir!’