South Africa’s

Sadly, another festival of gore was reenacted in South Africa last week. My mind immediately went back to my piece in April 2016 titled, “Our Brothers Have Gone Mad Again”. I had cautioned the rampaging mob that foreigners were not the cause of inequity in South Africa and that their misplaced aggression was only going to break bonds between brother and brother. On that occasion, the targets of hate were Somalis, Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Now it is the turn of Nigerians. It is important to refresh our minds with the facts of the South African reality. Research findings released in 2015 showed that 82% of the working population aged between 15 and 64 were “non-migrants”; 14% were “domestic migrants” who had moved between provinces in the past five years and just 4% could be classed as “international migrants”.

With an official working population of 33,017,579 people, this means that around 1.2 million of them were international migrants. A racial breakdown of the statistics reveals that 79% of international migrants were African; 17% were white and around three percent were Indian or Asian.

A good many of the foreigners were employers of labour or self-employed.

But many South Africans hold on to the false belief that foreigners are taking their jobs. They call foreigners makwerekwere, that is, scavengers.

In a classic display of misplaced aggression, they lash out at foreigners, singling out Nigerians in the latest edition of what is beginning to look like their annual festival of gore.

The allegation that Nigerians were taking up jobs that could otherwise have gone to black South Africans is false. Rather, many Nigerians employ the local people in the small businesses they set up. Also, the claim that Nigerians were destroying the moral fabric of the South African society through drug peddling and prostitution is not entirely true. Yes, some Nigerians may be in the drug and prostitution business but their number is negligible. They are however irreverently loud and showy - which could trigger envy.

Most of the Nigerians in South Africa are carrying out legitimate businesses as academics, professionals, artisans and providers of several other services required in their environment. The blanket categorisation of EVERY Nigerian doing business in South Africa as an operative in the drug and prostitution ring is the unkindest cut that rainbow country can do to its biggest backer in the dark lonely days of apartheid. Several decades ago when we were categorised as a Frontline State in the liberation struggles of Southern Africa, we were called brothers. Now, we are expendable strangers.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not a panegyric about the saintliness of Nigerians. I have indeed seen some of