Albatross of A Divalent Nation

The violence against Nigerians in South Africa is unfortunate, writes Eleje Willy

Boxing Day of 2002 will remain indelible in my memory. It was the first time ever I drove to Accra from Lagos with wife by road and was inspired to put up an article of my diary entries ‘A Christmas Experience in Ghana’, which THISDAY was kind enough to publish on Sunday, January 5, 2003. That article represents parenthesis to this social commentary, so permit my liberty to quote a copious excerpt. On Benin, I wrote “…communism foist on them by Mathew Kerekou and his erstwhile cronies, is an enduring vestige…Benin is somewhat Spartan but not self-denying…Cotonou is a curious amalgam of ascetic-ostentation, a continuum of dream beaches for Caucasians to forge their own passion amidst squalor…Our down-town repast was a sumptuous Beninois recipe and one could get to pick up a pre-recorded tape of Claudette et ti Pierre… before driving into Cotonou, we had taken a look at Porto Novo, in all its seeming reclusion and drove by on our way, a retinue of commuter buses, driving over from Abidjan in troubled Ivory Coast. Berne: sleepy cities, exotic layouts, contented complacency, xenophobia, pre-occupied leisure, stoic inertia....”

Before delving into the synopsis of my foregoing quotation, let me observe that, if statistics are anything to go by, Nigerians have suffered more casualties than any other nationality, in what is now tagged xenophobic attacks of foreign nationals in South Africa. But when your son weeps all the way home for injury sustained in fracas with your neighbour in his own home, you’d first commiserate with him, then admonish his wrong before talking of his right left in your home. So, let me first express deep feelings of sympathy for all our compatriots that lost lives or livelihood in this tragedy. Nigerians are fond of being with other people but today, branded as recidivists, they’re hounded in the USA, persecuted in Libya and South Africa.

Implicit from my parenthesis is how the sophisticated explorer and a petty trader would make something differently from the same tour and how their choices can be so divided. The Nigerian is known to be widely travelled yet their values stay locally denominated in diaspora. With the head, they do but not the heart in Rome as the Romans do. They only just began to affect political outcomes from demographics in their countries of domicile but their peer review remains locally denominated. This should be an actionable objective of our socialization.

On the other hand, South Africa has proved a bad host. Not a society found complicit in savagery can possibly have consideration of own-self. To begin with, it is a cherished ethos of humanity that the host who kills guests he welcomed into his own home cannot be good for name. A host would rather pay the supreme price in protection of his guest. Such was the chauvinist gallantry of Adekunle Fajuyi, a Yoruba, in protection of Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo and for a just or un-just cause to show, was rather ennobling. But the Zulu, Xhosa, kill in the name of xenophobia, even their own Sons in-law in full glare of the world, which could be reasonable but can never be justified. It’s just like taking a swipe at a house-fly perched on one’s scrotum.

European settlers would not give up to South Africans, their own land, which if sooner had been kind, but later turned out even more, for delay saw to their endowment with advanced nationhood. But Nigeria was one of, if any that arose in defense of South Africa. So, like Jacob, they got blessed in disguise of Esau that paid the price. Now, that one good turn deserves another, is a universal truth which all mankind holds self-evident.

However, South Africans impounded and never released an aeroplane load of bullion, killed in their country, Lucky Dube that rendered a melodious lyric against apartheid, never honoured Sunny Okosun, for his anti-apartheid musical crusade. The soul of South Africa is expectedly juvenile. After all, they have not been long on their own to know themselves. Xenophobia or bigotry and indeed apartheid, must be pre-judicial, and pre-jurisprudence is always lacking in understanding. Such primitive pre-conception of own brothers, on whom they inflict the calamity, from which they emerged a great nation, is casting a pall of doubt on Mandela, whose image all the world holds in high esteem. But when the Petre-dish gets full of oil, the lid takes a lick.

South Africa might one day pay a dear price for mere misdemeanor. My mind was all but made up around their supposed malice, until I watched in Lusaka, a little South African girl child who could have been mine, in utter disgust about the misbehaviour of her compatriots, howling on top of her voice ‘enough is enough, stop it now!” I then said to myself, there surely are no bad people, only persons - though one bad apple spoils the whole basket.

But shocking is that, on the out-play of the infra-dig scenario, one Nigerian radio station provided its platform for a South African tourism vendor, leaving me to wonder, whether indeed their entire programming were sober.

We Nigerians need to love ourselves to be loved by the world. Nigeria has exercised significant restraint, never to be misconstrued as weakness, but as the chunk of meat excised with the bile-duct, if all the flesh will not be embittered. In a strained relationship, make up ensues with exchange of pleasantries followed by a talk of things over and down to earth-ness. But South Africa looks like talking down on and not with Nigeria. We know that two wrongs never make a right and should the two ‘big brothers Africa’ get into a brawl, the spirit of African letters of faith in continental free trade would be compromised.

Nigeria may be falling apart in di-valence, but knows how to stand up to a common foe, so ‘South Africa’ might just be the albatross of whatever it is, at stake on the country’s divide.

When Super Eagles are on international turf, we do not care whether it was ‘Papillo’ or Tijani Babangida that scored, if only it would underscore a win for everyone. We are Nigerians, we can cleverly improvise, bubbling over in high spirits, given to enterprise.