Nigeria and the Xenophobic Violence in South Africa
The Nigerian government must act fast to save its citizens in South Africa in the face of the new xenophobic riots, writes Vincent Obia
About a fortnight ago, civilised humanity awoke to yet another flareup of xenophobic attacks in South Africa. Most of the recent unrest occurred in and around the coastal city of Durban, but the violence has also spread to other parts of South Africa. At least five persons have been killed in the violence, which has caused significant destruction to the property and investments of foreign nationals and forced many foreigners to flee their homes.
Sixty people died in a similar violence in South Africa in 2008, and in January this year, four people were killed during a week of violence in Soweto and other areas of Johannesburg that involved the looting of shops and other property owned by foreigners.
The target of the latest attacks is foreigners, but Africans, as always, bear the brunt of the perennial outbreak of death and destruction that appears to have officially gone out of control in South Africa.
For Nigerians in South Africa, attacks like the current one by a people Nigeria paid dearly to nurture to liberty are hardly news. Nigerians in that country have come to see such unprovoked attacks as an inevitable, almost daily, diet, a bread of sorrow they must take for all their sacrifice to free South Africa from the white minority rule of apartheid – another version of the racist discrimination now spreading like culture among South African blacks.
Since the latest unrest, however, there has not been any report of a Nigeria killed. But the Nigerian government does not have to wait for that to happen before intervening to save the lives of its citizens in South Africa. Considering that Nigerians had been severally targeted in the past, the government should not wait for another bad news before beginning the evacuation of Nigerians from South Africa and engaging proactive diplomatic channels as a concerned party to end the brewing madness.
The call by chairperson of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Nnenna Elendu- Ukeje, on the federal government to make contingency plans to evacuate Nigerians from South Africa is timely and a step in the right direction. The government should heed this call as a matter of urgent national interest.
The promise by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aminu Wali, on Thursday that Nigeria would evacuate its citizens from South Africa only if the situation worsens is, certainly, not a satisfactory response to the current state of affairs in that country.
The federal government should also find ways of halting the negative sentiments that are already developing in Nigeria as a result of the happenings in South Africa.
On Thursday in Lagos, some Nigerians, under the aegis of Concerned Nigerians against Xenophobia, held a protest march and threatened to picket South Africa firms in Nigeria if the raging prejudice against foreigners was not stopped.
These are dangerous signals that do not augur well for the emerging Nigerian economic and political dream. They are signals that threaten the African dream in the new world. But they are also signals that have tended to be fired by the official and unofficial behaviours of some African governments and their officials. Someone once narrated how a highly- placed South African official bitterly frowned on an alleged attempt by Nigerians in that country to buy off housing projects meant for low income South Africans. Such feelings provide the fuel for the intermittent fire of racial attack among the continental cousins.
In recent years, Nigerians in Ghana have also faced untoward repercussions in the course of the enforcement of a law that reserves small- scale retail businesses for Ghanaians.
Protectionism is a legitimate tool of engagement in the contemporary world economic order. But given the new global realities on the economic and security spheres, which have continued to demolish and diminish national boundaries, African governments must device wiser means of economic protection for their citizens without evoking sentiments and reactions that do actually endanger everybody.
In the meantime, the Nigerian government must rise to its responsibility of guaranteeing the security and welfare of its citizens anywhere in the world.
The government must move quickly to evacuate Nigerians from South Africa to avoid any ugly consequences from the raging xenophobic violence in that country.