Xenophobia, Tinubu And Ramaphosa

REUBEN ABATI

In the midst of the brazen, extra-judicial killings of Nigerians in South Africa, along with other Africans, on the grounds that these are illegal immigrants, the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has now sent South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ronald Lamola, and a team, as envoys to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. They arrived in the country on Friday, July 24, but the Nigerian President declined to meet with them. They were kept waiting through-out the weekend.  On Monday, that is yesterday, they were directed in-stead to meet with the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Sola Enikanolaiye, who would then brief the President later. The substantive Minister, Ambassador Bianca Odimegwu-Ojukwu is out of the country for a meeting in Addis Ababa. The explanation from the Nigerian side was also that the President of Nigeria was not given any prior notice.  The South African delegation met with Enikanolaiye who lamented the fact that recurring attacks on Nigerians in South Africa have followed a disturbing pattern for more than two decades, and that Nigerians who supported South Africa’s liberation from apartheid have been treated unfairly. “…What we have found is that this xenophobic act has gone beyond the attack on criminals. We have records of Nigerians who have a legitimate purpose to remain in South Af-rica, yet they have been attacked”, he said. 

Nigeria, through its reception and responses, is being diplomatic, without seeming to appear offensive. But the detail in every diplomatic gesture of this type is in the nuances. The Presi-dency on the international stage is a club of brothers, sovereigns in each individual right, bond-ed by mutual self-respect, established diplomatic relations, and courtesies. Where cracks occur, there must be an underlying conflict, in this case, the recurrent murder, harassment and depor-tation of Nigerians in South Africa. When the Nigerian President refuses to see envoys from a brother-President, and his Foreign Ministry says there was no prior notice, that is a sophisti-cated way of expressing displeasure or a subtle rejection of the envoys either on the grounds that they are too junior, so they are asked to meet their counterparts in the receiving country, or this may be a message to the sending country. Whatever may be the sub-text of Nigeria’s snobbery against President Ramaphosa, this is the most appropriate response in this matter. President Tinubu has simply stood up for his own countrymen. He has sent a message that he is a very busy President, who cannot just receive envoys “without prior notice”. It is hard though to believe that this is the true story. But as proud and concerned Nigerians, it is a cover story that we would rather believe. Thank you, Mr. President, for this diplomatic moment. Ni-gerian lives matter at home and abroad. Citizen diplomacy must remain at the centre of Nige-ria’s diplomatic process: essentially the strategic framework of Demography, Development, Diaspora, and Democracy (the 4Ds).

President Ramaphosa’s South Africa and its citizens have been indeed unfair to Nigerians liv-ing in South Africa, treating both legal and illegal immigrants like common criminals in open violation of all known rules of decency and international law. Black South Africans, after Nel-son Mandela, have not been kind to other Africans living among them, nor have they, particu-larly the new generation born after the end of apartheid, been appreciative of the sacrifice that other Africans made to ensure the liberation of their country, from the trauma of minority, white rule. This emerging generation of black South Africans lack a sense of history. Mandela welcomed other Africans with open arms. His children are driving everyone away. In recent months, a fresh wave of anti-immigrant protests and violence swept through major South Afri-can cities with the people going from door-to-door, attacking businesses and homes belonging to foreigners, harassing anyone at all who sounded or looked different. The South African mob wielded dangerous weapons; they prevented foreigners from accessing hospital services, and in due course they gave a deadline of June 30 for all foreign-owned shops to shut down and for all foreigners to leave. They soon resorted to mob violence. Not even asylum seekers whose rights are recognized under international law were spared. Foreigners in South Africa began to flee. Countries started evacuating their citizens. More than 38, 000 Malawians were hounded out. Zimbabweans fled across the border. Ghana and Nigeria evacuated their citizens. Hundreds of Nigerians including women and children were stranded, seeking refuge at the Nigerian High Commission in Pretoria. While the racism, violence, and protests festered, the prompt response of the South African government, cast in the cloak of populism, was to encourage the break-down of law and order.  South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister, Leon Schreiber told undocu-mented immigrants to leave or face deportation. The Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi and Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, disclosed that South Africa will enforce its immigration laws. The government’s position merely emboldened the anti-migrant activists like Nkosikhona Ndabandaba and Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, as well as vigilante groups such as “March and March” and Operation Dudula. Foreigners were told to leave or return to their countries in a coffin! They were accused of contributing to unemploy-ment in South Africa, placing pressure on public services, taking South African women, ap-pearing generally more prosperous in another man’s country. Xenophobia soon turned into hate and the South Africans began to beat, maim and kill. By the time President Ramaphosa suddenly thought it necessary to make the statement that “illegal immigration is not the cause of all our economic challenges…and that vigilantism will not be allowed”, the South Africans had tasted blood and they only wanted more bloodshed.

Three Mozambicans were killed.  A Nigerian, Amaramiro Emmanuel was beaten to death by officers of the South African National Defence Force on April 20. Andrew Ekpenyong and Emeka Charles Iroegbu were killed in Pretoria by the police. Musa Joe, popularly known as Big Joe was gunned down in front of his shop in Mpumalanga. On July 23, Charles Simon Ibeh was killed in Bellville, Cape Town. Other Nigerians who lost their lives include Taiwo Raji, Silas Ani and Yemi Akinwunmi. Several others are in hospitals. Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairperson of the Nigeria Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) reports that about 116 Nigerians were killed in South Africa in the last two years alone!  Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Amb. Sola Enikanolaiye puts the figure at 98 between 2002 and 2026. Whether 116 or 98, these are Nigerian lives not mere statistics. They are our brothers, sisters, children and rel-atives. Under customary international law, South Africa has a responsibility to protect them, namely, the R2P rule. They failed. Now, they are coming to us, crying over spilt milk, asking for Nigeria’s co-operation on what their Minister Lamola calls “a shared responsibility.” The mood in Nigeria as well as in Ghana is not to share anything with South Africa but to remind that country and its people of their ingratitude and acts of wickedness towards other Africans. President Donald Trump and all the white South Africans who fled South Africa, out of fear of persecution must be laughing at South Africa in derision. Many Nigerian lawmakers and citi-zens have called for retaliatory action against South Africans and South African businesses.

The Ghanaians have been more proactive. Ghana, like Nigeria, has evacuated about 1, 000 of its citizens, and has summoned South Africa’s High Commissioner to Ghana. It also turned down a proposed state visit to Ghana by President Ramaphosa, following the killing of a Gha-naian citizen, Bashiru Isak (40) in Pretoria. The South African special envoy was also in Gha-na last week. The government of Ghana rejected the message he brought from President Ramaphosa. Nigeria should similarly reject the same message and send Ghana’s High Com-missioner home! Ghana had taken the additional step of reporting the Republic of South Afri-ca to the African Union. South Africa’s conduct is a direct violation of the Constitutive Princi-ples of the African Union, a blemish on the values of Pan-Africanism, and such projects as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). South Africa is now seeking diplomatic en-gagements ahead of the African Union Extraordinary Summit on Conflict Prevention and Resolution scheduled for Angola from August 29 -30, 2026. At the end of the 69th ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, the body issued a communique in which it denounced the “unAfrican behaviour” of South Africans. In both Ni-geria and Ghana, citizens even believe that the matter should be taken directly to the Interna-tional Criminal Court (ICC) to hold South Africa responsible for acts of genocide and crimes against humanity. Two Ghanaian civilians have already filed protests with the ICC.  Roland Lamola has been busy defending his country and pleading for dialogue and engagement on mi-gration.

When he returns to South Africa, he should be asked to tell President Ramaphosa and South Africans in general, that we, the people of Nigeria, are terribly disappointed, and our protest must be on record, for no one knows what else will happen tomorrow and South Africans will again turn on foreigners in their midst. In their projection of hate and intolerance, South Afri-cans made no distinctions between illegal and legal migrants. All migrants equally deserve pro-tection under the law, and there are established protocols for addressing their circumstances and those do not include violence and extra-judicial killing. The South African government claims it was focused only on undocumented migrants, but it has been unable to show evidence of the number, if any, of anti-migrant activists and vigilantes – “March and March” or Dudula – who are currently being prosecuted. The security agencies in actual fact, and cabinet Minis-ters aided and abetted the protests with their racism. Their complicity deserves to be called out and sanctioned.  Foreigners are not the source of their problems.

Black South Africans are victims of a post-apartheid society that is yet to empower the majori-ty of the South African people. Popular power may have changed hands but the economy is still significantly in the hands of a minority. It is the responsibility of the South African government to make life easier for its own people and not abdicate responsibility by promoting the impres-sion that outsiders are the problem. Migrants bring much that is positive to the South African environment. Nigerians have been accused of taking over most of the small-scale businesses. South Africans who work in these businesses as assistants and apprentices were in a vantage position to learn certain skills, and acquire knowledge from their more skillful African brothers. As citizens, they would be better placed to acquire small loans and learn to stand on their own and set up businesses in their own country. Now that they have chased the foreigners away, they have no one to turn against but themselves. Persons in Gauteng are beginning to discrimi-nate against persons from Limpopo and Kwa-Zulu Natal, asking others to stay in their own original provinces. Thus, hate breeds hate and feeds on itself, not a good sign for a country in need of unity and peace.

African leaders are quick to speak of trade relations, integration, solidarity and co-operation in pursuit of the AU’s Agenda 2063, the Africa we want, but this works more at the level of rhet-oric, majorly at the level of government-speak. The peoples of Africa themselves remain dis-connected. Africa has failed in pulling itself together; the continent has done more in pushing itself apart. Xenophobia in South Africa is a symptom. The AU has a protocol establishing the African Economic Community (AEC) on the Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence, and the Right of Establishment but this is yet to come into force. Only four out of 55 AU members have agreed to the protocol on the Free Movement of Persons since 2019.  The long-term goal is to work harder towards the unity of African states and peoples. The teaching of history must be made compulsory at all levels in South African schools to cure the growing, mass affliction of collective amnesia.