by Gimba Kakanda
What’s the connection between the xenophobia of South African blacks and the enterprises of their fellow countrymen in Nigeria. I just read some press statements by obscure Nigerian groups issuing what they called an ultimatum to South African businesses in Nigeria, and that almost got me laughing. Only that it’s not a joke.
What have Shoprite, DSTV and MTN got to do with the foolishness of anti-immigrant lowlifes from the ghettos of South African cities. They are not the government, and most of these businesses are not always in good terms with their government. The irony of this ultimatum is, these businesses are largely owned by white South Africans who, probably, share with us a disdain for the black embarrassment.
Someone attempted to compare Nigeria to South Africa in terms of socio-economic development, and the joke that first came to me was that even the so-called TV reality show called “Big Brother Naija,” designed to show the hedonism and meaninglessness of some Nigerian idlers, is being filmed in South Africa. The reason, I learnt, was our unreliable services and infrastructure.
South African universities have been serially ranked among the best in the World. You may google to see what positions University of Cape Town and University of Witwatersrand occupy in global ranking, even ahead of decent American and European universities. These things aren’t easy to sustain.
Infrastructure and social services are a reason the Rainbow Nation exists like the Europe of Africa. This isn’t just about the networks of roads and urban planning, but essential services like the medical. Their leaders don’t go to hospitals in foreign countries to die. The humane Nelson Mandela died in his country, after days in coma, and I’m sure the doctors didn’t have to start generator to keep the medical facilities running.
And, these comparisons of social inequalities…
Please, stop comparing the inequality of social classes in South Africa to ours. Even if we are truly ignorant of Apartheid, a tragedy worse than our colonialism, it’s not excusable to make such comparison. South Africans emerged from the dungeons of a racist arrangement decades after Nigeria had gained political independence, given a wing a fly as it chooses.
Apartheid officially ended in 1994, with the election of Madiba. Do you know what this means? South Africans were second-class citizens in their country prior to that year, subjected to economic deprivations and massacred all the times they dared the unholy settlers. Unfortunately, the first black president was a forgiving soul, a sage. So a lot of the white capitalists of apartheid era kept their commercial empires.
Nigeria, on the other hand, has had between 1960 and 2017 to turn its own fortunes around, along which we experienced a period of Oil bloom of which we’ve only Festac ’77 to point to as legacy of our “good ol’ days.” We organized the biggest ever party for the black race. Commendable, no? With an Oil industry our size, we should’ve been giving South Africa a good run in provision of effective social services and bridging the gaps between the haves and the have-nots.
The misfortune of South African blacks even under black leaders only reminds me of this long-suppressed suspicion of the black race. Well, there’s nothing genetically wrong with the black African politicians, but there seems to be a problem we are yet identify. Maybe a curse or something.
While you get mad over the strange ways of South Africans, do not forget that we occupy a place where treatable and preventable diseases kill our people, day in, day out, while our leaders rush to foreign hospitals for help. They don’t even trust the hospitals they have built for us!
Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija
Leave a reply