I had barely spent 10 minutes on South African soil
when I knew that Nigerians were unwelcome. Arriving
at the O R Tambo International Airport, an immigration
officer irritatingly asked me how long I was staying,
despite seeing clearly on my passport that I had a visa
to stay up to 30 days.
"Just five days," I replied slowly, as confidently as I
could. "And that is because I cannot wait to be back in
my country."
Taken aback, the middle-aged woman reclined and
removed her glasses before saying: "That is very
surprising. There are a lot of people from your country
in here and we keep telling them to go, but they won't."
That was in March 2013. So it was unsurprising to hear
the rumours last week that "South Africans were killing
Nigerians." I can understand the frustrations of the average club-wielding South African street urchin who thinks the
best way to secure gainful employment is to hack down
a black immigrant. What I can hardly understand is the
veiled irresponsibility of the South African ruling class.
Here are three classic examples: Goodwill Zwelithini, the Zulu king who triggered the
current wave of attacks by saying "black immigrants
must take their bags and go where they came from",
claimed his comments were taken out of context. But
he quickly added: "If it were true that I said foreigners
must go, this country would be up in flames."
By interpretation, Zwelithini feels he wields the power to
inflict savagery on foreigners, but he magnanimously
would not exercise it.
Like Zwelithini, President Jacob Zuma has condemned
the attacks. In his first public comment on the tragedy ,
Zuma urged his countrymen to understand that "no
amount of economic hardship and discontent will ever
justify attacking foreign nationals".
He implored them to "treat those who are in our
country legally with respect and Ubuntu". What Zuma
says implicitly is that illegal immigrants could be
murdered or killed. Some days later, he would go on
national television to say that "people are taking other
people's jobs" and the phenomenon needed to be
fixed.
Zuma's sentiment betrays the government position and
is the clearest indication yet that the attacks are far
from over.
When Sam Monalisa, South Africa's consul-general in
Nigeria, shut his country's consulate in Abuja, fearing
reprisal attacks, he blamed Nigerians for "using social
media to blow an already tense situation in South
Africa out of proportion and stoking emotions". He had
no single word of reprimand for his countrymen who
had killed seven and wounded dozens.
Meanwhile, as Monalisa was busy blaming everyone
else but his countrymen, it was being reported that 15
Zimbabweans had disappeared in Musina, the
northernmost town in the Limpopo province of South
Africa. I have been told of the "impressive" population of
Nigerians in Lesotho, which, with a size of 30,000
square kilometres, is one of Africa's smallest countries.
How do we say we are the Giant of Africa and we keep
spilling our people to the rest of the continent? But
small and thinly populated as it is, a Lesotho loti is
approximately equal to 17 Nigerian naira.
The first Nigerian to be attacked in South Africa owns a
mechanic workshop. Most Nigerians in South Africa
own businesses that they should be running back
home. And this is what the Nigerian government must
focus on: To render more support to small-scale
business owners, revitalise the education and health
sectors, open up the economy - halt all manner of
needless tourism.
The Nigerian government simply has to make Nigeria
more attractive to Nigerians, and watch how quickly
the arrogance of South African leaders would diminish.




Culled from an editorial by Fisayo Soyombo who edits the Nigerian online newspaper
TheCable .

but we all have being saying this since 1960 yet nothing has been done till date.