₦airaland Forum

A must read from Ndiya Baykay Eze's wall.

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"If anyone should be defending SA, it should be me. That country gave me scholarship up to PhD level. But I won’t, because this black on black crime driven by petty jealousy and envy which happens every other year is indefensible.

I am so saddened and angry that our so called opinion shapers and influencers are the ones mocking Nigerians, telling them they will lose out if we retaliate in any measure even through diplomacy.

We underrate ourselves so much. The self hate is deep.

Let me tell a story.

A few years ago, a group of greedy Zimbabweans teamed up with greedy elements in government and started demanding Nigerians must leave the country because we’ve taken over the business sector here.

They gave an ultimatum and insisted we hand over businesses to locals.

Businesses Nigerians started from scratch. Buildings we sweated and cried and struggled to build or buy. Everything we did for ourselves.

They were so serious they even started working towards enacting a policy to back up their demand.

Anyone who knows and understand the Zim government knows they are champions at nationalizing foreigners assets.

The Nigerian community called on the then Jonathan Governent. They got into action. And a meeting was called between the two governments with Nigerian representatives in Zim and Zimbabwean representatives resident in Nigeria.

Now wait for it....

It turned out that about 2000 Nigerians live in Zim, while over 18,000 Zimbabweans live in Nigeria. What a shock.

A country of over 150 million had only about 2000 citizens in your country while you, a country of 13 million had almost 20,000 citizens in theirs. Their government was so unaware and were shocked into silence.

Of the Nigerians living in Zim, only a few hundreds are formally employed as doctors, lecturers, mangers, etc, while almost ALL the Zimbabweans in Nigeria were formally employed in the oil sector, banking sector, hospitality sector, and private companies in Nigeria. Unlike Nigerians who are on the streets of Harare and Bulawayo struggling in their small legitimate businesses, Zimbabweans were living the life in Naija. Shock factor 2!

Do I need to tell how that meeting ended? Nigerian government issued threats. Zimbabwe apologized.

It’s been years since then 2013/2014. We have not heard them say anything about Nigerians again.

Now for those who think Nigerians stand to loose by pushing back at Sourh Africa. You might be shocked.

Do we even know how many South Africans live in Nigeria?
Do we have an idea of how many businesses they have in our country?

I can bet that we all will be shocked to stupor when we get the data on this. It is not just the big ones like Spar, Shoprite and co. They are legions.

Yes we might not have the infrastructure they have, not any other thing you all want to compare with. But we have something they don’t.... Market size. Our strength is in our numbers.

South Africans have been opening businesses in Nigeria for the last decade. They have been moving their resources to West Africa because they are afraid what happened in Zim will happen there and yes, it eventually will.

The market size of Nigeria attracts them. Board a flight from Joburg to Lagos and 80% of the passengers are south Africans. What do we think they are coming to Nigeria to do? Tourism? Do we have any. They are running businessses in our country.

Our government need to take a stand the way the so called clueless government of the past did and you will see South Africa behave. Why? because they can not afford to lose such a big market. If they can, they will be moving their investment to European like countries in Africa such as Botswana, Namibia, and co but they do not. They go to Nigeria and Ghana.

In any case, let those who must hate on themselves continue. By Daisy Ify"Xe

I think the only thing Nigeria can do to get even with SA is by nationalizing SA businesses in Nigeria. If we resort to destroying their businesses in Nigeria, that would be like biting ourselves twice.

Well written.But emm you cant use what u dont know u have.

DonXavi:
I think the only thing Nigeria can do to get even with SA is by nationalizing SA businesses in Nigeria. If we resort to destroying their businesses in Nigeria, that would be like biting ourselves twice.

Yeah right on not devasting their businesses bruh but on the contrary, those acclaimed SA businesses are franchises owned by Nigerians.