Xenophobia: Time For Nigeria To Look In The Mirror

Recent incidences of xenophobic attacks targeting Nigerians in South Africa have necessarily raised nationwide indignation in Nigeria. Individual citizens, interest groups, serious associations and nonentities like the derailed National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS) have all spoken in condemnation of the attacks. The Muhammadu Buhari administration has also reacted in some measure, demanding of South African authorities to put an immediate halt to the deeply troubling situation.

Not one to miss an opportunity to impress, the National Assembly has found a window to appear populist and patriotic in the eyes of an increasingly skeptical public. The Senate on Wednesday named a delegation headed by its Deputy President, Ike Ekweremadu to visit the Parliament of South Africa and register the displeasure of Nigeria on the matter and seek a joint parliamentary solution to the recurring problem.

What is happening in South Africa serves Nigeria right. Without disregard to the sensibilities of the issue, the truth is that Nigeria has put herself in this vulnerable situation of being at the mercy of some other nations of the world. The country has lost the commanding heights of diplomacy and global respect she was commanded in the first two decades of independence.

The history of the Nigeria’s foreign relations is noted for a once glorious era when she bestrode Africa and indeed the world at large like the emergent colossus she truly was. Time it was that when Nigeria sneezed, the continent caught cold and the world excused a momentary freeze to understand the implications. This was the period the country stared the West in the eyes and challenged the inglorious apartheid regime in South Africa till it eventually collapsed and liberated the rainbow nation from that inglorious past. It should count for one of the greatest ironies in the study of international relations that it is same South Africa that has now come to hold Nigeria’s citizens under an unlawful and repugnant siege of xenophobia.

But Nigeria must learn to ignore the symptoms and deal with the root cause of the problem. This is the time to look at the mirror and absorb the bare truths and seek honest paths of redress through introspection.

One of such truths is that the country has failed itself and its citizens in not a few aspects. Decades of debilitating economic conditions that have eventually convulsed into a recession have forced millions to flee into pitch-dark uncertainties in foreign lands. Nigerians are a more regular feature in the dangerous journeys across the turbulent transatlantic Mediterranean oceans and the sun-baked dunes of the Sahara desert. Nigerians have become refugees in many cross-border territories; some others have scaled through barbed wires and stowed away in ships and aircrafts to become illegal immigrants in search of the proverbial greener pastures. Over the decades, the country has lost countless brains and abundant human resources in this forced migration to other lands.

But the real emigration and the greatest irony of all, is the invisible escape of the psyche of citizens from the cavalier body polity of Nigeria. Although they remain within the 923,000 sq km border space of the territory, many citizens have since exorcised their souls and spirits from the artificial covering offered by the nomenclature of the nation-state. This is what the South Africans and indeed, many other nations of the world, have seen that gives them the temerity to treat Nigerians shabbily with mindless disdain.

A country that cannot offer substance and benefits of nationality rights to her nationals surely leaves them at the mercy of unfriendly elements. A nation that celebrates nepotism, ethnic jingoism, religious bigotry and manifest cronyism on one hand; and elevates mediocrity, mendacity, and prebendalism to fundamentals of state policy cannot in all fairness and good conscience demand a fair deal for its citizens abroad. This is Nigeria’s greatest handicap: the world knows this and is exploiting it to great advantage. How can Nigeria then blame the South Africans?  

Take a look at the mirror Nigeria and see the bleeding fields of Southern Kaduna. Despite the swooping presence of security agencies, including the deployment of an Army standby force complemented by the Police Mobile Force, the blood-thirsty Fulani herdsmen have continued in their reign of violence, blood and tears against defenceless indigenes. What other inspiration would the killers and persecutors of Nigerians in South Africa have than the endless carnage inflicted by rampaging herdsmen in Kaduna and other parts of the country?

Take a look in the mirror Nigeria and see the conquered nation the Igbos have become in their own country. The second class status the race has been subjected to especially in recent times speaks very loud of the need to interrogate the terms and conditions of Nigeria’s unity, assuming there was ever one. Despite being one of the dominant legs of Nigeria’s deceitful tripodal ethno-socio configuration, the Igbos have almost always played the second fiddle. From the issue of the vexatious non-representation on the commanding heights of the country’s security apparatus to the campaign of state violence often reported against the people, the Igbos have perhaps never felt more insecure in Nigeria since after the fratricidal civil war of the late 1960s.

There is little to suggest that such prevalent disdain is not partly responsible for the renewed agitation for secession by Nnamdi Kanu-led Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) group, no matter how misplaced or wrongful its strategies had been. But it is hard to dismiss the suggestion that the heavy-handed response of the Buhari administration to IPOB and other associated groups in the South-east has unfortunately tended to reinforce the feeling of marginilzation and state-sponsored hatred against the Igbos.

The President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nwodo, put it rather succinctly in a recent outing in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. Hear him: “I feel bad about how our youths are treated. I know of the Boko Haram terrorising the North-Eastern part of the country. They conquered and displaced community authorities and hoisted their flag, invariably announcing their own country but I have not heard of any of them that was arrested. I know of the Niger Delta Avengers who are angry as the MASSOB and IPOB and are destroying oil facilities. I don’t know any of them that has been arrested. What has IPOB done to be treated differently?”

If Igbos can be so despised in their country without redress, why would they not be easy victims in another man’s land in South Africa and elsewhere? Why won’t the injustice against Nigerians abroad hold sway when back home, their case is not any different?

I invite you to take another perspective to the possible inspiration for xenophobic targeting of Nigerians in the Southern enclave of the continent. This relates to the failure of the state and its institutions to act firm, fair and focused with regards to the national interest.

The case of the MTN fine saga and how it was eventually resolved (shamefully against the interest of Nigeria) can be easily recalled to explain how officials connive with foreign (read South African in this instance) interests to deny the country of legitimate earnings and mitigate the case for firm trade regulations. Recall that South African telecoms giant, MTN had ran foul of certain regulations on Subscribers Identification Module (SIM) and was subsequently slammed a fine of $5.1billion by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC).

That historic sanction sent shivers down the spine of the parent country of the multinational and sent a strong message to the entire international business community that it would no longer be business as usual with doing business in Nigeria. The impression was that gone were the days when big businesses would take the country for granted, flout rules and regulations and get away unscathed due to compromise, corruption and corporatism on the part of supervising officials and top government functionaries. From the oil and gas sector where numerous infractions continue unabated; to broadcasting where consumers of pay TV are treated with impunity and unacceptable practices; to telecoms where the likes of MTN put up bullish behaviours frequently, the Nigerian business environment has been one of ‘anything goes.’ It was that anti-nationalistic template the NCC rose to vigorously challenge by cutting MTN to size by imposing such hefty fine. But what happened? The process was reportedly hijacked by a cabal in the presidency which allegedly supervised some nebulous out-of-court settlement and ended up slapping MTN on the wrist with a reduced fine of $1.1billion. It is instructive to note that the entire transaction was dogged by a N500million bribery allegation against a top presidency official that has remained a notorious hallmark of the whole MTN SIM fines saga.

Pray, how then would the rest of the world take Nigeria seriously? Why would the South Africans not gloat about the protection of their business interests in Nigeria and be less bothered about their xenophobic antics? Had Nigeria been firm and unyielding on this matter, perhaps South Africa would have felt the need to restrain her citizens from the senseless spree of spewing hatred and inflicting barbaric violence on Nigerians resident in that country. Nigeria must look in the mirror and see where the rain began to beat her before seeking to reign in the unforced errors of continental neighbours.

Epia, Publisher of OrderPaper.ng, is on Twitter @resourceme