Killing nigerians in south africa

ONE worrying irony in the relationship between Nigeria and South Africa is that despite the huge resources that Nigeria committed to the cause of liberating the southern Africa country from ruinous apartheid regime, many South Africans still nurse open animosity against Nigerians. Curiously, South Africa is paying Nigeria back in bad coins, by subjecting Nigerian citizens to humiliating treatment, brutalising them and, in certain instances, killing them in extra-judicial circumstances. According to the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr. Gbenga Oduwaiye, over 1,000 Nigerians have been killed in the last one year in an extra-judicial manner. In a reported instance, some Nigerians who travelled through the Oliver Thambo Airport in South Africa were frisked in a humiliating way, and a few hours after they arrived at their hotels, some persons came for them and carted away their belongings while some of them were taken away and killed. The possibility of these assailants being armed robbers was ruled out by the legislator. He alleged that the South African assailants, in such cases, usually demanded the identity of the victims before killing them upon discovery that they were Nigerians. Recently, both Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and Mrs. Remi Obasanjo experienced the vile side of South Africa, when both of them were brutalised by hoodlums in the southern African country.

IT will be recalled that the Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, sometime ago, had to protest his being unfairly treated at the point of entry in South Africa, a situation which made him vow never to step on that country’s soil again. It would seem that South Africa is being haunted by its violent apartheid past, which may have bred bile in its back streets. The violence in South Africa has been manifested in the various incidents of high profile murders and rapes that have given the country an orgiastic image. But it seems that evidence points to a specific anti-Nigerian animus, even within this matrix of a violent essence. There are reported cases of such animus against Nigerians even in Nigeria! The South Africa High Commission in Nigeria treats Nigerians applying for visa with scorn. There have been reports that it takes months before Nigerians are given visas and such visas are usually given only upon the payment of a repatriation fee of N100,010, which is expected to be refundable. Regretably, many Nigerians who paid this sum of money and who had travelled and returned without violating South African laws are yet to collect the so-called repatriation fee. This claim has not been controverted by the South African High Commission. While it may be true that some Nigerians may have committed crimes in South Africa, this cannot be a justification for the extra-judicial killings, especially the involvement of the security official of South Africa. It cannot also be a justification for the humiliation which Nigerians are subjected to by the country’s High Commission in Nigeria. South Africa’s attitude of a blanket bellicosity is, certainly, reprehensible and we condemn it in a very strong term.

IT should occur to the authorities in that country that their security operators ought to be able to identify foreigners who violate their laws and treat them accordingly rather than resorting to this jungle policy of making their hoodlums to swoop on innocent law-abiding foreigners in their country. Although there have been media reports that the South African Government had condemned the brutal attacks on Nigerians, this is not enough. The reported cases of extra-judicial killings of Nigerians in South Africa should be properly investigated and the South African Government must be able to provide convincing and satisfactory answers to those killings. The Nigerian Government must demand an immediate official response from South Africa on the plight of Nigerians, especially the killings, on its soil. This is the only way the Nigerian Government can convince its citizens that it places a high premium on their lives anywhere in the world. So the National Assembly and the Presidency should see this as an urgent assignment that must be pursued to its logical conclusion. If need be, due sanction should be brought upon South Africa, if its government’s explanation on the extra-judicial killing of over 1,000 Nigerians in the last one year is not satisfactory. Such a reprehensible act, which violates all tenets of international diplomacy and fundamental human rights, will not be allowed by any sane government. We urge the Nigerian Government to demand for explanation and full compensation for those Nigerian lives.

soyinka’s knocked engine

PROFESSOR Wole Soyinka is known for his frankness. The Nobel laureate, on the occasion of Chief Gani Fawenhinmi’s 70th birthday, described Nigeria, his country, as a knocked engine. He said the country needed to be refurbished to start working again. He said Nigerians had been so much worsted by mindless rulers that they barely knew that some words like “potable” existed in the dictionary. Nigerians, he said, never had access to quality water so would not know the meaning of potable.

BUT it will surprise Professor Soyinka to know that the ordinary Nigerian’s intelligence has since improved. It was in the old days that, it was said, Soyinka’s works were hard nuts to crack. But his metaphor of Nigeria as a knocked engine is too well known to these ordinary souls. Or how could a people whose overall existence revolves around jalopies or rickety vehicles not understand when an engine is said to have knocked? Nigerians know good engines; they can even smell the ones that are “Tokunbo”. So, they know all about engines. They know the ones that can work and those that no amount of refurbishment will make to hiccup.

IN fact, Nigerians know more about the knocked Nigerian engine than even Professor Soyinka and, so, may not share his solution of refurbishment. For instance, an engine that has been mindlessly cannibalised, just as the eminent writer acknowledged, will be very hard to refurbish. How do you know which part to put, where to put it and which ones to abandon completely? The Nigerian engine has been cannibalised for many years; how do you start the refurbishment when those who knocked the engine are the ones that will be awarded the contracts for its refurbishment?

THE fact is that these quack political engineers will put “Tokunbo” parts instead of brand new ones in the engine. Nigerians know and will give you reasons the nation’s refineries, after a series of refurbishments, have refused to work —— optimally.