Ademola Araoye

In Abuja, the protocols and hierarchy of engagements of the immediate post liberated South Africa in sub-Sahara Africa was registered, in the context of Abuja’s understanding of its vast comprehensive investments in the liberation struggle in Southern Africa, with some misgivings. These beginnings have colored relations between the two countries. This beginnings may have been responsible for the devaluation of the authentic validating principles of Afrocentricity as both countries have sought in sometimes nuanced competitive postures of establishing quasi alliances or associations to assure strategic placement in global politics through ostensibly innocuous multilateral institutions. The core of relations between South Africa have been very nuanced in their great abdications of their historic mandates. Given the void in thinking big about their roles in Africa, quotidian policy pursuits of South Africa and Nigeria have been rather on ephemerals, characterized by unending petty squabbles.

The internal problems of South Africa, including a lumpen mass along the margins of society carry over from the Apartheid years, often interjects itself into the foreign policy arena. Official South Africa is caught on the horns of a dilemma. It must resolve the challenge of accommodating its sprawling mass disenchanted, a critical internal constituency of those who are left behind. At the same time, it must demonstrate sensitivity to African solidarity in managing the avalanche of fleeing economic migrants from badly managed African countries without provoking the kind of backlash that it currently faces. That is not all. Its balancing act is in the context of a very difficult national process. The current madness betrays the turbulent undercurrents of South Africa’s politics, in particular the structure of its economy and their impact on national life.

The horrendous hackings to death of foreigners, now symbolized by the brutal daylight stalking, bludgeoning and stabbing to death of Mozambican Emmanuel Sithole, are strong reminders of the dire consequences of pervasive disillusionment of the black masses in post Apartheid South Africa. The attacks that seem to have acquired a xenophobic character are indeed the other side of the violence that seem to have become a quotidian reality of this land struggling hard to translate its vision of a rainbow nation into actuality. Nigerians, especially the badly behaved, have not been spared.

Violence has been integral to the many struggles of South Africa. The decision of the Youth wing of the ANC to in the 1940s to radicalize the anti Apartheid struggle formally legitimized violence for revolutionary ends. Half a century later, as the ANC negotiated a settlement to the post settlement era, a third force arose to challenge the leading role of the ANC. This Third force was responsible for horrendous violence aimed at political opponents. The “Third Force” was a term used by leaders of the ANC during the late 1980s and early 1990s to refer to a clandestine force believed to be responsible for a surge in violence in KwaZulu-Natal, and townships around and south of the Witwatersrand. The xenophobic pogroms in May 2008 were also ascribed to ‘the third force’.

 In 2015 Malusi Gigaba also ascribed xenophobic violence to a “third force. The culture of violence is deeply entrenched in South Africa national life. It would be futile to expect that the violence prone disenchanted and marginalized South African lumpen masses, encountering Africans for the first time, would gladly embrace them. As is often the case, the works of the good Africans do not make headlines. Those of undesirable criminals do. The major challenge in the post settlement is to delegitimize violence as a currency for social transaction. A second is eradicate the psychological feeling implanted during Apartheid that South Africa belong to a different universe outside Africa.

But the situation has arisen not because of a lack of trying by the ANC. The ANC’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) program was designed to create a black middle class. This has attained some remarkable progress. The idea was that this new black middle class would create avenues for the empowerment to trickle down to impact the black community. This expectation of the cascading impact of the BEE has floundered. The black majority who were denied any education or who were outright victims of the Apartheid policy of deliberately stifling the development of the entrepreneurial capacity of blacks are no match for the more experienced Somalis, Mozambicans and Zimbabweans. As is often the case with immigrants, the foreigners are more motivated to work extremely hard and to save through self imposed privations. Often too these communities of foreigners are not integrated, especially the Somalis whose clannishness has no bounds. As for Nigerians, the proclivity of drug trafficking and underhand business is well known. While these are no excuses for the inhuman degradation of life that has been witnessed in South Africa, they are very important factors that fuel resentment of South Africans against Nigerians. Badly behaved Nigerians have devastated communities and established colonies notorious for drug dealing in South Africa.

What all this suggest is to moderate our sense of outrage against South Africa. South Africa must resolve its many dilemmas. Pretoria has to bite the bullet and institute an indigenization policy that must definitively restrict the activities of foreigners to more advanced and relatively capitalized ventures and sectors of the economy. South Africa has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. For one thing, unemployment is a staggering problem especially as the unemployed are often also unemployable, except probably in the mines. Even by official estimates and it tends to be conservative, unemployment rate in South Africa decreased to 24.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 from 25.40 percent in the third quarter of 2014.

Unemployment rate in South Africa averaged 25.25 percent from 2000 until 2014, reaching an all time high of 31.20 percent in the first quarter of 2003 and a record low of 21.50 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. Another source highlights that by 2014 the black African unemployment rate had declined from 43% to 40%. It notes that this is of no comfort to the additional 3.1 million black African workforce unemployed. Since many in this category are unemployable and have no history and culture of working, it would require some measure of affirmative mobilization to inculcate a new working ethic, create self employment niches and nurture this category of deprived South Africans into constructive participants in society and economy. Therefore, an open door policy to all of Africa’s poor and wearied cannot be an option. As it currently stands, this kind of selfless solidarity is very unrealistic and can only sharpen current antagonisms between poor black South Africans and other Africans. Solidarity unlimited is a politically defeatist route for the ANC. South Africa must find creative alternatives to pacify its roaring mass disenchanted. It is an imperative to defuse the ticking time bomb.

Some sacrifices are therefore required. South Africa must close some of its soft sectors to foreign participation as we theoretically did in Nigeria years ago. The retail sector, with clearly specified limits that are within the capacity of the marginalized South Africans, should preferably be closed to foreigners. Also, at the next level, Africans who so desire should enter into partnerships with South Africans in bigger wholesale outlets to enhance the stakes of South Africa blacks in these joint enterprises. This would be nothing innovative as it is the practice in Ghana. SADC or no SADC, AU or no AU, some soft sectors of the economy that have the potential to serve as platforms for the apprenticeship of the most business savvy of the lumpen mass lot should rightfully be reserved for nationals. The South African government should also provide lending facilities that are accompanied or preceded by training in management of small businesses with economic outreach officers from financial institutions to provide advisory services to this new cadres of Small and Medium young black entrepreneurs.

Also directly relevant is the need to reorient South Africans psychologically to begin to see themselves and their nation as integral part and parcel of Africa. The entrenched notion of South Africa as an autonomous social universe vis-à-vis the rest of the Continent should be addressed through formal and informal engagements with South African society. In this connection, Africa has the technological infrastructure to begin the cultivation of transnational people to people networks in the continent. As for the rest of Africa, it is high time we learnt that we cannot continue to shirk our responsibilities at home and expect others to clean up after us. We are daily assaulted on our television screens by the consequences of the pervasive irresponsibility of our states and leadership as Africans choose to expose themselves to unimaginable risks of near certain death only just to earn a menial living in Europe.

African governments must empathize with the situation in South Africa and work to ensure that the solidarity of official South Africa is not be abused any further. There is so much official irresponsibility in our national lives. An anecdotal point here illustrates this. Nigeria must continue to de-incentivize Nigerians from seeking all manner of criminal escape valves from home, including drug trafficking in South Africa. As the latest deportation of bad Nigerians this week illustrate, criminal Nigerians are not welcome anywhere in the world. We have seen beheadings of Nigerians from Saudi Arabia to the Philippines for the same drug offences at the heart o our problems in South Africa.

Buffeted by this persistent ill wind, it should be official policy that Nigeria’s consular help to its citizens abroad in cases involving drug trafficking should be scrupulously limited to and stop at ensuring that rule of law and the judicial processes are meticulously adhered to. Finally, Nigeria must learn to be more mature in handling challenges thrown up by the kind of situation we are faced with in South Africa. To threaten to close South Africa’s investment in Nigeria on account of this unfortunate development does not reflect the sophistication one would expect of a country of our stature and experience in navigating this matter. Knee-jerk responses to crisis are not indicative of measured and reasoned leadership.

Since the South African government has tacitly acknowledged that some wrong has been done, we may seize the opportunity to begin to build transnational social capital between the two societies. The idea is to diversify integrative communication channels between the two countries, while spreading pressure points to avoid or mitigate potential recurrence of this challenge. The two countries must invest in robust joint early warning systems. Otherwise, these avoidable irritations would continue to impede the articulation of more serious strategic challenges that require urgent attention of the two leading black African states.

Some practical steps that are required would be the creation bi-national platforms to enhance interaction, formal and informal, understanding between South Africans and Nigerians. The recall of our Ambassador canvassed by bolekaja diplomatists should be rejected. It is meaningless symbolism. It has no significance at a time when you need the full complement of the High Commission to douse the current situation. The Nigerian legislatures, both at the federal and state levels, should establish formal and personal ties with their South African counterparts. The Nigeria Trade Union Congress may follow up its recent public condemnation of the attacks with a formal and permanent engagement with the powerful Coalition of South African Trade Union (COSATU).

Our most senior traditional chiefs should be encouraged to develop ties with influential monarchies in that country. These should facilitate visits on both sides. The National Association of Nigerian Students may consider establishing a platform with the Federation of South African students union. The Nigerian media form a bi-national body to share information and enhance understandings or at least eliminate some of the alarming falsehood. Let there be a proliferation of such structures to engage each other and identify causes that touch both countries and Africa. These would advance the cause of both countries and also serve as proactive mechanisms to resolve emerging challenges to our bilateral relationship. Finally, it is not convincing that the African Union is in a position to provide meaningful intervention on this matter.

Political structures dispense politics and the deliberations of the African Union on the specific case of Nigeria would only politicize and muddle up the situation only further. It would an admission that Nigeria, the leading African state, lacks the capacity to find creative solutions to the menace. We could also be embarrassed should the South Africans are forced to go to town with our dirty linen. It would require no evidence because the widespread perception of Nigeria is not salutary, even in Africa. Many thanks to the sterling determination of our bad minority. In the final analysis, Nigeria and South Africa must find the will to transcend this difficult challenge. That is why I commend the Nigerian Foreign Ministry for its matured handling of this emotionally charged problem. The Ministry must not succumb to the assault of uninformed and uncritical bolekaja pretend diplomatists in our midst.

Ademola Araoye is a former Nigerian diplomat and a retired official of the United Nations. Currently a Visiting Professor associated with the SARCHi chair on African Diplomacy and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, Araoye is author of critically acclaimed books including Cote d’Ivoire: The Conundrum of a Still Wretched of the Earth and Sources of Conflict in the Post-Colonial African State. He is a regular contributor to TheNEWS magazine