As the federal government collaborates with public-spirited airliners to bring back hundreds of Nigerians stranded in South Africa, the latest wave of xenophobia and Afrophobia in that country deserves a drastic response from the Federal Government of Nigeria. Days ago, the sixth evacuation flight returned to Nigeria. It is appalling that the voluntary repatriations were delayed, and Nigeria still lacks a concerted response to the undignified treatment of citizens globally. Beyond the rancorous debates at the National Assembly, it is high time Nigeria took drastic reciprocal action, at least to announce to South Africa and other unfriendly countries that the dignity and respect of Nigerians are no longer negotiable.

The ongoing xenophobia in South Africa is neither the first nor most likely the last. Socioeconomic struggles for scarce resources and jobs routinely motivate anti-migrant crises. Unlike the past episodes in South Africa, the current protest has been deeply politicised and weaponised into a well-organised and publicised Afrophobia and mob violence against fellow Africans. For context, South Africa faces structural challenges, with attendant social anger over high unemployment, livelihood security, healthcare, and housing. Decades after independence, 72 per cent of arable land and economic power remains in the care of the white minority. Instead of addressing these structural inequalities, political elites and sections of capital often channel public frustration towards migrants and refugees.

Coinciding with preparations for the November provincial elections, Afrophobia functions as a political diversion for the current administration’s inadequacies and failure of the post-Apartheid transformation plan in meeting the socioeconomic demands of average unemployed South Africans. The unemployed South African worker is encouraged to blame Zimbabwean and Nigerian street vendors, Ethiopian spaza shop owners, and Somali and Congolese traders instead of asking why wealth remains concentrated, why services collapse, and why economic opportunities are so scarce.

According to reports from the United Nations and the International Organisation for Migration, South Africa’s immigrant population is estimated at between three million and four million, accounting for approximately four to six per cent of the country’s total population. Among them are the estimated 30,000 to 50,000 Nigerians in South Africa as of 2022. In contrast, the unemployment rate stands at around 32 to 33 per cent, rising to approximately 41 to 43 per cent when discouraged job seekers are included. Young people constitute a significant proportion of these figures, with youth unemployment exceeding 45 to 60 per cent in some measures. So, how do the migrants account for the spike in unemployment, or do the political elites aim to shoehorn millions of poorly educated and disenchanted South Africans into the “stolen jobs” undesirable migrants have left behind? It is clearer that the current self-destruct spell on the rainbow nation is more political and a fool’s errand of chasing foreigners away as the solution to endemic social vices and economic exclusion.

In the wake of the June 30 deadline for all ‘illegal’ immigrants to flee South Africa, no fewer than 10,000 Africans have been repatriated by countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and DR Congo. The South African minister in the presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, warned that fabricated videos were being circulated to undermine South Africa’s international reputation. Indeed!

It is a shame that modern Africa’s hatred for fellow Africans has assumed this self-destructive dimension. Post-Apartheid South Africa clearly loves its oppressors (whites) more than it does its fellow blacks. This is evident in street protests and xenophobic violence culminating in the beatings, humiliation, and killing of their brothers and sisters whose forebears were actively instrumental to the independence South Africans enjoy today. Notably, those migrants who are now ridiculed as “illegal” or “undocumented” were created by immigration policies. Many migrants initially entered South Africa legally and later became undocumented because of the dysfunction and hostility of the Department of Home Affairs. Applications are lost, permits are delayed, and people are effectively rendered illegal through bureaucratic exclusion.

From a continental perspective, the development is a betrayal of the old solidarity and Pan-Africanism. It made a mockery of the ethos of Ubuntu (“I am because we are”) – a jussive value and the philosophical driving force through which African countries rallied behind South Africa in friendship, shared identity and brotherhood during the dark colonial era. For instance, Nigerians’ contributions in resources and armaments to the apartheid struggle are blighted by the epistemic ignorance of the current generation of South Africans. Nigeria’s Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, wrote to the African National Congress in solidarity as early as April 1961, within a year of Nigeria’s own independence, and Nigeria went on to chair the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid until 1994. From the South African Relief Fund paid by every civil servant, Nigeria funded the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress for decades, hosted South African exiles, offered scholarships to South African students, and sent teachers, doctors, and architects into the struggle. Estimates of Nigeria’s total financial contribution to the anti-apartheid cause range into tens of billions of dollars. Nelson Mandela himself, on a visit to Lagos in 1990, thanked Nigeria as among the most generous of the movement’s benefactors.

Suffice to state that anti-immigrant protest – documented or undocumented – is a modern phenomenon. Growing anti-migrant sentiment is not unique to South Africa; similar trends have emerged in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Recall that Nigeria once experienced the Ghana-must-go episode, which saw the exodus of hordes of Ghanaian-origin teachers and students. The same malaise, though at a higher temperature, is afflicting South Africa, with a detestable uprising against Africans while the whites, Chinese, Indians and so on are securely protected. In that light, it is high time for Nigeria and every African nation whose citizens have been hunted, humiliated, or killed on South African soil to reconsider the terms of friendship with Pretoria.

Specifically, it behoves the Nigerian government to take a proactive measure to push back on the insidious hatred of the South Africans. Be it for killings of Nigerians, street humiliation or unprovoked aggression against kids, the onus is on the Nigerian government to reciprocate for each of the xenophobic aggressions against Nigerians. Reciprocity is permissible in international diplomacy, and the odds favour whoever acts decisively. The Nigerian officials should not just demand compensation or allow the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to take the law into their hands. Nigeria must identify South African business establishments in Nigeria as those of the country that stripped Nigerians of dignity and respect. Those business interests would send the message home and across the world that Nigerian citizens can no longer be maltreated without dire consequences.

The long-term measure is for the Nigerian government to also fix Nigeria and make it liveable for all. The well-established fact is that more than half of Nigerians slaving away as irregular migrants in South Africa and around the world would not venture if Nigeria gave prospects for their hopes and aspirations. This is also evident in the accounts of those who were repatriated from South Africa, with the impression that many lack sufficient skills to improve their chances of integration into the challenging economic environment. A more functional South Africa would have avoided the current xenophobic episode. The misguided average South Africans are growing Afrophobic with the hope that it will ‘fix’ their country. Nigeria should delay no further till the day Nigerians, in protests, start leading mass protests against the government in the bid to ‘fix’ the country.