Daily Afrika News
Advertisement
  • Home
  • News
    • South Africa
    • World
    • Africa
    • Entertainment
    • Green
    • Health
  • Elections 2019
  • Voices
    • Columnists
    • Books
  • Business
    • Markets
    • Personal Finance
    • Economy
    • Opinion
    • Small Business
    • FinWeek
  • Sport
    • News
    • Rugby
    • Cricket
    • Soccer
    • Golf
    • Tennis
    • Formula1
    • Other Sport
    • Super Sport
  • Lifestyle
    • Health
    • Women
    • Motoring
    • Food
    • Entertainment
    • Parent
    • TrueLove
    • Travel
  • Video
    • All Video
    • South Africa
    • Entertainment
  • Focus
    • Underworld Unmasked
    • Mandela100
    • Cyril100
    • Zimbabwe
    • Aids Focus
    • Good News
    • Competitions
  • Jobs
  • Property
No Result
View All Result
Dailyafrika.com
  • Home
  • News
    • South Africa
    • World
    • Africa
    • Entertainment
    • Green
    • Health
  • Elections 2019
  • Voices
    • Columnists
    • Books
  • Business
    • Markets
    • Personal Finance
    • Economy
    • Opinion
    • Small Business
    • FinWeek
  • Sport
    • News
    • Rugby
    • Cricket
    • Soccer
    • Golf
    • Tennis
    • Formula1
    • Other Sport
    • Super Sport
  • Lifestyle
    • Health
    • Women
    • Motoring
    • Food
    • Entertainment
    • Parent
    • TrueLove
    • Travel
  • Video
    • All Video
    • South Africa
    • Entertainment
  • Focus
    • Underworld Unmasked
    • Mandela100
    • Cyril100
    • Zimbabwe
    • Aids Focus
    • Good News
    • Competitions
  • Jobs
  • Property
No Result
View All Result
Dailyafrika.com
No Result
View All Result
 
Home Voices Columnists

Xenophobia: time for cool heads to prevail in Nigeria and South Africa

The latest xenophobic attacks in South Africa have ignited the long-standing tensions between the country and Nigeria. These are captured in the retaliatory attacks on South African businesses in Nigeria and the diplomatic outrage by Nigerian authorities. Gilbert M. Khadiagala writes.

Xenophobic attacks - Daily Afrika
by Daily Afrika Opinion, contributors September 10, 2019
Related Articles
OPINION: Why Highlands Park can lift the MTN8 trophy against SuperSpor
Mugabe is dead, but old men still run southern Africa
Robert Mugabe: as divisive in death as he was in life
Ethiopia government can no-longer protect its citizens

Nigeria also boycotted the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Cape Town. More critical was the temporary closure of South African missions in Abuja and Lagos and Nigeria’s decision to recall its ambassador.

But in the larger scheme of things, xenophobia is a distraction from the leadership role that Nigeria and South Africa should play on the continent on fundamental issues of immigration and economic integration.

A constant irritant

Accurate figures are hard to get. But Statistics South Africa put the number of Nigerian migrants at about 30,000 in 2016, far below Zimbabweans and Mozambicans.

Xenophobia has remained a constant irritant in Nigeria-South Africa relations since the major attacks on African migrants in poor neighbourhoods in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg in 2008 and 2015. But, contrary to popular perception, xenophobic attacks do not disproportionately target Nigerians. Nigerians often exaggerate the effect of violence on their citizens. That is probably because Nigeria has a better organised, savvy, and loud diaspora constituency in South Africa.

Unfortunately, the loudness of the Nigerian diaspora transforms victimhood into foreign policy, generating the reactions that have been witnessed recently. It also plays into the naïve narrative of the “liberation dividend”. This entails Nigerians seeking to be treated uniquely because of their contribution to the struggle for majority rule in South Africa. There were no such expectations from the other countries that supported South Africa’s liberation struggle.

This narrative has taken on an equally economic tinge. South African companies are heavily invested in Nigeria. So, they often become targets of Nigerian ire in times of xenophobia.

The accurate picture is that xenophobia affects all African migrants. These are mostly migrants from Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and, increasingly Ethiopians, Kenyans and Somalis. Nigerians are affected. But they’re not on top of the list.

The Nigerian responses are understandable in light of the frequency of these attacks. But, it is important to probe the drivers of xenophobia to understand it more deeply.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, left, with his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari in late August in Japan. 

What drives xenophobia?

First, some studies reveal that the intrusion of foreign migrants into vulnerable communities beset by joblessness and despair inevitability produces a tinderbox that sparks violence.

Migrants are easy targets. That’s because they are seen as being better off by the locals. They, therefore, become targets of people who feel their circumstances have not been addressed by the government. It is no surprise that xenophobic attacks have typically occurred in poor neighbourhoods that have been affected by service delivery protests since the mid-2000s.

Second, xenophobia thrives on ineffective policing in South Africa. Barely two days after the Johannesburg attacks started, the national police spokesman admitted that the police were running out of resources to manage the violence. This prompted the Premier of Gauteng, the country’s economic hub, to threaten to also deploy the army if the violence continued.

Examples of the police’s inability to maintain order and respond to threats to property and livelihoods are legion. This, in part, forces people to take the law into their own hands.

But the police are sometimes complicit in stoking anti-foreign sentiments. The July 2019 raids on foreign-owned businesses in Johannesburg in apparent efforts to stamp out illicit goods added to the current climate of xenophobia. When some business owners retaliated against the police, some local leaders appropriated the language of “threats on South Africa’s sovereignty” to justify the police response.

Reforms are urgently needed to create a competent, less corrupt, better-resourced, and civic-minded police service.

Xenophobia is also an outcome of a rickety migration and border control regime. Efficient border controls are one of the hallmarks of sovereignty and the first line of defence against xenophobia. Broken borders breed criminality. These include human and drug trafficking. Human and drug trafficking feature prominently in the discourse on xenophobia in South Africa.

How, then, does xenophobia distract South Africa and Nigeria from what should be their leadership on core African issues?

Xenophobic attacks - Daily AfrikaOverreaction

The weighty issues of creating a humane and just society for South Africans and migrants alike will ultimately be led by the South African government. Outsiders can make some diplomatic noises and occasionally boycott South Africa. But these actions are unlikely to drive vital change.

In fact, the overreactions by Nigeria and other African countries simply undercut the South African constituencies that have a crucial stake in wide-ranging reforms that address the multiplicity of problems around xenophobia.

In the previous instances of xenophobic violence, Nigeria urged the African Union (AU) to force South Africa to take action. But such unhelpful statements only inflame passions and prevent civil diplomatic discourse.

Instead, the best policy would be for Nigeria to engage South Africa through their existing binational commission. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is scheduled to visit South Africa next month.

Taking the lead

Rather than the perennial relapse into shouting matches and hardening of rhetoric, it is essential for Pretoria and Abuja to take decisive leadership at the continental level. The two nations must articulate immigration policies.

The newly-inaugurated AU Free Movement of Persons Protocol will not be implemented if South Africa and Nigeria do not join hands to make it a reality. More ominously, migration to South Africa as the premier African economy will only get worse in the coming years. This, as Europe and the United States, tightens their borders against African migrants.

Also, without the leadership of its two major economies, Africa is not going to make any traction on the new treaty establishing the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. Ironically, the WEF meeting in Cape Town addressed ways to boost intra-African trade. Nigeria should not have boycotted it because of xenophobia.

Mr Khadiagala is a Jan Smuts Professor of International Relations and Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), University of the Witwatersrand

BuhariNigeriaRamaphosaSouth Africa
Previous Post

Nigeria military holding over 1000 children linked to Boko Haram

Next Post

Will Fourth Industrial revolution offer Ramaphosa's SA the growth it needs?

Daily Afrika Opinion, contributors

Daily Afrika Opinion, contributors

Related Posts

OPINION: Why Highlands Park can lift the MTN8 trophy against SuperSpor

OPINION: Why Highlands Park can lift the MTN8 trophy against SuperSport United
by Phumzile Ngcatshe
05 October, 2019

SOWETO – With this year’s eagerly anticipated MTN8 final set to be decided and new champions waiting to be crowned...

Mugabe is dead, but old men still run southern Africa

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa at the funeral of his predecessor, Robert Mugabe. EPA-EFE/Aaron Ufumeli
Columnists
by Daily Afrika Opinion, contributors
19 September, 2019

The death of Robert Gabriel Mugabe (95) saw another of the first-generation leaders of newly independent southern African states leave...

Robert Mugabe: as divisive in death as he was in life

Zimbabwe’s Mugabe still in Singapore hospital since April – Mnangagwa
Columnists
by Daily Afrika Opinion, contributors
16 September, 2019

Robert Mugabe, the former president of Zimbabwe, has died. Mugabe was 95, and had been struggling with ill health for some...

Ethiopia government can no-longer protect its citizens

The thread that holds Ethiopia together could be unravelling. Stephen Morrison/EPA
Columnists
by Daily Afrika Opinion, contributors
16 September, 2019

Meskerem is the first month in Ethiopia’s unique 13-month calendar. Ethiopia celebrates its New Year on the first day of Meskerem, which falls...

Xenophobia: time for cool heads to prevail in Nigeria and South Africa

Xenophobic attacks - Daily Afrika
Columnists
by Daily Afrika Opinion, contributors
10 September, 2019

Nigeria also boycotted the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Cape Town. More critical was the temporary closure of...

Aircastle Ltd leases planes to South African Airways but pays no tax t

South_African_Airways_progress
Business
by Daily Afrika Opinion, contributors
10 September, 2019

Aircastle Ltd. is not a household name, but if you’ve flown on South African Airways, KLM, or any of more...

Next Post
South Africa seeks investors

Will Fourth Industrial revolution offer Ramaphosa's SA the growth it needs?

Comments 1

  1. Pingback: Violence will not create more jobs in South Africa - Obasanjo warns - Daily Afrika News

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Quick news

DafriBank Saves The Day on Twitter...

DafriBank Saves The Day on Twitter

The Word’s First Coronavirus Vaccine Is Here...

The Word’s First Coronavirus Vaccine Is Here

DafriGroup Plc Announced Its Digital Banking Ambition; DafriBank, A su...

DafriGroup Plc Announced Its Digital Banking Ambition; DafriBank, A sustainable platform for all digital problems.

Sports giant PUMA unleashes the Spark Pack in 2020...

Sports giant PUMA unleashes the Spark Pack in 2020

Most Popular

DafriBank Saves The Day on Twitter...

DafriBank Saves The Day on Twitter

The Word’s First Coronavirus Vaccine Is Here...

The Word’s First Coronavirus Vaccine Is Here

DafriGroup Plc Announced Its Digital Banking Ambition; DafriBank, A su...

DafriGroup Plc Announced Its Digital Banking Ambition; DafriBank, A sustainable platform for all digital problems.

Sports giant PUMA unleashes the Spark Pack in 2020...

Sports giant PUMA unleashes the Spark Pack in 2020
https://www.valr.com/invite/VAG38ZL3
  • About
    • Contact us
    • Privacy Policy
    • About Us
  • Useful Links
    • Markets
    • Personal Finance
    • Economy
    • Opinion
    • Small Business
    • Fin Week
  • Sister Brands
    • FX Magazine
    • MLM Magazine
    • Crypto Magazine
    • PlusSize Africa
    • Women With Class
    • DJ Mag Africa
  • Affluent Series
    • Affluent
    • Affluent Africa
    • Affluent TV
    • Affluent Radio
    • Affluent Sport

Published by UMEH Media All right reserved.

News, analysis, opinions, sports, question and discussion – as a people and as a continent – with the rest of the world, especially the Western world, in ways cultural, economic, political, social, psychological or historical. Daily Afrika is managed by an African crew, with a network of mostly African writers across the continent and in the diaspora. Developed By: DeDevelopers
  • Home
  • News
    • South Africa
    • World
    • Africa
    • Entertainment
    • Green
    • Health
  • Elections 2019
  • Voices
    • Columnists
    • Books
  • Business
    • Markets
    • Personal Finance
    • Economy
    • Opinion
    • Small Business
    • FinWeek
  • Sport
    • News
    • Rugby
    • Cricket
    • Soccer
    • Golf
    • Tennis
    • Formula1
    • Other Sport
    • Super Sport
  • Lifestyle
    • Health
    • Women
    • Motoring
    • Food
    • Entertainment
    • Parent
    • TrueLove
    • Travel
  • Video
    • All Video
    • South Africa
    • Entertainment
  • Focus
    • Underworld Unmasked
    • Mandela100
    • Cyril100
    • Zimbabwe
    • Aids Focus
    • Good News
    • Competitions
  • Jobs
  • Property