(Opinion) Why South Africans hate Nigerians so much – a perspective

By Chinedum Agwaramgbo

I tried to keep my peace over this attack on Nigerians by South Africans but the increased calls by Nigerians over here for boycott of this and that and for our ambassador/Nigerian government to act this and act that has spurred me to pen this down here!

I condemn in its totality, the violence meted on Nigerians living in South Africa! I abhor the violent taking of life even one done legally……. BUT IT MUST BE STATED THAT NIGERIANS LIVING IN S.A. HAVE SYSTEMATICALLY DESTROYED THE VERY FABRIC OF THAT COUNTRY….. MORALLY, CULTURALLY, ECONOMICALLY AND SOCIALLY!

Let us take stock:

1. It was Nigerians that immigrated to South Africa and turned it to one of the major capital city of drugs in the world!

The drug cartels began with the Yorubas and increasingly overtaken by the IGBOS in S.A.! In fact, right this moment, the IGBOS in the drug business have effectively run the Yorubas out of S.A. to other southern African countries like Mozambique etc.

2. The Nigerians in S.A. have presently turned the country into a drug-war zone!….killings galore…..Igbos killing Igbos!

Do you know that every day in S.A., a Nigerian…..precisely an Igbo man is killed in a drug-related case?? …..I said every day not once a week!….or once in 3 days!….. EVERYDAY! In fact the Igbo boys running the shows in S. A. have dominated areas they control and all these to the chagrin of the law enforcement agencies!

Let me tell you a secret that is not so secret…..do you know that every week at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport here in Enugu, corpses of IGBOS…..slain in “drug battles” in different streets of S.A. are flown into the country??

I have personally witnessed the receiving of 7 corpses in 3 weeks in one instance! In fact at one of those occasions…..(normally the corpses arrive on the Thursday cargo flights of Ethiopian Airlines)….I was present when 3 different families were in the manager’s office to receive their slain sons……two of those families were represented by the aged biological fathers to the dead boys!….the third family, represented by a younger man in age…an uncle to the third corpse!

They were making small talks between themselves as they waited for the cargo (the coffins) to be disembarked…..(to be “off-loaded”)!

One of them asked the other elder which city his son was in? He answered Jo’burg!….on further enquiry as to whether his own son was married, he retorted… No!….to which the first man commented that his own son has a son from a white South African…..and that the lady simply packaged some of the personal documents/items of his son and informed him of the date of the arrival of the son’s corpse to Enugu but that she has blatantly refused all entreaties to accompany the corpse home!…..That they are certain that that son of his son (his grandson) would never return home to Nigeria!

The other silent man (the uncle to one of the dead) remarked that “his own family were indeed lucky in that their slain son had been coerced to come home and marry a Nigerian girl and has 2 kids (girls) already”. Then told of his own story of seeking greener pastures in S. A. and how he couldn’t fit into the street hustling….. According to him…….basically all IGBOS in S.A. are on the streets……from Hillbrow… Jo’burg to Capetown!….from Pretoria….to Durban!

He said he never bargained for such a life and quickly left his host….a maternal cousin and took his return ticket back home! That he has since engaged in his petty trading and is doing well enough and has 4 kids!

As this conversation was going on, I was quietly musing to myself:

How on earth could these gentlemen…..soft-spoken elderly men take all these agony……for surely it must be agony for them to be the ones burying their scions!….how could they sit in those swivel chairs in front of the manager and stoically be discussing the end of their eras??……do they have other sons and daughters probably??…. Maybe they did their best to counsel and chide their sons to desist from the fast lane and have accepted their sons’ fates??

I wondered about their wives/mothers to those sons they would never behold again….not because they died from ailment or accident but simply because they sought wealth……this fleeting wealth the wrong way!

I wondered if they would heal or forgive their sons or they would look upon the wealth and groan in satisfaction that all was not lost after all??

I imagined myself in the shoes of their grief and I swore to myself that I would sooner let go such a son from my heart who refused to heed my counsel than be forced to mourn his untimely death in pursuit of meaningless riches!

I watched them file out of the office one after the other and shuddered unconsciously again!!

3. This will shock you…… Are you aware that Nigerians living in S. A. have literally turned little/young South African girls into strings of well-oiled prostitution rings?? …..I am talking of girls between the ages of 10-14 years old! These young South African girls are introduced…..scratch that!….these girls are immersed in drugs and turned to addicts and then they are set on the streets to be prostituted and their lives are effectively and totally wrecked! …..

Now put yourself in the shoes of these South Africans!

Would we all as Nigerians stomach a situation whereby in Lagos State or Anambra State or Bauchi State or Enugu State or Yobe State or a combination of those states, Kenyans or Zimbabweans or South Africans or people from neighboring Ghana would populate our cities….legitly or illegally and begin to sell drugs to our young men…turn our school girls into prostitutes….and litter our streets with dead bodies of their gang wars?

Would Lagosians allow their children to be used as pimps and prostitutes by FOREIGNERS who desecrate daily our value systems??

Would Enugu inhabitants allow Ghanaians to run our streets into crime zones…..such that we can’t sleep at night and worry if our kids sent to schools are really at school or in a drug hotel somewhere sniffing white powders….and our girls violated daily sexually??

Wouldn’t we someday just scream enough is enough and take up arms to rid our city of such devilish foreigners??

Are you aware that Indians populate a city in S.A. called Durban?? Do you know that Indians at one time recently, carried out systematic killings of Nigerians living in Durban??

What was the cause??….there was some Indian youths that were sold a harsh substance by the drug cartel which would literally liquefy the innards of the person leading to instant death!

These drug pushers know that this substance is adulterated and causes death (not addiction) yet they push it out there to their peddlers!

The Indians decided to help themselves and their community and embarked on a killing spree of Nigerians in Durban engaged in the drug business and left their calling cards in their victims!

Ask yourself this:

Did the South Africans begin to hate us all of a sudden or they had always hated us all these while??

How come we all used to migrate to South Africa easily and many of us married their girls (I know some friends who did and are still living happily with their wives) but now they hate us all??

OR

Would you close your eyes to the evil we Nigerians have unleashed in South Africa simply because we saved them from apartheid era?? So because we assisted them that now gives us the gumption to destroy their society like we’ve persistently done ours??

Some home grown truths will serve us in good stead here than this pontificating all over the place I plead!

Picture those attackers on our people….beating and burning them up as mothers or fa thers or brothers or cousins who have lost a son or daughter or sibling to the cold hands of death by drug intake or whose virginity has been br utally lost and who is a human wreck to her society!

Before you cast your stone…..imagine that you lost your own dear child to crime…and not just any crime but one perpetrated by your own visitors!

My take on all these: NIGERIANS SHOULD FIRSTLY DEMAND THE CLEANUP OF SOUTH AFRICA and that includes the incaceration and/or deportation of these miscreants giving us all bad reputation in S.A.!

The drug war raging in that country engineered by our countrymen must be stopped!

Then the two countries should rapport to safeguard the lives and businesses of the many genuine Nigerians living and contributing to the economy of South Africa!

PS: Pls after reading this post, but before you start the deluge of insults upon me, kindly call up your own brother doing legitimate business in S.A. and he will confirm these facts to you as the absolute TRUTH!

▪Agwaramgbo is a principal partner at Agwaramgbo and Associates, and this was first published on her Facebook page.