For the past week, the story about the tragic fate of a Nigerian businessman at the hands of some South Africans has dominated reports coming out from that country. Ikejiaku Chinedu, 35, was, allegedly, beaten to death on Tuesday by guards of a private security firm.
Secretary of the Limpopo chapter of the Nigeria Union in South Africa, Collins Mgbo, said Chinedu, a native of Ogwa, in Mbaitoli Local Government Area of Imo State, was killed at the outskirts of Polokwane, Limpopo Province, and he was married with three children.
“Information available to us showed that
guards of the security company chased and arrested him, he was beaten,”
Mgbo was reported as saying. “The autopsy result we have showed that
there were bruises all over his body, showing that he was beaten to
death or suffocated.”
The reason for the gruesome act is
unclear. What is known is that citizen Chinedu’s murder is another
addition to the mountain of savage killings and maiming of fellow
Africans, especially Nigerians, for which South Africa has become
notorious since the end of apartheid. In this year alone, about 15
Nigerians are said to have died in South Africa under such cruel
circumstances.
Nigeria needs to show sterner responses
to cruelties like the one meted out to Chinedu as a warning to the South
African authorities to get serious with measures aimed at curbing the
unrelenting xenophobic tendencies among its citizens.
About 10 foreigners were killed in April
last year in South Africa following almost two weeks of violence that
targeted Africans and Asians who came to the country after the
white-minority rule, apartheid, ended in 1994. Nigerians are perennial
victims of the xenophobia in South Africa. Though no Nigerian was killed
in those attacks last year, the Nigerian Union in South Africa said
Nigerians lost more than 4.6 million Rand or N84 million during the
attacks.
In July last year, a Nigerian, Nonso
Odo, 30, from Amangwu-Nkwerre, in Imo State, was allegedly tortured to
death by South African police officers in Hillbrow, Johannesburg.
Curbing such brutish acts should be a
priority for Nigeria and South Africa. This is more so in the wake of
the growing economic ties between both countries. In 2012, about $3.6
billion was traded between the two countries.
There has been a significant growth in
South African investments in Nigeria in the last 15 years, according to
the Nigeria/South Africa Chamber of Commerce. Chairman of the
Nigeria/South Africa Chamber of Commerce, Foluso Phillips, said this was
possible “because Nigeria created the opportunity for such engagement
and South Africa displayed the capability to make these investments.”
About 150 South African business
organisations are currently operating in Nigeria, despite the former’s
allegedly restrictive policies, which have made it difficult for
Nigerians to invest in the country.
The xenophobia in South Africa poses a
serious danger to these economic interests. Many fear that the
intolerance in South Africa may increase the threat level to the point
that it would be hard to control reprisals and hostilities towards its
offshore interests. Perhaps, what is not generally known about the
hostility to Nigerians on the part of South Africans is that the
chauvinistic mind-set is largely in line with popular thinking at both
street and official levels. Nigerians are often hated because of their
perceived inclination to dominate the social and economic spaces. Such
feelings tend to feed resentments against Nigerians and attacks on the
flimsiest of pretexts.
But what should matter is whether
Nigerians are playing by the rule in their host country. Given Nigeria’s
huge population and the enormous human and material wealth Mother
Nature has endowed the country with, the tendency for the citizens to
emigrate and spread their economic tentacles to other lands should not
be surprising to anyone. Hating Nigerians on the flimsy excuse of such
natural progress is not only cruel, it also diminishes South Africa.
Besides, South Africa is too heavily
indebted to Nigeria to allow such inanity to come between its citizens
and Nigerians. Recall the huge investments Nigerians had made at
individual, group, and governmental levels towards the dismantling of
apartheid in South Africa. As a frontline state in the anti-apartheid
struggle at the time, Nigeria risked frightening repercussions from the
apartheid regime of the Afrikaner-dominated National Party and its
Western friends. Nigeria – indeed, Africans – do not deserve the tragic
payback they seem to be getting from post-apartheid South Africa.
The South African government must act to
curtail the excesses its citizens. Nigeria should demand this in the
wake of last Tuesday’s murder of Chinedu.
