Engaging the mob in South Africa

It is disheartening watching the videos of the heinous acts of the mobs in South Africa splashed over the social media platform, last week. It is not an edifying sight to see your compatriots been chased about by a mob with clear intention to maim them and cart away their hard earned properties.  Of course xenophobic attacks are nothing new in the history of South Africa since the dawn of black rule in 1994. In fact, it became a pattern to harass migrants particularly those coming from their less endowed neighbours, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and Botswana who came to work in the mines.

The working class in South Africa particularly those who worked in the mines had for decades been highly unionized and are very territorial and always regarded migrants from neighbouring countries as usurpers of their jobs. At the slightest opportunity and provocation, they pounced on them. They have also attacked Somalis and Asians who operated corner shops in the townships. Unfortunately, their leaders and security apparatus have always looked the other way when the migrants were attacked. Nigerians were latter-day migrants into South Africa, and in any case did not take on those menial jobs. They were mostly in the universities as teachers and researchers or in the markets hustling to sell goods and services.

Nevertheless, Nigerians suffered collateral damage whenever such mob action arose.  I recall visiting Johannesburg and Pretoria as part of a government delegation in 2010 and met the bitterness of the 2008 xenophobic attacks on African nationals still echoing, particularly among the Nigerians. Many of us thought that with increased interaction there would be understanding and less chances of xenophobic attacks. But as Nigerians have become more established in their markets it is apparent that they are now also targets for mob action. Retaliatory actions would obviously be not the best way to go about it. We shall only be harming the Nigerian investors that have taken the South African franchises. I am one of those who have applauded the quick diplomatic steps taken by the Government so far. Our diplomats should be in the forefront to sort out this nagging matter and quickly too. I hope our President will soon be on his way to meet his South African counterpart to sort out this sordid affair.

I was in that frame of mind when I met Ambassador Usman Sarki at a discussion group on Friday in Transcorp Hilton Abuja. We grew up in the same neighbourhood in Maiduguri and I know he is widely travelled. One of his last postings was as Deputy Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations. He is now dispensing his vast knowledge as a Directing Staff in the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru. I told him that I watched him in a NTA program discussing the South African matter and would like the video to share his well-informed views with my readers on how to handle the South African imbroglio. He sent me a copy and here are excerpts containing a great deal of insight:

“Nigeria is not helpless completely, and we have not run out of options. The multilateral approach that you quite rightly pointed out, is there. We have instruments and mechanisms that we could invoke and use, towards putting pressure on South Africa to live up to the expectations, not only of Africans but of the world; for all their citizens and the government to respond to behave appropriately.

Number one; In 2001 the entire world gathered in Durban to negotiate, that is under the World Conference on Racism, to negotiate the Durban declaration and programs of actions, on racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia. That document exits, still and its contents are applicable to South Africa as well as all other countries. Xenophobia is specifically mentioned because of these types of attacks, singling out nationals of another country to attack them on the basis of rationalization of certain perceptions and ideas against those people. The African Union has a number of processes and also decisions and declarations in place, including the constitutive acts of the African Union, the act that establish the African Commission of Human and People Rights; and also, the African Human and People’s Rights – the court in Banjul.

All these are instruments available to us that we could invoke in order to bring South African officials to book. Beyond that, the International Criminal Court (ICC) can be approached for them to look into this case, whereby senior officials of the government are complicit in incitement to violence. This is a justiciable act, a criminal act, all which we can call upon the rest of the international community to intervene.

Now Xenophobia has a long history, but let us look at what happened under Nazi Germany, there is what is called Kristallnacht, when the Nazi government-state organized systematic attack against Jewish owned property, shops, business and other things in which even murders took place. The Nuremberg tribunal after the second world war, in 1945, included those incidents as part of the criminal actions for which the Nazi leaders where liable. We have to now go and look at all the extant instruments under the international law, and also African charters and protocols that exist in terms of deterring racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia, and apply them to South Africa.

The South Africans must realize that their actions actually tie the hands of Nigeria and other African countries in discussing racism, racial discriminations and xenophobia in Europe, against migrants, against refugees and people of African descendants. If we treat ourselves and each other in South Africa in this manner, what moral rights do we have to go and address incidents of this nature taking place against black people, against Africans in other parts of the world. I think Nigeria has now taken a very, very serious perception of this. Mr President, the Vice President, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, are using all diplomatic channels, some known to us and others under the wraps – in terms of confidentiality, you don’t reveal all your cards when you are dealing with incidents like that. So, let us give the opportunity to our leaders to resolve this impasse or this issue in a sustainable way. But we must remind South Africans of their commitments under the Durban declaration on racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia to treat Nigerians and other Africans decently, and wherever their officials are involved, for these officials to be prosecuted.

The last point I will raise is that I was the Director Southern Africa Affairs Department, that was my last postings in Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs before I retired. In 2016 I think there was this incident of xenophobic attacks, and we proposed that we should enter into an agreement, bilateral agreement with South Africa, on specifically addressing issue of xenophobia, in which matters related to compensation will also be endorsed and signed between the two countries. We prepared this, our Minister of Foreign Affairs – His Excellency Geoffrey Onyeama went, he met with the South African Minister of Foreign Affairs, Her Excellency Lindiwe Sithulu. He deposited that document with her expecting that it will be signed and sealed by the government, but in the end the South Africans reneged, they did not sign it. I don’t know if they have now, but they did not.

So, in our mechanisms which we will deploy we have regional, international legal instruments and conventions, and also, I think the National Nssembly should be brought on board so that at the Inter-Parliamentary Union and also the African Parliamentary Union and other meetings of the parliamentarians; these things should be discussed.