LETTER FROM JOHANNESBURG
To begin from the beginning, my colleagues and I had arrived here Tuesday, smack into a minus-three centigrade (-3°C) weather at Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo Airport, having left a 30°C Lagos weather. It is winter in South Africa and in the world’s Southern Hemisphere (when all others in the northern hemisphere, such as us, are in […]
To begin from the beginning, my colleagues and I had arrived here Tuesday, smack into a minus-three centigrade (-3°C) weather at Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo Airport, having left a 30°C Lagos weather. It is winter in South Africa and in the world’s Southern Hemisphere (when all others in the northern hemisphere, such as us, are in summer). Those among our team who arrived wearing flowing ‘babbar riga’ and sandals have since regretted their choice of apparel from home. When the freezer is warmer than one’s situation, one is in for it.
A little bit of the host country of the 2010 World Cup (as if you don’t know): the Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa straddling the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. It borders Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe to the north; to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland; while Lesotho is an independent country wholly surrounded by South African territory. With a population of over 49 million, South Africa produces over 40,000 Megawatts of electricity (a measurement almost every Nigerian can quickly grasp and rationalise, when one compares this to 140 million vs. 3,000 Megawatts and trying).
To drive home the importance of electricity to development, the 40,000MW produced by South Africa is grossly inadequate in view of the electricity crisis the country went through in late 2007. At present, South Africa accounts for 60% of all of Africa’s electricity, and has the only nuclear-powered electricity station on the continent, located at Koeberg near Cape Town, supplying 1,800 MW from its two reactors. (Nuclear power is still the option Nigeria MUST adopt to extricate us from the mess of power holding and not releasing).
South Africa is ethnically diverse. About 80% of the population is black African, divided among a variety of ethnic groups, the major ones being Zulu with 23.8% of the population (and President Jacob Zuma’s ethnic group), Xhosa 17.6% (Nelson Mandela’s), Sepedi 9.4%, Setswana 8.2%, Sesotho 7.9% and Xitsonga 4.4%. Eleven official languages are recognised in the constitution; two of these are of European origin: Afrikaans, a language which originated mainly from Dutch that is spoken by the majority of white and so-called coloured South Africans, and South African English. According to the 2001 census, whites account for less than 10% of the country’s population (yet they ruled for almost 400 years), the coloureds number 8.9% and the Indians and other Asians 2.5%.
South Africa became really independent, meaning black-majority rule, only in 1994 after over three hundred years of white racist rule by the Boers, originally from the Netherlands and now known as Afrikaans, and later by British colonialists. History records Shaka, the King of the Zulu and a contemporary of our own Shehu Uthman bn Fodio as having inflicted major defeats on the marauding British settlers back in the early 19th Century. The British only consolidated their power after the death of Shaka.
When Nelson Mandela became President in 1994, the apartheid-infused and skeptical white population foretold tales of doom for a black-led nation built on the image of the white (as the whites never expected, or intended, to leave). Some of the whites who didn’t want black Africans to succeed predicted that ‘blacks are not good managers’ and, therefore, within two years of independence ‘the economy would collapse!’ They also predicted that, within five years, owing to the same lack of skills by blacks, the comparatively advanced infrastructure left behind by the whites (such as energy, telecoms and water supply) ‘would also collapse!’
In fact, the doomsday scenario had it that by 2004, ten years after independence, the black society ‘would disintegrate’ into Civil War (perhaps Zulu fighting Xhosa and so on)! But as the Hausa say, ‘ta Allah ba ta su ba’, nothing of the sort has come to pass and, apart from maintaining a relatively advanced economy and infrastructure, South Africa has managed an excellent democratic transition where a sacked Vice President turned around and took over the ruling party and sacked a sitting President, his former boss, and became President himself. Add to that, the country is currently hosting Africa’s first football World Cup, so far to the admiration of the rest of the world. And (to add salt to the Nigerian injury) if you have MTN as your telecoms provider, you are under the economic colonial rule of South Africa. The country is already a member of the G20, the group of the world’s 20 most developed nations which we want to be member of by 2020 (Vision 20:2020).
And who is that Giant of Africa again?
Yes, there is crime, disease, poverty and unemployment in South Africa. But the difference between us is that the African National Congress ANC-led government has accepted that and is squarely addressing it, while the People’s Democratic Party PDP-led government in Nigeria only pays lip service to similar issues. In South Africa, for example, about a quarter of the population, mainly the poor and the unemployed, receive some regular money as social grants as part of national social security from the government, whereas in Nigeria we are yet to see government action proceeding from General Yakubu Gowon’s Social Security Committee, which has since submitted its report. Furthermore in South Africa, government builds millions of small houses to house the poor, whereas in Nigeria the government sold all its own houses mostly to the well-to-do.
And to digress: didn’t France ban the face-covering Muslim Niqab recently? And so who assigned a Saudi referee for the France-Mexico match? No wonder the Mexicans defeated the French 2-0. Up Niqab! But know what? You must give it to the French for colour-blindness (the positive aspect). In the starting line-up, the French national team paraded six blacks out of the 11 players on offer. Six! And Nigeria also was generous enough; we offered one half-white, albeit with a truly Nigerian name. Come to think of it, where are blacks among Argentineans and Mexicans? Do they want to tell us no blacks were ever shipped there during the infamous slave trade? Mexico paraded one salutary half-black, but none among Maradona’s team. Questions for another day.
It is sad that most African teams, except for Ghana, are not on winning streaks in the tournament. The South African national team, Bafana Bafana (the name is a term of endearment which means ‘the boys, the boys’ or, in Hausa, ‘Yan Yara-Yara) is not doing well either. So it seems we shall all to Ghana go and then, if Ghana falters, we do the usual African football apartheid (since almost all Africans support their country first and Brazil second) and support Brazil. So, readers, Up Brazil in advance!
But never say die: On Tuesday next week, my colleagues and I travel to Durban to watch Nigeria’s last group match, against Korea Republic. Hope our Goodluck will return.