The mob in South Africa: Matters arising

Several matters arose from my article last week: Engaging the Mob in South Africa. As I alluded there, this matter of South African mob making concerted, violent, attacks on Nigerians sojourning there should be left to our diplomats to handle. They have the training and pedigree to sort out the issue. Unleashing our own mob […]

Several matters arose from my article last week: Engaging the Mob in South Africa. As I alluded there, this matter of South African mob making concerted, violent, attacks on Nigerians sojourning there should be left to our diplomats to handle. They have the training and pedigree to sort out the issue. Unleashing our own mob on South African businesses in Nigeria only exacerbates the crisis. There had been many initiatives in the past many years by international organizations to banish and even criminalize xenophobia. It was only at the turn of this century that they all coalesced under the umbrella of the United Nations, whom as you’d expect, gave the aspirations coherence and raison d’etre. This is what came to be known as the Durban Declaration.

I was surprised that many are not aware of the Durban Declaration, mentioned by Ambassador Usman Sarki in the NTA programme, the excerpts I shared with the readers last week. Actually, it was an initiative of the United Nations (UN) against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. The document produced at the conference contained all the measures to obliterate those listed evils including xenophobia. It is instructive to note that the conference held in Durban, South Africa. There had been a review of the document in follow-up conferences. There was one in New York in 2009 and as recent as last year there had been moves to have another review. What is required now, is for us to prod our government to domesticate these declarations and seek South Africa and wherever we have large number of citizens to do the same so that our citizens can receive the necessary protection.

The Air Peace Airline free offer to bring back Nigerians stranded in the violent streets of South Africa was one of the most laudable strides to come out of the saga. I watched the footage of the video of the evacuation flight out of South Africa where the Air Peace Chairman, Chief Allen Onyema, was having a tearful interaction with the evacuees. For once citizens outside our shores seemed relieved that they had not been thrown under the bus. It was pleasing to see the evacuees lustily singing the Nigerian National Anthem. I guess it was a sudden gesture of appreciation to a nation that had solidly stood by them in their hour of tribulation.

As for the leadership in South Africa, they should bury their heads in shame for allowing their citizens to mete out such inhuman treatment to fellow Africans. If this goes on I could see South Africa easily falling back to the notoriety of being a pariah state as they were labelled during those dark days of the apartheid era. If its citizens continued to attack, maim and destroy the properties of the citizens of their neighbours, who’d feel safe to do business there? This revulsion towards the xenophobic attacks in South Africa was thrown at the face of their President Cyril Ramaphosa when he showed up in Harare on Saturday at the state funeral of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.

I watched the footage of the video where President Ramaphosa was booed and heckled by the mourners gathered at the Harare National Stadium when he attempted to pay his tribute to the dead.  The heckling and booing stopped when the crowd realized that Ramaphosa was contrite, as he acknowledged the shame xenophobia brought to his country. He went on to say: ‘In the past two weeks we have had challenges, some of which was directed at nationals of other countries. This has led to the deaths and injuries to other people – some of which are nationals of other countries, but the majority of which were South Africans. I stand before you to apologise for what has happened in our country.’

I understand that President Ramaphosa is extending similar olive branches to other aggrieved countries whose nationals were affected by the orgy of killings and destruction. He has appointed a special envoy, a former minister, Jeff Radebe, to visit Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo to placate raw nerves. Radebe is a highly connected politician who had been a minister in every cabinet since the end of apartheid in 1994 and he is also a brother-in-law to President Ramophosa. When his ship berth at our shores our diplomats must not hesitate to tell him as it is. Condemnation, compensation, contrition, and never a repeat.

100 cheers to the Governors 100 days

It has now become the norm for the first hundred days of our Governors in office to be lavishly celebrated. I hope I’ll not be accused of joining the madding crowd by cheering the governors. My 100 cheers go mainly to those Governors who are new in the saddle because they are the ones that are making valiant efforts to show that they have gone beyond just being the new kids on the block.

I was in Maiduguri for most of the week attending a scheduled meeting in the Government House. I was not surprised that there were no evidences of lavish celebrations for attaining the magic 100 days. The frugality of the Governor, Professor Umar Zulum is becoming a legend of its own. The only luxury allowed was a circular by the Secretary to the State Government, Usman Jidda Shuwa detailing the 120 projects executed by the Governor in the first 100 days. But I have noted the frenetic activities particularly the fact that the Professor had visited 20 out of the 27 local Government Headquarters of the State, some of them close to 200 km away from Maiduguri, the capital city.

This is a no mean courageous act, if one considers the hazards of attacks by insurgents lurking in the vast areas of the state. But I understand that he is showing leadership by example, as he is bent on decongesting Maiduguri of government officials. He is not giving an inch to the antics of bandits and had given marching orders to all traditional rulers that had moved to Maiduguri, due to the insurgency, to return to their emirates and this had already been complied with. Of course local government chairmen and their staff now routinely operate from their headquarters unlike before when they were all bunched up in Maiduguri. One could feel a sense of urgency in the utterances of the Governor to get things doing despite the desperate situations in the northern parts of the state. I understand that he had enjoined his commissioners, when they were taking oath of office, not to hesitate and fear visits to any local government area of the state.

But what really caught my attention was the fact that the Governor now also operates from the Musa Usman Secretariat. Actually there is no precedence to this. I had known the space the secretariat now occupies in the 1960s as a wooded area where as children we hunted for snails in the rainy season. The area was cleared in the early 1970s for building the secretariat by the first Military Governor, Musa Usman. I recall occupying some offices when I worked there in the 1980s and 90s. In all these years I could not remember any governor holding office within the Secretariat. All the past Governors had lived and worked in the Government House tucked away in the GRA. For the civil servant I guess it would be a fresh challenge having the Governor among them.  But I suppose they realize that it is a tacit acknowledgement to the pivotal role the service plays in the realization of government’s aspirations. With the Governor now within earshot, I doubt if there would be any absenteeism, late-coming or laxity. A fresh start, so to speak.