The paradox of patronage: When liberation forgets the continent

Few political tragedies are as unsettling as watching a liberation struggle, born in a vast moral imagination and sustained by solidarities larger than itself, begin to turn with suspicion toward those who once helped sustain it. In South Africa, that irony is no abstraction. It resides in the uneasy collision between a history shaped by […]

Few political tragedies are as unsettling as watching a liberation struggle, born in a vast moral imagination and sustained by solidarities larger than itself, begin to turn with suspicion toward those who once helped sustain it. In South Africa, that irony is no abstraction. It resides in the uneasy collision between a history shaped by continental support and a present in which fellow Africans are treated less as participants in a shared journey than as burdens or rivals. Today, as South African corporate giants thrive on Nigerian soil while Nigerians face hostility on South African streets, we must confront a disquieting truth: a freedom that demands our markets but rejects our people is a freedom that has begun to forget itself.

To understand the scale of this argument, one must look at the sheer depth of Nigerian patronage that fuels the South African economy. There is no mobile network in this country more patronised than MTN, which commands over half the market with nearly 94 million subscribers. For MTN, Nigeria is not a mere territory; it is the engine of its global profit, a lifeline that has sustained the group even when its home economy faltered. In the world of media, there is no platform more patronised than MultiChoice, where DStv and GOtv have made Nigerian living rooms the most lucrative territory in their portfolio. From the financial corridors of Stanbic IBTC to the retail floors of PEP, South African brands enjoy a level of dominance that local competitors envy. They are woven into the fabric of our daily lives, kept standing by the hard-earned money of a people who have offered them unparalleled hospitality and market access.

Yet, this economic embrace is met with a chilling reciprocity. The recurring waves of xenophobic attacks, the lives extinguished and the businesses reduced to ash, are not simply immigration disputes. They are symptoms of a liberation that has contracted under the pressure of disappointment. History, however, has a longer memory than politics. South Africa’s freedom was never an isolated national event; it was shaped in the shelter of neighbouring countries and by sacrifices made well beyond its borders. It was, in an important sense, continental before it became constitutional.

It is a historical fact that often goes unmentioned in the heat of current tensions that Nigeria was a primary sanctuary for the architects of South African freedom. In 1963, Nelson Mandela was hidden in Lagos for six months to evade the apartheid regime’s reach, staying with Nigerian leaders who risked everything to protect him. It was Nigeria’s First Speaker and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jaja Wachuku, who intervened during the Rivonia Trial to help save Mandela and his colleagues from the death penalty. Former President Thabo Mbeki lived in Nigeria for seven years, supported by a government and a people who saw apartheid not as a South African burden, but as a continental affront. From activists like Ezekiel Mphahlele to the billions of dollars Nigeria spent supporting the ANC in exile, the liberation of the South was a project funded by the sweat and sovereignty of the North.

That is why the current hostility carries such unsettling weight. It is a breach of an ancient, unspoken contract. You cannot systematically reject a people in your streets while simultaneously embracing their money in your markets. You cannot benefit from the Giant of Africa’s economic warmth while treating its citizens with the cold shoulder of xenophobia. This is not a call for blind hatred, but for a restoration of the moral and economic reciprocity that gave the liberation movement its meaning.

The tragedy is compounded by the internal indifference of the Nigerian state. What stops our leadership from using its influence to demand accountability, to impose sanctions, or to downgrade diplomatic ties as a signal that an attack on a citizen is a direct assault on the nation’s sovereignty? It is a staggering indictment of our government that they only seem to find their voice when their own elite business interests are threatened. If our government will not rate the sanctity of Nigerian lives, then the Nigerian citizen must rate themselves.

This is a fundamental crisis of the African Dream. If the African Continental Free Trade Area is to mean anything, it cannot be a one-way bridge where South African capital flows north while Nigerian lives are hunted in the south. Relationships between nations must be governed by the iron clad principle of reciprocity. I open my doors to your capital, and you ensure the safety of my people. These corporate giants possess immense lobbying power in Pretoria. If their bottom lines are tied to Nigerian peace, they have a moral and financial obligation to ensure their home government protects the very people who fund their dividends.

Until a Nigerian can walk through Johannesburg with the same ease that a South African business operates in Lagos, the Pan African brotherhood remains a hollow marketing slogan. Respect is the currency of international relations and for too long, Nigeria has been operating with a deficit. We do not seek a trade war, but we must demand a peace that includes us. When the respect is no longer mutual, the patronage must no longer be automatic. If the Nigerian consumer is the king of the African market, then it is time for the king to demand the dignity that his crown deserves.

 

Shaakaa can be reached through [email protected]