By Chinedu Ekwealor
Recurring xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals in South Africa suggest that South Africa is increasingly becoming unstable. The claim that these attacks are linked to poverty in South African is dubious. Accounts available in the international arena suggest that none of the 193 United Nations recognised countries in the world is poverty-free. All of them cry of unemployment and poverty. Moreover, if poverty sparks attacks on non-natives, Zimbabwe would have the highest number of xenophobic-attack-deaths.
For South Africans to attack their own is regrettable. It is not unprecedented but it is certainly most unfortunate, since South Africans can no longer appeal to sympathy against apartheid, especially if they increase the violence of xenophobia. This will disadvantage South Africa in African political and economic affairs. The claim that jobs are being taken from the South Africans by foreign nationals is laughable. Which jobs? The Spaza shop of the Somalian or Ethiopian which he built with his money? Or the medical doctors in South African hospitals? There are no demonstrations in any of the hospitals in this land, even after Herman Mashaba’s 2016 comment.
Surely, there are South Africans who abhor the xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals and there are also foreign nationals who have become sincerely infuriated by the incidents of 2008, 2016, and 2017. And this explains why Nigeria’s response to the situation is increasingly firm. Without a doubt, South Africa has investments all over Africa. Shoprite, MTN, DSTV, and others generate and repatriate billions of rands into South Africa; these benefit the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), Scholarships and other grants within the education sector to give South African youth a better future. Majority of the monies spent on free education for South Africans are partly generated from Nigeria, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and elsewhere on African soil.
Dr Ekwealor Chinedu Thomas is the Academic Development Officer in the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s School of Social Science, and the Chairman of the Nigerian Union in South Africa, Pietermaritzburg Ward.