Tag: Xenophobia

If the Nigerian federal government ever harboured the thought about being “on top’ of the mindless rage against their citizens in the former apartheid enclave, the brutal slaughter of a Nigerian auto mechanic, Rasak Ajao, by some South Africans in Polokwane, Limpopo Province on April 6, ought to have removed that illusion. For while the inept ANC government of Jacob Zuma continues to deny that xenophobia constitute one of its directing principles, and the Nigerian government joins in mouthing the nonsense about engagement, the picture that comes out is as grotesque as it is unmistakeable: Xenophobia is actually the way ordinary South Africans and their hypocritical elites live and have their being. Less familiar of course is the benign form of the virus daily served on Nigerians right on their soil – by the country’s ill-tutored consular officials.
Truly, I had heard different versions of the same story of ill-treatment of Nigerians by South African officials at their embassy in Lagos. A fellow Nigerian who was billed to attend a Motor Show sponsored by a South African company had the trip aborted as the embassy only released her passport days after the event was concluded. A cousin who had journeyed from Benin to Lagos for visa was told to wait until after the conclusion of the training programme – never mind that it was the very reason for the trip and for which he had already spent a fortune – to obtain the visa! A company executive had to storm the embassy to demand for his passports after the latter withheld same for weeks. His ‘crime’ was that he visited a third country – I believe Swaziland – in the course of an earlier visit. The dumb officials couldn’t understand why another sovereign country would oblige him their visa from their country!
I would get my bitter serving of their pill in March. Late February, yours truly embarked on a six-week vacation that was to include a two-week visit to the former apartheid enclave. For a 40-day holiday, I thought I had just about enough time to apply for a visa. After all, their website said something about six days minimum to process the visa. In all, I assumed that the maximum would be no more than 10 working days or at worst 15, just as any thoughts of denial of visa were far from my mind. My mistake.
Confident of my bona fide, I sent in my completed application at the VFS office in Lagos February 13. And then the waiting game began. One week stretched to two and then three; yet no word. The agents – VFS – said they had no control. The embassy, I was told, was a no-go as they don’t deal with individual applicants. By the fourth week, I could no longer accept that the situation.
By the fifth week, I had clearly had enough. I called the agents – VFS – which advised I call the embassy directly. A day, two days, the embassy wouldn’t pick my call. Frustrated, I called VFS people who insisted I keep trying. Finally, on March 16, a lady picked the phone. After collecting my details, she assured me I would hear from them. True to her word, I did – barely two hours later: a text message requesting me to proceed to the VFS for my passport. With 10 days left of the six-week vacation, I settled on making the best of what had turned to a bad situation. What I got instead was a shocker: application refused! Reason? Some silly incomprehensible nonsense about some transactions in my bank statement not being credible!
Let me be clear. I perfectly understood the bit about issuance of visa being a privilege. In the age of terrorism and social cataclysm, I do understand why embassies would go the extra mile to keep undesirable visitors at bay. However, I also do understand that the visa hurdle is not meant to be an iron curtain to deny legitimate visitors entry otherwise the whole point about opening consular offices would be pointless.
Thanks to South Africa’s affirmative action, I have heard that a good number of the consular staff are barely of high school grade and so could barely read local newspapers; even at that, one considers it utterly disgraceful that consular officials could not make the distinction between a journalist/ columnist with a national newspaper and the hordes of potential economic migrants said to daily besiege their embassy.
So much for my conceit. I had visited the country before together with my wife and three children. Moreover; I had a letter of invitation from my younger brother – a specialist family physician, including a letter of introduction from my employer – this newspaper – confirming my employment status. Besides, I had I had multiple visas on my passport – including United States and Canada –which the South Africans were apparently fastidious about and which they insisted on my showing proof with photocopies in the application. Now, at age 50+, I would consider myself effectively out of that broad category that has become the South African nightmare: the class of Nigerian professional supposedly predisposed to stealing their women; not excluding his compatriot street-hustler who do drugs in the country’s poverty and crime infested suburbs.
Anyway, the accompanying note said I could re-apply within 10 working days if I was not satisfied with their decision! So much for consolation after waiting for 31-days!
Ask anyone who has dared to apply for their visa, they would tell you that my story is typical. I must admit though that things are shades better than they were some 10 years ago when officials behaved like emperors and treated people like they have no use for their time. I recall an instance when I had to wait at the embassy till 10 pm for a 2 pm appointment!
Never mind the so-called principle of reciprocity, (forget the lie about African brotherhood), South Africans do not think much of us or our government. Told that some 20 Nigerians had been killed in the renewed wave of xenophobia, South Africa Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba reportedly asked Nigerians to stop “complaining too much about the renewed attack on Nigerian nationals in the country”. Daring Big Brother to do its worst he warned: “This is the discussion South Africa would not want to get into as it would turn ugly…I am not privy to the figures from the Nigerian government and how they collected them…I do not think it is the discussion we want to get into. It will turn out very bad. Countries should desist from pointing fingers at each other”!
Still think xenophobia is not official? How about the City of Johannesburg mayor, Herman Mashaba’s December call on illegal immigrants to leave his city? “You see, for me, when I call these criminals, criminals, I want them to understand that they are criminals,” Mashaba was quoted to have said, adding, “They are holding our country to ransom and I am going to be the last South African to allow it.”
Or the Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini’s devastating riposte to Big Brother: “The fact that there were countries that played a role in the country’s struggle for liberation should not be used as an excuse to create a situation where foreigners are allowed to inconvenience locals”.
The South Africans are right. The cups of our brother migrants are full and brimming over – their sins being no more than choosing to live in the unwelcoming country. And truly, many of them are known to do stuff from the petty to the heinous. But then, are they more sinning than local South African companies who rape and pillage our economy under the guise of foreign investment?
It is alright for politicians and the elite to look away as hoodlums chase the kwerekwere (foreigner) with arrows and machetes in the inner cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria. With their corporate interests doing murder and mayhem in the Nigerians economy, I hope someone, somewhere would remember the rule of unanticipated consequences.
And sure it would happen, sooner than later!