Showing posts with label Bheki Cele. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bheki Cele. Show all posts

Friday, September 13, 2019

The Nigeria/South Africa Palaver

By Adekeye Adebajo
I was recently visiting Lagos – the city of my birth – when I found myself feeling a sense of déjà vu as I watched South African mobs on television looting and attacking shops owned by Nigerians and other Africans. We have been here before. Nigerians were among those hurt in the horrific xenophobic attacks of 2008 when 62 people – mostly Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, and Malawians – were killed, and 100,000 displaced. More recently, in March 2017, South African vigilantes burned and looted scores of homes and businesses belonging to Nigerians in Rosettenville, Mamelodi, and Atteridgeville in Gauteng province, which they alleged were drug dens and brothels.


Having lived in South Africa for 16 years, one of my biggest frustrations is the failure of so many of its citizens to embrace an African identity and of the government to attract more skilled Africans to its shores in order to create an “America in Africa”. America’s genius has, of course, been its ability to attract the best and brightest from the rest of the world – trained at huge expense by these countries – and to turn them into American citizens or green-card holders.