Another angle to view the xenophobic attacks on our people

EDITORIAL

The best way to protect Nigerians from all kinds of oppression abroad is to give them a life within Nigeria that is better or equal to what they can have abroad.

As long as we have in Nigeria every manner of hardship, misery, poverty, persecution and injustice, Nigerians will be forced to leave Nigeria in large number. As millions of Nigerians flee the country in search of refuge in countries better managed than ours, they will put pressure on the resources of those countries who gradually begin to resent our people’s growing presence in their land.

South Africans know that Nigerians coming to live in South Africa were mostly those escaping oppression and injustice and unemployment, while South Africans coming to Nigeria are coming with their investment capital. It is not the same. If you kill a Nigerian family in South Africa, no South African suffers. But if you burn down Shoprite stores in Nigeria, many Nigerians will lose their employment, which forces more of them to migrate to South Africa where they will be killed.

As we fight xenophobia in South Africa, we must not forget the root cause of it. Let those who rule Nigeria create a country that millions of South Africans will like to come and live in. Let them create a country that many Nigerians will not need to run away from. And xenophobia against Nigerians will stop. It is indeed naive to assume that the presence of Shoprite in Nigeria is the same as the presence of a Nigerian worker in South Africa.

When you set your house on fire and force your family to run to the house of your neighbor for shelter, time shall come when your neighbor will ask your family to leave. Countries who make their citizens unsafe are putting pressure on other countries. We must address that too.

I will not like to be a neighbor to Nigeria without building a tall fence. I can tell that sooner or later, Nigerian government will drive their citizens across the border into my space and that will cause me trouble. When your neighbor refuses to feed his children, that may cause you to use food meant for your children to feed your neighbor’s neglected children, thereby depriving and impoverishing your own children. Who does that?