I have often heard it said by racists and others that Black Africans are incapable of building a modern, civilised, harmonious, democratic and lawful state. Their argument is based on the assumptions that Black Africans are uncivilised savages whose primitive leanings render them incapable of building a modern state. Francis Fukuyama in his book the origins of political order placed Black Africans last on his categorisation of races. Again, his conclusion was based on the long held assumptions of Black African inferiority. Interestingly; the proponents of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, apartheid, segregation and other forms of racial subjugation and discrimination all premised and justified their actions on the same assumptions. Unfortunately, African nations have not done anything to challenge these long held assumptions. If anything, the plethora of bad news and barbarity often manifested in the continent only serves to vindicate these assumptions.
A case in point is the savage and despicable inhumanity manifested in the senseless xenophobic or “afrophobic” attacks as some prefer to call it on African immigrants resident in South Africa. Immigrants mainly from other African countries have been burned to death, stabbed to death while their shops have been looted before the gaping and shocked eyes of a global audience. That this could happen in a country once held hostage by White Apartheid leaders for which the rest of Africa rallied for their freedom speaks volumes. And this would not be the first time such “afrophobic” attacks have occurred. In 2008, similar brutal attacks claimed the lives of 62 people from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi who were likewise slaughtered before the eyes of a global audience. These barbarities no doubt feeds into the long held assumptions of Black Africans as an uncivilised savage race.
That a country such as South Africa with modern infrastructure and functional institutions inherited from the erstwhile Apartheid regime could not prevent the descent into raw hostilities against fellow Africans underscores the beginning of the decline of the South African state. The problem is not helped with the troubling fact that both the Zulu king and the son of the president made inciting remarks against African immigrants that helped in large part to ignite the violence. South Africa is regrettably beginning to go the way of other African countries marked by failed and failing states enveloped in corruption, bad governance and engaged in ethnic, religious and terrorist conflicts. There is not a single modern African state where social justice and the rule of law reign supreme, all are shambolic states where the barbarities that are beginning to take shape in South Africa is either common place or can erupt at any time.
With recurrent episodes and an evolving culture of savage attacks on African immigrants, it won’t take long before the attackers would find new enemies amongst their own people and like other African countries the floodgates of inter-ethnic conflicts would be opened in South Africa. Justifying blames are today heaped on African immigrants, tomorrow it could be the Zulu or Zhosa amongst other South African ethnic groups that could suffer the same blame and the internalisation of the carnage would begin. Frankenstein’s always turn around to devour its creator and this is a sure path of perdition that South Africa is sure to travel in due course except the government acts decisively. Indeed there is already a precedent as the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi unleashed a wave of violence against other black South Africans just prior to the end of Apartheid (at that time there were no African immigrants to attack), it took a deft political management and negotiation by Nelson Mandela to nip the crises in the bud. The undercurrents of such conflicts remain embedded within the South African society as the xenophobic or afrophobic attacks demonstrate and in time the chickens will surely come home to roost and South Africa will have to deal with a demon it created and allowed to fester.
But South Africa is surely not alone in its treatment of African immigrants, in the 80’s Nigeria organised a mass deportation of Ghanaians in a campaign christened “Ghana must go.” Ghana had earlier done same to Nigerians. In Angola and practically all African countries African immigrants are treated like scum while Asian or European immigrants are worshipped. There is something in the psyche or psychology of the Black African that makes him hate his own kind. There is not a single African country where an African immigrant can settle down, feel at home and be integrated. Ironically, African immigrants can find the peace and settlement they never found amongst their own kind in Africa in faraway foreign lands in Europe or the America’s.
Locally in Nigeria the problem of tribalism is even worse. The Nigeria quagmire reminds me of a polygamous man married to many wives whose children by the different wives are indoctrinated by their mothers to hate, vilify, oppress, marginalise and in extreme cases kill the children of other women. Though the children are all from the same father, their different mothers have created a situation where the children as educated by their mothers would rather patronise, love or help total strangers than have anything to do with their siblings from a different mother. The analogy of the polygamous father with many wives is the tragic situation of Nigeria’s different ethnic groups under one nation with each being taught to hate the other. Though Nigerian leaders fattened by their loot like to pretend otherwise, Nigeria is a deeply divided country along ethnic and religious lines that has frequently erupted in violence. The existence of an ethnic cold war is all too evident in Nigerian forums where all kinds of ethnic vitriol and abuse are hauled by internet urchins.
The recent elections have only further revealed how ethnically divided Nigerians are as different individuals and groups abdicated democratic principles and chose ethnic abuse, threats and intimidation to advance their candidates. From the Oba of Lagos who threatened a section of the country with death if they didn’t vote for his imperial candidate to the many internet urchins on facebook, twitter and other social media outlets that likewise indulged in abuse and threats, it is obvious the nation is poisoned by tribalism. To demonstrate how bad the situation is; Nigeria is the only country on earth where you become a foreigner once you leave your so called state of origin to reside in another state. A nation that exists in name only, in reality you are a foreigner in more than 95% of the country outside your home state. Indeed even in the supposedly cosmopolitan former federal capital city of Lagos you are constantly reminded of this fact.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. Nigeria has moved from MEND, OPC, MASSOB to Boko Haram while more than 250,000 people have been killed with another 300,000 maimed in decades of ethno religious riots engendered by tribalism and religious fundamentalism. With these sorry realities the Nigerian leadership refuses to accept the necessity or importance of nation building. Already a failed state, this denial of an obvious truth will ensure that the poisoned chalice of tribalism with which Nigeria is deeply afflicted will more than anything else kill the country sooner or later. Much of Africa is riddled with the same crises from Rwanda to Burundi; DRC to Sudan, Africa suffers from a self consuming dilemma of hate. The little effort made by the likes of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Leopold Sedar Senghor and Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe in Pan -Africanism was not rooted before these noble men passed on and left Africa to the perpetual conflict and chains of tribalism that has ruined the continent.
Africa has consequently continued to vindicate those who say the black race is inferior and cannot build a modern state. With the barbarity in South Africa, tribalism in Nigeria and ethno-religious conflicts in much of Africa the narrative of African inferiority is being consolidated by the day. We all as Africans are guilty one way or the other by the unnecessary tribal sentiments, prejudice and hate we hold against other Africans and fellow nationals. We must look at ourselves in the mirror and realise that the problem and solution lies in us. We must accordingly begin to change our attitude. Harmony and attendant prosperity is in our collective interest the alternative being a continuation of our dilemma of hate and the sure destruction that accompanies it to which the unenviable ruin of the African continent remains a testament.
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Lawrence Chinedu Nwobu
Email: lawrencenwobu@gmail.com
