Ezeikpe Odinaka CA Emejuru
Frontline politician and community leader, Chief C.A Emejuru has relived his international experience while doing business in South Africa side by side with recent xenophobic uproar in the country.
In a detailed social media post made available to Business Hilights.ng, Chief Emejuru started by saying “I hereby express my opinion and offer some candid advice as not just an ex-South African resident but one who went into South Africa as an expatriate entrepreneur, that had a thriving business which was duly registered with the South African government department, employed tens of South Africans, maintained business relationships with established corporate entities and South African parastatals, got legitimately married to a South African, had a child in the marriage before South Africa happened to me and today, I am home to my country and picking the pieces.
“I do express all these to basically give a perspective on the ongoing unrest and proffer a solution to especially those Nigerians and non-South African blacks still hooked to that country that was once the pride of Africa.
“The issue of xenophobia or what can be better called South Africa’s Afro-phobia of the 2026 propensity is simply put; a ritual taken beyond irredeemable proportion.
“Relying on my many years of traversing the Steve Biko nation of our then dreams, I realised that one beautiful lesson other Africans should learn from the blacks of South Africa is their ability to remain focused on whatever struggles they choose. When South Africans claim that they are a strong people, they do not say so to threaten the weaklings. Check through their struggles against apartheid and you’ll find a people so resolute that martyrdom is a virtue.
“Now that the demand for other non-South African blacks to return and contribute in repairing their abandoned home countries, a demand that was started by a few South Africans but has grown to a proportion that South African major political parties are catching in, there can be no better time for the vulnerable African visitors to South Africa to get the message and do the needful.
“Many have been challenged to accept the very difficult narrative that the sustained call by South African blacks, as Afro-phobic as some of the rhetorics may appear, is truly a patriotic call.
“With a special focus on the issues of South Africa based Nigerians in the whole scenario, the multi-million dollar question would be; when the Nigerian government and the political party in power has continually failed the citizens in a multi party democracy, the opposition political parties can be said to offer disservice when they have collectively, as in the current case where not even the most popular opposition political parties have shown visible concerns towards the fate of the stranded Nigerians in South Africa.
“Lessons to be learnt by the affected multitudes of Nigerians in South Africa includes the undeniable fact that many of the Nigerians in South Africa has not only disengaged themselves from the necessary political participation to change the irresponsible leadership of affairs in their country. Just like their South African counterparts, the stranded Nigerians as the other African blacks should form themselves into unites to make meaningful contributions for better political leadership in their home countries, just like their South African counterparts. The returnees must identify with and support a political platform that promises a leadership of the type they sacrifice all to enjoy in South Africa that appear to have rejected them.
“And to the political leadership in Nigeria, it is baffling to find that no political party has organised itself ideologically attractive enough to the South Africa returnees that has been exposed to the politically active South Africa. Some Nigerian political parties has their diaspora desks but most of them are just ceremonial. Otherwise, the situation that Nigerians find themselves in today’s South Africa should see the type of response where Nigerian political parties are rendering assistance to the would-be returnees to swell their membership for a better society.
The time to act is now.
Odinaka CA Emejuru.
