After every attack against black Africans in South Africa, Nigerians wonder how the country could forget its contributions in freeing it from apartheid. But in reality many young South Africans are unaware because their leaders have scrubbed off any mention of Nigeria’s support from their history.
A recent visit to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg indicates just how pervasive this ignorance is. Since 2001, the Apartheid Museum offers an emotional insight into the period of state-sanctioned racism and segregation that lasted from 1948 to 1994, but nowhere did it mention contributions by Nigeria.
The museum, which is one of Johannesburg’s must-visit attractions, painstakingly documents the struggle of the South African people to overcome apartheid. It has 22 individual exhibition areas, all of which use a combination of artefacts, photographs, film footage and information panels to document the rise and fall of apartheid, giving visitors an idea of what it was like to live in South Africa at the time.
The museum experience begins at the entrance, where guests are arbitrarily divided into “whites” and “non-whites” and made to enter through separate doors—indicating how people were grouped into four racial categories and treated accordingly.
Four prominent themes inside the exhibition halls are “Apartheid,” “The Turn to Violence,” “The Homelands” and “The Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” The first explores the social and political factors that led to the creation of the apartheid regime and features a list of apartheid laws as well as photographs of the forced relocations that took place under the Group Areas Act of 1950. “The Turn to Violence” documents the ANC and the PAC’s decision to form underground-armed wings in the wake of the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960.
‘The Turn to Violence,’ also captured support received by the ANC from African countries with pictures of military training in Tanzania and an entire wall devoted to Algerian support. Nelson Mandela co-founded the ANC’s military wing Umkhonto weSizwe in December 1961 after he found protests insufficient. He visited troops of the FLN in Morocco earlier in 1961 during a tour of Africa designed to establish Umkhonto weSizwe as the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).
When this reporter asked his tour guide, a highly cerebral corporate executive who was schooled in South Africa and the United States, why there was no mention of support from Nigeria, he said: “We have no official record of any support by Nigeria to the fight against apartheid.”
This ignorance is so pervasive even among college professors and government officials. Museum officials, ranking South Africans and regular people, especially under 35 years, say they are unaware of any financial support given to the ANC by Nigeria. 65 percent of South Africans are between 15 and 65 years, and at least over half were born after 1994. Older black South Africans over 60 years say they have heard of some support, and curiously, white South Africans interviewed had more knowledge about Nigeria’s support across various age groups.
During administration of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s foreign policy was largely Africa-focused and was shaped in large part by South Africa’s struggle against apartheid.
Successive military regimes until Olusegun Obasanjo followed the same trend. A publication by the defunct African Standard newspaper puts the support at about $61 billion. In the 1960s and 1970s, when the naira had more value than the dollar, Nigeria also issued over 300 passports to South Africans who fled their country.
“Young South Africans do not know their history. The people of this continent stood behind South Africa to fight against apartheid,” said John Mahama, former Ghanaian president in the wake of this recent spate of attacks.
Mahama further said, “Even though not a neighbour of South Africa, Nigeria was considered a frontline state because of the financial support that Nigeria gave to the ANC to liberate South Africa from apartheid.”
Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a former South African minister of Home Affairs, during a speech at the 82nd birthday celebration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in March, acknowledged that even though citizens of Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania and others were facing social challenges, such as poverty and unemployment, “they embraced our countrymen and women. You gave sanctuary to our exiles.
“Indisputably, South Africa owes a debt of gratitude to Nigeria, and to all of Africa, for supporting our liberation struggle. We owe our freedom to our friends as much as to our own people.”
But this reality is lost on the hundreds of South Africans killing Nigerians and other foreigners and looting their businesses in a mindless orgy of violence and given even tacit support by the police and government officials.
Analysts are calling on Nigeria to act beyond just summoning the ambassador and be more strategic in its foreign affairs.
“When Nigeria was doing big brother Africa without any strategies, these are the results,” Chima Akunwata, a medical professional, said on social media. He offered the United States as an example of a country that maintained its strategic interests in any intervention.
ISAAC ANYAOGU
