Xenophobia – This is what happens when a king ‘misyarns’

Man to man is so unjust, children:

Ya don’t know who to trust.

Your worst enemy could be your best friend,

And your best friend your worse enemy. – Bob Marley

By now most people have heard of the ongoing madness in South Africa where xenophobia is the order of the day and has thus led to the loss of several lives, damage of several properties belonging to other Africans like Somalians, Zimbabweans, Nigerians, etc who are residing in South Africa and protests across the country.

The pictures and narrations of the ordeals of the victims are so horrific and very difficult to bear considering how absolutely bonkers these South Africans become. The same South Africans that the rest of Africans stood solidly behind during the apartheid!

It breaks my heart to read how so many of them are justifying the carnage because they believe that the African foreigners are “lazy thieves, child rapists and home breakers” just as their king described them in the video below. Even though xenophobia had occurred in South African in the past years, I would want to think that King Goodwill Zwelithini’s utterances a couple of weeks ago did nothing to quench the embers of xenophobia but rather fanned the burning embers of hatred and has thus led to the xenophobic inferno raging in the hearts of the South Africans.

It won’t be the first time this same King Goodwill Zwelithini has misyarned publicly like this but this time around, I think he should be reported to the appropriate authorities and held responsible for the murders and rampage in the streets. Such careless utterances is why I was mortified by the tribalistic words of the Oba of Lagos during the past election period, because I know that just as it takes one snowflake to cause an avalanche, so does it take one careless word to prompt such a gory display of disregard of human lives as have been shown by some of our South African brothers.

I think the said foreign Africans all need to make their ways to their embassies and leave their country to them. I think the Nigerian government needs to render all the necessary assistance to the Nigerians presently in South Africa and bring them back home to us as quickly as possible. I hope the South Africans responsible for this would soon enough realize their folly and hang their heads in shame. Oh, what shame they have brought to our continent.