Of course, I didn’t have an idea what it meant, but it was always there at the top of our chalkboard at the Baptist Primary School, Oke Ako Ekiti, my primary school. The one-line sentence simply read: “Apartheid is a crime against humanity.” Years later, at the AUD High School, Ikole Ekiti, Ekiti State, I understood the statement but not the implications yet. Not yet!
As I journeyed higher in life, it was hard for a young man to understand an official system which imposes segregation of all sorts against blacks in South Africa, in their own fatherland, where they had been made outcasts, a little lower than humans and at best, second-class citizens. Nigerian reggae musicians, who had turned to anti-apartheid crusaders, drummed home the import of this debasing system, strangely powered by the United States and its Western allies.
When the foremost anti-apartheid crusader, Nelson Mandela, was released after 27 years of gruesome prison experience in February 1990, essentially due to international pressure and sanctions, the icon, on an official visit to Nigeria in May of the same year, paid glowing tributes to the nation’s frontline role in the fight against the South African regime’s inhuman apartheid system.
