Permit me to once again share the words of the Sweden-based Nigerian writer, Prince Kio Jaja Amachree. He wrote the following on X: “In 1990 when Mandela came to thank Nigeria for its support to the ANC and the Pan African Congress he was given 10 ten million USD by the Nigerian Government as our further contribution to the ANC when he was leaving. US$61billion was the total figure that Nigeria donated to the ANC and the Pan African Congress by 1994. Adjusted for three decades of inflation, and with even a conservative rate of interest applied, as any court applies to any unpaid debt, the true present value of Nigeria’s sacrifice runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars”.
He went further by saying, “this was money that Nigeria, with its own crushing debt burden, collapsing infrastructure and 130 million of its own citizens living in multidimensional poverty, needs desperately at home”.
He was right. He went on to ask the following question and immediately provided the answer: “How the debt Is being repaid? Here is how South Africa has serviced this account in the year 2026. Musa Yunana Joe and Charles Iroegbu, two Nigerian nationals, were killed on June 28, one allegedly at the hands of South African police officers, the other by attackers who remain conveniently unidentified. They died two days before an unofficial deadline set by anti migrant vigilantes for foreigners to leave the country. They were not the first this year. In April, Amaramiro Emmanuel was beaten to death, according to Nigeria’s consul general, by officers of the South African National Defence Force, soldiers of the very state Nigerian money helped bring into being. Ekpenyong Andrew was arrested in Pretoria and was next seen in a mortuary. The mobs of Operation Dudula and the March and March movement have marched through Johannesburg and Durban, some in warrior dress, carrying spears, whips and shields, telling African migrants to leave or, in the words circulated on their platforms, return in a coffin. By early July, nearly 600 Nigerians had been evacuated on emergency flights, with roughly 1000 registered to flee, abandoning shops, cars, homes and life savings built over decades. Across all nationalities, more than 13000 African migrants have been driven out in a matter of weeks. None of this is new. It is the fourth great wave. After 2008, when more than 60 people were butchered. After 2015. After 2019. Each time, Pretoria issues its regrets. Each time, no meaningful prosecutions follow. Each time, the machetes return. This is how South Africa repays the country that paid for its freedom”.
