Fani-Kayode: Nigeria is not going to sever ties with S’Africa over xenophobic assaults

Femi Fani-Kayode, Nigeria’s excessive commissioner to South
Africa, says Pan-Africanism should exchange the xenophobic sentiments within the
nation, which have fuelled assaults on Nigerians and different African nationals.

Speaking on the inaugural Nigerian truthful on the Nigerian
consulate in Johannesburg on Saturday, Fani-Kayode mirrored on the pan-African
efforts that helped safe South Africa’s liberation from apartheid.

“It wasn’t a black South African wrestle. It was a wrestle
that each nation in Africa led primarily by the frontline states and Nigeria,
and each respectable civilized nation on the earth supported,” the excessive
commissioner stated.

“Therefore, they need to always remember. And we should always remember
the collective contribution that we made to their wrestle.

“And once I come to this lovely nation, and I see the
pleasure, and I see the event, and I see the extraordinary infrastructure
developments they’ve made, and I see legislation and order, and I see all of the great
issues that I’ve seen.

“I say, boldly, that we, from Nigeria, and certainly the remaining
of Africa, have a stake on this, as a result of we made a contribution to what they
are at the moment.”

Fani-Kayode described the xenophobic assaults in South Africa
as “very retrograde and almost primitive sentiment”.

“We should perceive that the world is coming collectively as
one, and we should stand collectively as one,” he stated.

The excessive commissioner famous that Nigeria contributed no much less
than $61 billion in South Africa’s wrestle towards apartheid between 1960 and
1994 and deployed troops to the frontline states to struggle towards the apartheid
regime.

“Nigeria did a lot. 
Mandela tax — we
imposed a tax on our personal civil servants through the course of the wrestle, and
that cash was channelled to the ANC,” he added.

“Nigeria ensured that the kids at college gave up their
lunch, their lunch cash, and contributed to the South African wrestle.
Nigeria ensured that the United Nations, each worldwide discussion board, we had been at
the entrance line to make sure that this nation was liberated.”

Fani-Kayode stated South Africa should construct bridges of
fraternity, friendship, and mutual respect with Nigeria and Africa to enhance
relations.

He described the perpetrators of xenophobic assaults as a
small minority who appeared to misconceive the state of affairs and had been
“possessed by the spirit of Afrophobia and xenophobia”.

“We will pray for them, we pray deliverance for them,” he
stated.

“And my prayer is that our nation, which, in my opinion, is
and can all the time be the large brother of each different African nation —there’s no
query about that — we will proceed to take the lead, to construct the bridge,
to know the significance of us all coming collectively, and even the place we’re
offended, and we’re maligned, or we’re cheated, or we’re bullied, and certainly
even killed by people who don’t know any higher, we should perceive that as
leaders, we should look ahead, look as much as God, stay up for the longer term, and
not be provoked.”

He added that Nigeria wouldn’t sever financial ties with
South Africa regardless of calls from Nigerians however famous that endurance was sporting
skinny throughout the corridors of energy.

He assured Nigerians that the federal government would do all the pieces
to make sure they’ve an exquisite keep in South Africa.

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