By Kayode Emola
Recently in the news, we saw how the rise of Xenophobia in South Africa is tearing the African community in South Africa apart. Not what you would expect exactly 32 years after the end of apartheid South Africa.
One would ask, what really happened to South Africa since the return to black rule in 1994? Afterall, with a GDP of nearly $500 billion and just about 60 million population, they are still the largest economy in Africa. Would they have achieved that feat on their own if the white folks hadn’t built that economy.
That really isn’t the issue here. The main issue is that majority of the black South Africans are reeking in abject poverty with no way of escape. So, the easiest thing to do is to blame it on immigrants as though they are the cause of the problem.
The truth is Africans are being left behind in an ever-changing world. As an immigrant myself to the United Kingdom, I have achieved far more than many core British people whose ancestors were originally from Britain. I do not believe that my migration to Britain threatened the existence or survival of the locals. On the contrary, I believe I have added more value to the British society and to its progress and enriched its culture.
Which leaves me to conclude that the problem with the black/brown South Africans is not that migrants are overwhelming their society. Rather, it is a failure of the African leadership to build a good framework for sustainable development.
Many Africans always blame slavery, colonisation and neo-colonialism for the underdevelopment of Africa. As true as these things, they aren’t the major obstacles to our real development. Our real underdevelopment stems from the greed of a few individuals among our black folks who are so determined to steal from our collective commonwealth for their own personal gain.
With an economy the size of South Africa, the average person is supposed to be earning a decent $8,000 to $10,000 annually. Enough to make a good life for themselves, and their immediate family. However, the reality is that GDP doesn’t mean anything to anyone who is just scrapping by.
Estimate from the South Africa statistics department in 2023 shows that nearly 40 percent of their population live below the poverty line earning less than R1,300 ($80) per person per month. With that kind of poverty brings resentment to any successful group or groups of person(s) supposedly perceived to be taking away the wealth of the local population.
This is part of the real reason behind the Xenophobic attitude of our South African brothers whom many African countries defied all odds to stand with in their dark days. Despite, the growing South African economy, it shows that globalisation is not actually improving the lives of the ordinary man on the street. This is the same across several African countries on the continent.
It’s easy to blame the leaders of many of these African countries, but we must equally blame the followers who do not know how to hold their leaders accountable. African leaders get an easy pass despite their mismanagement of the economy in their countries propped up by international organisations and foreign government. Partly because of a docile and an uninformed population.
If our Yoruba nation must succeed, we must make conscious effort to ensure that no one is left behind. There must be specific programs by the government to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry, let alone go to school with an empty stomach.
The level of poverty in the continent is so high that it should revulsed our leaders. However, seeing that our leaders are far removed from the common man, they feel disconnected to their plight. We who are custodians of leadership must ensure that the right policies are in place to genuinely lift millions of our people out of poverty and not just cosmetic dressing.
That is the only time we too as Africans can benefit from globalisation. If not, our people will continue to wallow in poverty, blaming everything on our ancestors and the government without they themselves taking responsibility for their own personal development.
I urge our African people to wake up whilst there is still the opportunity so that we too can benefit from the globalisation the world is experiencing. This will stop the blame game, because the last time I checked, migration is a net contributor to any economy and not the other way round as some myopic people will have us believe.