The evacuation of Nigerian nationals from South Africa, as anti-migrant riots spread across the Rainbow Nation, is not merely a consular operation. It is a stark indictment of two post-colonial experiments that have gone terribly wrong. Nigeria, the supposed ‘Giant of Africa’, exposes its impotence every time it must airlift its citizens from another country. South Africa, once the beacon of African renaissance, now boils with the same tribal and xenophobic hatreds that have plagued the continent for centuries. This is not a news story. It is a historical footnote in the decline of the nation state.
Let us begin with the immediate: the FCDO travel warning. The British Foreign Office, with its characteristic understatement, advises against all but essential travel to parts of South Africa. As if the Nigerian evacuation was not enough of a signal. The riots, sparked by the tragic death of a taxi driver, have become a convenient excuse for marauding mobs to target foreign-owned shops and homes. The irony is exquisite: a nation built on the migration of Europeans and the forced migration of Africans now tears itself apart over African migrants. One cannot help but recall the violence against Greeks in Rome, or the pogroms of the Russian Empire. History, it seems, is a flat circle.
But the deeper rot is in Nigeria itself. Why must Lagos charter flights when its citizens face persecution abroad? The answer lies in the failure of pan-Africanism. Decades of grand rhetoric about African unity have produced nothing but a network of corrupt elites who jet between capitals while their people suffer. The evacuation is a logistical feat, yes, but it also highlights the absence of any real diplomatic leverage. South Africa’s President Ramaphosa offers platitudes about safety, but what can he do when his own police force is part of the problem? The Nigerian government, meanwhile, puts on a show of concern, but its own record on protecting minorities within its borders is abysmal. The Fulani herdsmen attacks, the Boko Haram insurgency, the secessionist agitations in the southeast: these are the same disease, different strains.
One must also consider the intellectual decadence that has accompanied this decline. The West, particularly the British elite, once championed the ‘special relationship’ with South Africa, conveniently forgetting the horrors of apartheid. Now, the FCDO issues warnings, but its own hands are dirty. Look at the rhetoric: ‘migrant crisis’ echoes the same language used against Syrian refugees. But instead of a unified response, we see a slow-motion collapse of the post-war international order. The United Nations is silent, the African Union is toothless, and individual states retreat into fortress mentalities. This is not a foreign policy failure. It is a failure of imagination.
The real question is whether this signals the start of a broader trend. We have seen it before: the riots in South Africa are reminiscent of the 1947 Partition violence in India, or the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. When economic stagnation meets tribal identity, the result is always the same. South Africa’s unemployment rate is over 30%. Youth unemployment hovers near 60%. The migrant worker, often from Zimbabwe or Somalia or Nigeria, becomes the scapegoat. It is a classic historical cycle, one that the Victorians understood when they spoke of the ‘pressure of population’ and the ‘struggle for existence’. But we, in our smug modernity, have forgotten these lessons.
So what is to be done? The evacuation is a stopgap. The real solution would require a complete rethinking of African nationhood, a serious attempt at economic integration, and a brutal suppression of identity politics. But none of that is coming. Instead, we shall see more evacuations, more riots, more warnings. The FCDO will update its travel advice. The Nigerian government will issue statements. And the intellectuals will wring their hands. As for me, I will watch from the sidelines, a glass of claret in hand, and marvel at how the mighty have fallen. The Roman Empire took centuries to collapse. The African post-colony is managing it in decades.
Gentle readers, the evacuation is not the news. The news is that we have learned nothing from history. And that is why we are doomed to repeat it.
