The sickness called xenophobia

Kaka:

 What kind of people gather to water another man’s private Strait of Hormuz?

Koko:

 Sick people.

Kaka:

 What kind of men leave their so-called businesses to watch women’s breasts and buttocks?

Koko:

 Sex-starved, sex-deprived men who are not really busy.

Kaka:

You mean those who do those things are really not well, and uncivilised?

Koko:

 Trust me, they need all kinds of therapy and mind resets.

 I know, Kaka, I saw that video. A Nigerian woman, stripped of dignity, assaulted in broad daylight. Not in a war zone. Not in a red light district. The kind of violence we see these days belittles our morals and demeans us all.

Kaka:

At first, I thought it happened in South Africa.

Koko:

Oh no, whatever it is that ails South Africa is not that bad yet. Their cold is not yet Covid.

It would have sat in the mouth like bitter kola.

Kaka:

But those shameless lazy bones are okada riding blacks stripping women naked, forcing their legs open, in search of God-knows-what, and filming it.

Koko:

Other people’s wives o.

Kaka: Those women have children, parents, siblings.

Koko:

And the sick men parked their ‘okada’ to watch the show of shame.

Kaka:

Real shame of shameless people. But let’s not allow perverts to distract us from calling out evil doers who forgot their roots and helpers. Who would have thought a day would come when South Africans would turn to bite Nigeria with teeth we spent sweat and money to shape and sharpen?

Koko:

It’s sad and Nigerians are asking: why? What have we done? Why are our children being cut down in their prime? Why are our promising sons being returned home in the cargo cabins of planes that flew them in premium cabins to Johannesburg? Why are our hard-earned businesses being destroyed by those we once called brothers? Are we the cause of everything that is wrong with South Africa?

Kaka:

Ah! The eternal Nigerian question—what did we do wrong? As if a man must commit a crime before he is lynched.

Koko:

In other words, we are being lynched just because we are not South Africans? They just hate our faces?

Kaka:

Your faces are enough problem, really, along with your colourful lifestyle. However, seriously, this thing called xenophobia is a disease that has South Africa by the jugular.

Since the end of apartheid in 1994, xenophobic violence in South Africa has killed at least 669 people, displaced over 127,000, and led to the looting of thousands of businesses, according to Georgetown Journal

In just the first half of 2025, there were 26 recorded incidents and 14 deaths.

Koko:

As we speak in 2026, reports confirm renewed attacks, including the killing of two Nigerians and widespread violence in cities like Pretoria and Durban. Killing Nigerians seems to have become a sporting event.

Kaka:

Morbid sport by sick people.

Koko: And they have refused to seek help for the unfortunate recurring disease. 2008, 2015, 2019—each wave was worse than the last. Like malaria that refuses to die because the swamp is still there.

Koko:

But why Nigerians? Why always us?

Kaka:

Sit well. There are reasons. Not excuses—reasons. Let us start with economic frustration. South Africa is battling unemployment. Angry young men look around and see foreigners hustling, trading, surviving and conclude:

“They are taking our jobs.”

That narrative repeated like a broken record leaves them angry but at the wrong people.

Koko:

South Africa needs a scapegoat, someone to blame for their malfunctioning polity.

When a country struggles, it needs a villain. Foreigners become the convenient enemy and are being blamed for economic woes.

Kaka:

There is also the issue of stereotypes about Nigerians. Let’s not lie to ourselves.

Nigerians carry a reputation—some earned, many exaggerated.

Drug trafficking. Fraud. Flashy lifestyles.

Even when only a few are guilty, the whole community is branded.

Koko:

I believe jealousy is another demon in the matter.

A Nigerian opens a shop, works 18 hours, including Sundays and public holidays and succeeds.

Next thing, the sons of the soil who slept till noon and went clubbing twice a week suddenly go green with envy.

“Burn his shop.”

“ He is corrupt.”

“ He stole my customers.”

“ All of them should go back to their country.”

Suddenly, hard work becomes a vice and envious laziness becomes a virtue. South African would choose violence every day and twice on Sunday instead of learning how Nigerians’ resilience and hardworking ways.

READ ALSO: Chidimma Vanessa, The Ugly Side Of Perceived Xenophobia In South Africa

Kaka:

A nation elects leaders they do not like and the voters hold foreigners responsible for their bad choices. Then, the inhuman opportunistic politicians also blame the foreigners for their ineptitude.

They stir pots of trouble.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric is used as campaign slogans even as they increased tension because nothing wins votes like blaming outsiders.

Koko:

That is like an impotent man blaming his noisy neighbor for his inability to walk with his third leg.

Kaka:

Or a man with a small staff of office envying the strength and length of his more endowed brother. That is why they concoct misinformation and rumours to demarket and demonise everything Nigerian.

One minute, it is “Nigerians installed a king”, and boom, riots. How does a leader chosen by Nigerians to direct Nigerians’ affairs become other people’s headaches? We have not forced South Africans to worship at our shrines or prostrate before our kings. Why is our boil giving them pains?

Koko:

But Nigerians sef! Must an endowed man fling and flaunt his endowment in the presence of a man struggling to satisfy his wife?

Kaka:

Yeah, I heard that because of this famed endowment, some South African women have left their small-sized men for Nigerian men.

Koko:

Women, do they not know that such choices can start a war?

Kaka:

Well, now that they have started the war, everyone is suffering.

 Koko:

But I’m sure, there is more to this sickness than a Strait of Hormuz and who has the best ocean-going vessels.

Kaka:

Nigerians don’t hide success. We spray it like perfume. When we ‘arrive ‘, nobody is left in doubt. We arrive with drums roll, aso ebi that announces established steeze.

In a struggling society, that attracts anger.

Koko:

 It’s not our fault that they don’t understand us. And we do not force our aso ebi on them. We are just different. Is being different a sin?

Kaka:

There’s also the issue of poor integration. Some Nigerians form tight communities, speak their languages as if it is the host country’s lingua franca, speaking at the top of their voices and running their networks like cults.

To locals, that feels like:

“They came, but they didn’t join us. Instead, they are building another nation within our nation.”

Koko:

For people who still have PTSD from Apartheid, that definitely will rile them up.

Kaka:

Then there are the bad eggs who took their criminal minds along to other people’s domains. The big consequences are now haunting us all.

A few criminals can destroy the image of millions and Nigerians—let’s be honest—have produced some very smelly bad eggs abroad.

Kaka:

There is also the way our can-do attitude is perceived as arrogance. Our

confidence is our strength but to others, it can look like arrogance.

Koko:

So, are you saying Nigerians are the cause of their own misfortunes?

Kaka:

No. Don’t twist it.

There is no justification for violence, rape, or killing. Understanding cause is not excusing crime. The real problem is the festering disease called xenophobia.

It is even bigger than Nigerians.

Xenophobia in South Africa is described as “deep-rooted” across society—even institutions.

It is not just about strikes or mob actions. It is about a nation’s economic failure. It is about frustrated a people taking their anger out on others. It is about the identity crisis of a people who are not sure if they are fully Africans or half-white men.

Koko:

 Maybe the solution question is, should Nigerians not just leave that toxic space, pack their bags and come home?

Kaka:

 No, it is not that simple. Those people are not there on vacation.

Many Nigerians in South Africa run businesses. Their children are in schools. They have dependants

and families back home.

Leaving would mean starting life from zero. Though staying may mean continued risking their lives.

Koko:

What about self-defence?

Kaka:

Careful. The moment Nigerians retaliate violently, it becomes foreigners vs citizens war.

Guess who the big loser will be?

Not the mob. Not the politicians.

The foreigner.

The most realistic way out is stronger Nigerian diplomacy, legal protection, better community bond. Nigerians living in South Africa must document the abuses because silence can invite more violence.

Koko:

Let’s come back to our own house.

Where is Abuja in all this?

Kaka:

Abuja is summoning envoys, issuing statements and writing strongly-worded letters as usual but the time is ripe for reactions that are faster, louder, and stronger. We can no longer speak diplomatese at violence.

Koko:

Otherwise, Nigerians abroad will feel abandoned?

Kaka:

Exactly. A citizen without protection is like a goat tied in a lion’s den.

Koko:

Whatever happened to “Africa for Africans”?

Kaka:

That slogan started dying years ago. Today, it is fully dead. Each baby now must carry his mother’s breasts himself. Every man for himself, God for us all.

What we have now are borders in the mind, unhealthy competition in the stomach, fear in the heart even when asleep.

Pan-Africanism sounds sweet in speeches but on the streets, it is about survival of the angriest.

Koko:

Let us hope this new pattern of s3xual assault, public stripping will not be added into the xenophobic mix before Nigeria does something to protect its own abroad.

Kaka:

When a mob strips a woman, they are not just attacking her. They are saying:

“You are not human.”

It is the final stage of hatred.

Koko:

So what do we do?

Kaka:

There are four things we must do urgently.

 Nigeria must protect its citizens globally and I mean going beyond nice-sounding speeches.  South Africa must enforce law, not mouth excuses that sound like they are condoning this nauseating nonsense because impunity breeds repetition.

 Nigerians abroad must be strategic by building alliances and avoid unnecessary exposure that is often mistaken for arrogance.

All Africans must confront this hypocrisy. We cannot shout  “down with colonialism” and still practise tribal hatred.

Koko:

But seriously, Kaka, are Nigerians in South Africa doing something wrong?

Kaka:

Some things, yes.

But nothing—nothing—justifies being hunted like animals.

Koko:

Should they leave?

Kaka:

Some will. Some can’t.

Koko:

Should they fight?

Kaka:

They must survive first.

Kaka (quietly):

The real tragedy is not that foreigners are attacked.

The tragedy is that Africans have learned to hate Africans with the efficiency of former oppressors. And that, Koko,

is the most dangerous import we never paid for.