XENOPHOBIA, NIGERIA AND NIGERIANS.

There is a total difference between Nigeria and Nigerians. Nigeria include all those over the years who have been running this country at the national and state levels. Some shot their way into power while some rigged their way into power. They became the national behemoths. They controlled both the factors of production and selfishly reaped all the products. They made the financial rules and miss-appropriated all the finances. They wrote all the contracts and reaped all the proceeds. They made all regulations. They are the regulators of the operators and they were operating the regulations.

Then there are we the people-Nigerians. We are the oppressed. The abandoned. The unemployed. The underprivileged. The underpaid. The roving youths. The forgotten pensioners. The mentally and physically incapacitated. The unconnected. Nigeria has subjected the Nigerians to xenophobic attacks for many years by denying them share of their natural commonwealth. So many Nigerians went abroad to run away from Nigeria. If Nigeria gave Nigerians equal opportunities, level playing field, good infrastructure, good jobs, good education, health, security, protection of lives and properties, ethnic equality and freedom of movement and association, then Nigerians will not have serious need to be outside their shores.

When Nigerians go abroad they excel in academic and professional and business lives. Only a very negligible few Nigerians ply the vocation of criminality and they learnt it from the xenophobic attitudes of Nigeria on them. When Nigeria even goes abroad, they criminalize Nigerians and talk down on hardworking Nigerians abroad and expose  them to be subjected to inhuman treatments.

The South African xenophobic attacks on Nigerians was not engineered by Pete Botha or Fredrick De-Clerk or Nelson Mandela or Thabo  Mbeki or Jacob Zuma or Cyril Rampahosa. Even when they started new slaughtering of Nigerians and destroying their businesses recently in South Africa, Nigeria turned a deaf ear until the shouts of Nigerians and some other Africans became deafening. The original xenophobe is Nigeria. Nigeria kills Nigerians. Others are just following Nigeria to kill Nigerians. May God save Nigerians from Nigeria the XENOPHOBIC behemoth.

Ike C. Ibe