By Femi Fani-Kayode
“We cannot stop the xenophobic attacks. The truth is that we are an angry nation. What is happening cannot be prevented by any Government.”- Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, Minister of Defence, South Africa.
Yet another insulting, provocative and irresponsible statement from a senior figure in the South African Government.
First it was their Minister of Police who said that in some towns in South Africa the population was 80% foreign and that they could not take it anymore.
Then it was their Minister of Foreign Affairs who said that Nigerians were drug-dealers and human traffickers and that they should be prevented from coming to South Africa.
Then it was their former President, Thabo Mbeki, who said that “Nigerian criminals” were the targets of the xenophobia.
And now it is their Minister of Defence who says they cannot stop these xenophobic attacks.
If anyone still thinks that the ruling ANC party, the South African Government and President Cyril Ramaphosa himself are not complicit in this matter then that person is plain dumb.
I doubt they would try this if President Shehu Shagari, President Olusegun Obasanjo or President Goodluck Jonathan were still President or if General Murtala Mohammed, General Olusegun Obasanjo, General Ibrahim Babangida or General Sani Abacha were still Head of State.
My question for them is as follows: just how much more Nigerian blood do you need to spill before you can stop?
How many more of our poor, hardworking, defenceless citizens and compatriots whose only crime was to leave home and go and invest in your country do you have to cut down, butcher and slaughter before your macabre and evil blood-lust is satisfied and before your rage, anger and burning self-hate subsides?
The truth is that you are a wicked, cruel, heartless, ungrateful and murderous lot.
And despite the appeals for restraint and admonitions from the entire civilised world you hacked to pieces two more Nigerians in the streets of Johannesberg just yesterday.
Why am I not surprised? It is only when the father of a house is weak that strangers beat his children and treat them like filth.
It is only when the President of a nation is a coward that foreigners butcher his people and slaughter them like flies.
Yet I have some advice for you. As you march down the streets and prepare to attack and kill even more of our people, you would do well to remember the following.
Even though we may be badly divided amongst ourselves and even though we may have a weak, conflicted, delusional and incompetent President who himself is a tyrant, who is cowardly in all his ways, who has lost touch with reality, who is intellectually-challenged and who is running scared of leading us to war even in the face of the greatest insults, provocation and aggression, the Nigerian people are still the toughest, the strongest, the proudest, the most resilient, the most brilliant, the most feared, the most innovative, the most enduring, the most respected, the most enterprising, the most educated, the most competitive, the most forceful, the most irrespressable, the most unbeatable, the most dynamic, the most vigorous, the most bellicose and the most combative people on the African continent.
Mountains shake and move before us and the earth cracks open and shakes. We thrive even in the most difficult circumstances where others tremble and fall.
When we fight, we fight hard and, if we must die, we die like men. We are not cowards, we are not shirkers, we are not lily-livered beggars and we are not toothless barking dogs: we are lions and we are warriors!
When we go to war we do not stop until our enemies are no longer standing. When we fight we see our enemies as nothing but filthy worms and we crush them below our feet.
We decimated your white Boer masters in the killing grounds and battlefields of Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique when you were still their slaves.
We fought them and their surrogates in the field of battle for your sake and in the end we prevailed and you gained your freedom.
I put it to you that even an economically-weakened and badly divided Nigeria under a discredited and sectional ethnic bigot like Buhari will eat you for breakfast if and when it comes to a full-scale military conflict between our two countries.
Forget all the media hype and public relations: you are not in our league. You have never been and you will never be. A black slave army, trained and led by resentful and racist white officers such as yours, with little experience of battle and warfare has little chance before us.
Fighting and soldiering is not just about military hardware but it is about the heart and the spirit. It is not about the size of the dog in the fight but about the size of the fight in the dog.
We are veterans of warfare. We fight with strength, faith and passion in the knowledge that our cause is just and that we are a nation of true believers who God loves and cherishes.
Nigerian blood is not cheap and the shedding of it by foreigners attracts a heavy price. You shall pay that price.
To the Nigerian people and Government, I say we mobilise our people and Armed Forces, prepare for war and get ready to teach the South African cowards and bullies the lesson of their lives.
By the time this is all over they will be seeing stars. By the time it comes to an end they will bow their heads in shame, they will be stripped naked before the world, they will tuck their tails between their legs, they will wish their Boer masters were still with them, they will surrender their shieds and spears, they will stop their Zulu songs and instead, for the rest of their sorry and miserable lives, they will be singing in Swahili!
