South Africa’s prepare to march against illegal immigration on the 23rd of September 2024 for their sovereignty.

Some of the vocal people on twitter have been dubbed as xenophobic towards their own African foreigners, some South Africans have challenged them and have been more than welcoming to foreign nationals documented or not, but this article focuses on the point of view of the black South Africans in the middle who understand that the realities of South Africa’s immigration can be seen as a very complex issue and a strong indication of why Pan-Africanism is needed more than ever, even if only for educational purposes.

As far as social media is concerned, the tension between vocal South Africans and other African foreign nationals reached its height following the recent participation of a South African girl named Chidimma Adetshina, born to a Nigerian father. People all over the world witnessed the humiliating exclusion of Chidimma from the pageant, one that wasn’t embarrassing for her, but instead embarrassing for Black South Africans as a whole, who sat back and watched a mob of angry nationalist South Africans speak for them—a mob that is constantly labeled xenophobic and afrophobic. Chidimma will soon accept an invite from Miss Universe Nigeria 2024 and win.

CHIDIMMA HELPED MAGNIFY SOUTH AFRICA’S IMMIGRATION ISSUES
But further interactions and grievances would soon later expose an unprecedented experience in South Africa that most other African countries are foreign to. South Africa still stands today as an African country where whites still own over 90% of the wealth. So despite all the success stories we see among the development of the country, only a handful of Africans enjoy the said benefits.

IS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BEING WEAPONIZED AGAINST BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS?
From a bird’s eye view, it seems the government and the Europeans, known as Afrikaans whom according Mcgrath own 94 per cent of all wealth, are doing everything to keep the economic disparity & wealth gap between whites & blacks wide open, and illegal immigration is at the center of their tactics. Illegal immigration is now being used as a weapon to maintain the disparity of white and Black wealth.

White South African Town Across the Road From A Black South African neighbourhood

Instead of most white South Africans and other elites employing impoverished Black South Africans at the nation’s minimum wages, they are employing even more poor, undocumented immigrants who have escaped the tyrannies of their nations for much less. This gives less of a chance for economic progress in Black South African communities to gain resources to develop themselves.

1st REASON WHY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE SEEN AS A THREAT
According to Statistics South Africa’s 2011 census, 6.2 million foreigners live in South Africa, roughly 500 000 and one million are illegal, most of whom are ready and willing to take on jobs below minimum wage. Also, employers are likely to get away with such acts, as undocumented immigrants may not be able to challenge such hiring in the court of law. This puts a wrench in the deprived South African communities, as the nation was reported to have a 27.2% unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2018, which would amass a larger percentage if counted strictly among Black South Africans. And in most cases, undocumented immigrants will send whatever earnings or profits they receive to their families abroad, all of which deprives Black South African communities of growth and enhances the growing tensions between some local South Africans and other foreign nationals, hinting at the association of the undocumented aligning with their white oppressors to maintain the economic disparity.

SOUTH AFRICAN CHILDREN LURED INTO DRUG ABUSE
But the rabbit hole goes much deeper. Most South Africans do not believe the illegal immigrants are in their land for opportunities despite the negative effect it has on the citizens. According to various voices, they are recognizing a pattern of these immigrants engaging in crimes that target their children—specifically, kidnapping them into child trafficking, duping them into taking drugs disguised as sweets, prostitution, and much more. According to the South African Anxiety and Depression Group (SADAG), 12 years old is now the average age for drug dependency in the country (link), while 50% of South Africa’s teenagers also use alcohol.

Drug abuse has usually been a tactic to destroy communities against revolt. It was used against African Americans in the in the 1970s (link), it was also weaponized against the Chinese, as well as Mexicans.

NIGERIANS SPECIFICALLY CALLED FOR DRUGGING SOUTH AFRICANS
Most South Africans believe the children are not merely depressed individuals looking for a quick high, but that they are specifically targeted by imported criminals using highly addictive drugs to intentionally create a nation of drug abusers and dissolve any form of revolt. Many are attributing this horrific act to the growing number of undocumented immigrants from West Africa, particularly Nigeria.

WHITEMEN REMAIN AT LARGE IN SOUTH AFRICA’S DRUG PRODUCTION
Despite the countless evidence that the source of drugs stems from white South Africans, most grievances are aimed at the people of Nigeria. Earlier this year in July 2024, South African police busted a white farm owner who had employed two Mexican nationals in his multimillion-dollar drug manufacturing lab on a farm in the country’s north. Emphasis on the multimillion-dollar operation! However, the media ignored acknowledging the involvement of the European owner and instead focused heavily on the Mexicans.

Last year, in 2023, Fadwaan Murphy was convicted in July for drug dealing, money laundering, managing a racketeering enterprise, and receiving property derived from racketeering. Murphy and his ex-wife, Shafieka Murphy, operated a tik-packaging business dealing in methamphetamine.

Another prominent drug dealer in South Africa is a white man named Paul Le Roux. Le Roux, a drug kingpin of Cape Town who worked with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), was involved in one of the biggest drug busts. Authorities learned through Rio wiretaps that Le Roux was making arrangements for two drug shipments via yacht from Ecuador. This was when US authorities first discovered Le Roux’s involvement with drugs. Le Roux was sentenced to 25 years in prison in June 2020.

NIGERIANS IN THE SPOTLIGHT
All evidence shows that, when it comes to drugs, white South Africans are the major players poisoning the minds of South African children. So why are Nigerians at the center of their grievances? Firstly, let’s be clear—Nigerians are not the only drug dealers, as some misleading social media users would have people believe. In fact, Nigerians make up a tiny minority of drug dealers, and overall, only 7.5% of people in South African prisons are foreign nationals.

However, according to testimonies on various Twitter spaces, it seems South Africans are linking Nigerians to the horrendous crimes that target their children. They believe undocumented immigrants from West Africa are being imported by European drug lords, as they easily blend into the South African communities with the same skin tone. It is at this point that immigration takes a deeper step further and becomes weaponized.

SHOULD SOUTH AFRICANS ALSO SHARE THEIR GRIEVEANCES AGAINST PRESIDENT TINUBU?
So the question lingers: How is it that, with all the impoverished countries in Africa, it is easier to source such criminals from Nigeria alone, to the point where it stigmatizes the nation? This could be somewhat related to the Nigerian government, headed by a known drug dealer, Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).


Tinubu is a documented trafficker whom many believe is not fit to be president. David Hundeyin, a BusinessDay columnist, presented overwhelming evidence of Mr. Tinubu’s drug-trafficking past in an article on July 13, 2022 (link), which for some bizarre reason has been slow to make it to the mainstream Nigerian media. In any such case, why would it be far-fetched to believe there are gangs luring young Nigerian men with no future into these activities and exporting them to perform hideous crimes?

ARE CRIMINAL IMMIGRANT VICTIMS OF POVERTY OR ARE THEY INTENTIONALLY IMPORTED?
The notion that a young, helpless man will cross seven large African countries and end up in South Africa looking for opportunities, only to end up a drug dealer, is a fallacy—the story people are being told to hide government involvement in pushing drugs to Black South Africans.

In various Twitter spaces, it has also been made clear that in many cases, drug dealers and brothels are at times protected by the law against mob justice, and in many cases, affidavits against criminals go missing. This raises the question: Are the drug-dealing activities run by Europeans (white South Africans) permitted by President Cyril Ramaphosa, in cooperation with Bola Tinubu, using impoverished young Nigerians as culprits to poison young South Africans?

Cyril Ramaphosa, a culprit in importing criminals to destabilize South African black communities

SOUTH AFRICANS AND NIGERIANS ARE IN THE SAME ANTI TINUBU/CYRIL RAMAPHOSA STRUGGLE
If these connections are true, it does not mean South Africans and Nigerians are enemies; rather, it means South Africans and Nigerians are brothers in the same struggle. Tinubu won the Nigerian presidential election in early 2023 through voter rigging and the threatening of citizens at the ballot, where the majority of the country expressed dissatisfaction. The people of Nigeria aimed to riot, but were calmed and told to take legal action by highly supported opposition candidate Peter Obi. However, the court eventually rejected the bid (link).

The people of Nigeria will soon pursue this fight in 2024 with the #EndBadGovernance protest. The End Bad Governance protests, widely known by the hashtags #EndBadGovernance or #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria, were a series of decentralized mass protests in Nigeria that mainly occurred from August 1 to August 10, 2024, triggered by the rising cost of living in the country—the same poverty that opens doors for people to be easily lured into crime.

PAN AFRICANISM OR XENOPHOBIA?
Black South Africans, for the most part, have always been Pan-Africanists, but it seems weaponized immigration and our lack of education on these tactics by the drug lords is blinding us from recognizing how both sides are being manipulated against each other.

The false concept of Pan-Africanism, which speaks to accepting Black people as your brother no matter what, is now becoming a threat to the livelihood of the average South African citizen.

In 1965, Kwame Nkrumah wrote the book Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. This was an upgraded version of his understanding of Pan-Africanism, which recognizes how colonial forces would now place Black African people in power to execute the wills of Europeans, and how this new form of colonialism would be more accepted by the people because it is imposed by those who look like them. Challenging them would, in effect, mean challenging white power as a whole.

Maybe it’s time for another upgrade of Pan-Africanism, where we learn to understand how white enemies are using Black culprits to damage our communities, with South Africa’s plight as a prime example—leading us to South Africa’s ‘Reclaim Our Country.’

According to the organizers: “The march is not affiliated with any political party but is a gathering of South Africans voicing their distrust in the government of South Africa in handling the borders of the country. We are all looking for ways to support one another in various ways to ensure that borders remain secure for the safety of the people of South Africa.”

The question is: Are the participants against weaponized illegal immigration in their long term fight against the white South Africans working to destroy their communities or do they simply have their vengeance set on foreigners with the aim to be the beneficiaries of the crumbs thrown on the floor by their white oppressors.

Only time will tell, however, be very cautious of the information and afrophobic perception published online as there are many faceless trolls and agents of disharmony in the wider pan African struggle.

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