LETTER: Nigeria must stop exaggerating its capabilities

JUNE 18 2015



I WELCOME Adekeye Adebajo’s rejoinder ( No evidence of SA’s appeasement of Nigeria , , June 15) to my recent piece on SA-Nigeria relations ( SA too timid in handling Nigeria , May 29). Despite the personal attacks on me, his article raises interesting issues that are worth responding to.

He dares me to provide an example of when SA has appeased Nigeria. I am happy to do so. Many South Africans were deeply offended and angered by the callous manner in which the Nigerian authorities handled the deaths of South Africans in Lagos. And they were particularly dismayed by the placatory and overly accommodating way in which SA’s authorities dealt with their Nigerian counterparts in this matter. Other governments would not have tolerated the kind of foot-dragging, incompetence and insensitivity that typified Nigeria’s response to the deaths. SA’s government badly let its citizens down, all in the name of preserving a prickly bilateral relationship.

It is interesting that Dr Adebajo found it necessary to detail Nigeria’s role in the anti-apartheid struggle. That was uncalled for as what he stated is already common knowledge. Perhaps he wanted to make a point that Nigeria’s contribution was more important than those of other African countries. If that’s his argument, I strongly disagree. Countries such as Zambia and Mozambique may not have shouted loudly from the rooftops about the roles they played in SA’s liberation struggle, but that doesn’t mean theirs were lesser roles. They made serious sacrifices and bore the brunt of the devastation wrought by the apartheid state’s regional destabilisation.

He remarks that South Africans ought to be educated about the debt of gratitude they owe to the continent. But that is exactly what I said in my article, when I noted that "South Africans should be thankful for, and should not forget, the support they received". However, I also noted that SA had done a great deal to reciprocate the support it received. Just last weekend at the African Union summit, it was announced that South African taxpayers would soon be paying R700m a year for the maintenance of the continental body. The question, which Dr Adebajo deftly sidestepped, is: How much more must SA do to repay its debt to Africa and when will it be accepted by its detractors as an authentic African country with a sincere commitment to Africa’s development?

Dr Adebajo questions the fact that SA was involved in peace-building and peace-keeping efforts in Mozambique, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Let me assure him: the information used in my article was not a thumbsuck; it was culled from various reports of the South African National Defence Force and from the speeches of successive defence ministers. SA was involved, in a leading or supporting role, in Operations Rachel and Cooper (Mozambique) and in Operation Montego (Liberia). In the case of Sierra Leone, it played a key role in post-conflict peace building and was instrumental in the creation of the Kimberley Process, which was aimed at halting the trade in conflict diamonds. If Dr Adebajo took the trouble to do some basic research, he would have come across this widely available information. In any case, my point was not to quibble over which country did what. It was to highlight the enormous burden of responsibility SA has been carrying in terms of maintaining peace, not only in its regional neighbourhood but across Africa. It is telling that Dr Adebajo did not concede this point in his riposte.

Dr Adebajo labels me an economic illiterate. I will defer to him on that but will not let him get away with problematic assertions. His point that Nigeria has called for greater access to the South African market implies that SA has been maintaining protectionist policies against Nigeria. Nothing could be further from the truth. In terms of trade, it is a fact that Nigeria’s large surplus with SA has been driven by rising oil imports into the South African market. Oil is Nigeria’s most competitive export product and, despite making some progress towards economic diversification, the country essentially remains an oil economy. The question then is whether Nigeria has other products it can competitively export to SA. If Dr Adejabo took the time to seek an answer to this question, he would find that the problem is not South African protectionism, but simply that Nigeria does not have sufficiently diversified products to export to SA. He should not blame SA for this Nigerian weakness.

As for the claim that SA has blocked Nigerian companies from operating in the country, this is also unfounded. SA has one of the most open investment regimes in the world and many foreign companies operate profitably in this country. Nothing prevents Nigerian companies from doing business in SA. Of course, the South African market is fiercely competitive and that could be the reason there are no significant Nigerian businesses here: there are extremely few Nigerian companies that can compete in the South African market. That is Nigeria’s problem, not SA’s.

Nigeria has tremendous potential to become a great African power. But, in spite of its obvious promise, it is still a very underdeveloped country with many challenges and disadvantages. It must, therefore, first learn to walk before it can run. This means that it must, among other things, stop exaggerating its capabilities. It also means that its intellectual champions, such as Dr Adebajo, must eschew the cycle of denial and scapegoating that has for far too long stunted the country’s development.

Mills Soko
Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town

DullardBuhari:
too long

DullardBuhari:
too long

DullardBuhari:
too long

Tallesty1:
You rep ur moniker wella

stinggy:

Expected from a dullard

DullardBuhari:


FOOL

His point that Nigeria has called for greater access to the South African market implies that SA has been maintaining protectionist policies against Nigeria.