A bond that must never be broken (3), By Femi Fani-Kayode

So NO Minister Tshaveni, we are not a nation of drug dealers but a nation of strong-willed, determined, hard-working, versatile, resourceful, courageous, and resilient men and women whose ancestry is rooted in a great and noble heritage and whose head may be bloodied but certainly not bowed.

Permit me to offer a history lesson and share a few facts with Minister Khumbudzo Tshaveni about who and what we are as a nation and the contributions and sacrifices that we made for the emancipation of her people, all in the name of Pan-Africanism.

Ours is a great and proud nation of strong, enterprising and resilient people, whose Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed, condemned the Western powers and their support for white minority rule in South Africa and formally declared Nigeria as a member of the famous “front line states” in the fight against Apartheid!

Outside of that, he not only deployed 13,000 Nigerian troops to battle against the Apartheid forces in southern Africa using some of South Africa’s neighbouring states of Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Angola as base and springboard, but he also went to the OAU (todays AU) Heads of Government meeting in Addis Ababa in 1975 and delivered the most powerful anti-apartheid speech ever delivered by an African leader titled “Africa Has Come of Age.”

In that speech he eviscerated the white South African government in Pretoria and chastised and challenged its American and Western backers.

He essentially told American President Gerald Ford to “shut up” and “go to hell” after the latter sent a memo to African leaders, including him, ‘directing’ them to soft-peddle in their fight against the Afrikaners and white minority rule in Apartheid South Africa.

Permit me to qoute a portion of that historic speech, which was delivered with fire and passion before a hall that was filled to the brim with African Presidents and Heads of State, in this essay.

He said,

“When I contemplate the evils of Apartheid, my heart bleeds and I am sure the heart of every true-blooded African bleeds…We cannot pretend that we are unaware of the machinations and conspiracies against our continent by not just the racists of South Africa but even by those who pretend to be the friends of this continent but whose sole interest is in what they can get out of us… Not content with its clandestine support and outpouring of arms into Angola to create confusion and bloodshed, the United States President (Gerald Ford) took upon himself to instruct African heads of state and government, by a circular letter, to insist on the withdrawal of Soviet and Cuban advisers from Angola as a precondition for the withdrawal of South African and other military adventurers. This constitutes a most intolerable presumption and a flagrant insult on the intelligence of African rulers… Africa has come of age. It is no longer under the orbit of any extra-continental power. It should no longer take orders from any country, however powerful. The fortunes of Africa are in our hands to make or mar. For too long have we been kicked around; for too long have we been treated as adolescents who cannot discern their interests and act accordingly. For too long has it been presumed that the African needs outside ‘experts’ to tell him who are his friends and who are his enemies. The time has come when we should make it clear that we can decide for ourselves; that we know our own interests and how to protect those interests; that we are capable of resolving Africa’s problems without presumptuous lessons in ideological dangers which, more often than not, have no relevance for us, nor for the problem at hand!”

This was undoubtedly Nigeria’s finest moment and General Mohammed backed up his words with concrete action by not only defying the Americans but by also knuckling down and doubling our efforts in support of the gallant fight against the apartheid government in South Africa and white minority rule.

His speech inspired other African leaders to stand strong and resulted in them rejecting the attempt by the Americans to impose their will on and intimidate them.

The General’s words encouraged them to increase their efforts in the struggle against Western imperialism, neo-colonialism and the Boers of South Africa.

The fact that he was murdered in an attempted military coup a few months after delivering this speech in Addis Ababa speaks volumes and there are those who believe that it was because of his hard line approach to Apartheid South Africa and his uncompromising stand against Western imperialism that he was murdered.

Thankfully our contribution to the South African struggle did not end there but became even more aggressive and assertive after General Murtala Mohammed was assasinated.

For example, General Olusegun Obasanjo, General Mohammed’s erstwhile second-in-command who succeeded him as Head of State after his assassination in 1976, took the fight against Apartheid a stage further and even refused to shake the hand of James Callaghan, the British Prime Minister, at a meeting, because of the support that the United Kingdom insisted on giving the white minority government in South Africa.

That is how far we went and that is the Nigerian for you.

Once we commit to a struggle we are as constant as the Northern star.

Ours is a civilised nation of large-hearted people, which was the moving force at the United Nations in the fight against Apartheid and white minority rule in South Africa, and which chaired and powered the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid from the early 1960s!

We were also the primary force that ensured that Apartheid South Africa was expelled from the British Commonwealth and was banned from participating in international sports competitions like the Olympics, the Rugby World Cup and the Soccer World Cup.

The fact is that without the support of Nigeria, Cuba, Libya, the Soviet Union, the Nordic countries (particularly Sweden), the African “Frontline States” of Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique and later Zimbabwe, and the nations and people of Africa generally, the defeat of white minority rule and Apartheid in South Africa would not have been achieved in 1990!

Again, no country gave Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC, more funding and logistical support than Nigeria and Libya, whilst Cuba and the old Soviet Union provided them with military advisers, arms and training.

Ours is a nation that is prepared to stand up for the oppressed and sacrifice for others, and there was a time, during your struggle and when General Olusegun Obasanjo was in power, that Nigeria nationalised British Petroleum and threw out Barclays Bank because of the support that the United Kingdom and Barclays insisted on giving the white minority government of South Africa, and as a result of our total commitment to black majority rule in your nation.

We also opened up our universities to free education for black South Africans, gave your people our passports to enable them to travel the world freely, taxed our civil servants with two per cent of their salaries, which was donated to a free South Africa Fund (this was known as the Mandela Tax) and gave sanctuary to your leaders, including President Thabo Mbeki.

Ours is a loving nation that is willing to give its all to those suffering injustice and those we care for, and we gave no less than $61 billion (according to the South African Institute of International Affairs), between 1960 and 1994, as our contribution to your struggle against Apartheid and white minority rule.

And guess what?

It was not only Thabo Mbeki that took refuge on our shores but also President Nelson Mandela.

Mandela lived in Nigeria between 1962 and 1963, and was sequestered in the home of the Parliamentary Secretary who later became Minister of Aviation, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi, in a town called Ukpor in the old Eastern Region, which is in present-day Anambra State.

This means that both South Africa’s first and second post-independence presidents, Mandela and Mbeki, were both living in exile in Nigeria at one point or the other, and both enjoyed the full protection of our Federal Government.

Mbeki lived in our country from 1977 till 1984, and went on to become President of South Africa in 1998, after Mandela had served as president from 1994 till that year.

Ours is a caring and sharing country where our children gave up their lunch allowance in school, and instead of buying lunch used the money to raise over $10 million for the struggle for emancipation and liberation in South Africa.

Ours is a loving nation that is willing to give its all to those suffering injustice and those we care for, and we gave no less than $61 billion (according to the South African Institute of International Affairs), between 1960 and 1994, as our contribution to your struggle against Apartheid and white minority rule.

Ours is a nation that still supports and brings enormous benefits to your country today through trade and we are one of the three countries, alongside Angola and Mozambique, that provide 90 per cent of your energy needs in terms of oil and gas.

We are also one of the 53 African countries that collectively provide a market for 80 per cent of your goods and finished products today.

Ours is a nation that sacrificed so much for you and that between 1975 till 1990 refused to sell our oil and gas to countries that insisted on supporting the white minority regime and Apartheid Government in South Africa, consequently losing approximately $30 billion worth of sales over that period of time.

We may have our fair share of challenges as a nation but, unlike yours, at least our land is vested in the hands of the Nigerian people, and we do not have a situation whereby 70 per cent of it, in addition to 80 per cent of our economy and commerce and 90 per cent of our wealth, is vested and in the control of a white minority that constitute only 7.2 per cent of your population.

Outside of that, 45.7 per cent of South African youths and 32.6 per cent of South African adults are unemployed, whilst 70 per cent of the companies that are listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange are owned by white South Africans and foreign nationals!

According to the Institute for Security Studies and the University of Johannesburg, immigrants, including Nigerian nationals, make up 6.5 per cent of South Africa’s population and yet contribute up to 9 per cent of your GDP.

Nigeria has the biggest and largest number of banks on the African continent and 94 per cent of them are owned by Nigerians, whilst not a single bank in South Africa is owned solely by a black South African.

Nigeria has a large number of privately owned commercial airline carriers that ply international and transatlantic routes throughout the world and they are ALL owned by Nigerians, whilst black South Africans only own two out of which only one flies outside of Africa!

Again Nigeria has the highest number of private jets in Africa, numbering 240.

Sadly black South Africans can hardly boast of having a stake or their fair share of the wealth that is firmly embedded in their own country.

Some 70 per cent of black South African children do not live with their fathers, with devastating consequences on their psyche, and no less than four million black South Africans are themselves undocumented, which means that as far as the state is concerned they don’t exist!

Despite our challenges in Nigeria at least our people do not suffer the unconciable level of racial discrimination that the black South African has had to live with from time immemorial!

Nigeria can boast of having the richest black man on the planet and four of the 23 billionaires in the African continent from within its shores.

Only your nation, which has seven, and Egypt, which has five, has more billionaires than Nigeria in Africa, but the point that many fail to grasp is that at least three of those who are billionaires in South Africa derive their wealth from doing business with Nigeria, and having access to the Nigerian market.

Our history, education and cultural heritage and our contributions to humanity and the arts are second to none and in terms of tried and tested ancient Empires, Kingdoms and sophisticated organisational structures, unlike most, ours stretch back for thousands of years.

To add to that, we have the largest oil refinery in Africa and the first and second largest cement factories on the continent, and they are all owned by Nigerians.

Our military is three times the size of South Africa’s and ranks third only to Egypt and Algeria in terms of capacity and firepower in Africa.

We have the largest population in the continent, which stands at no less than 250 million and our economy is not only regaining its strength but remains the third largest and fastest growing in Africa.

Our professionals and intellectuals are the best educated in Africa and have been attending the best universities in the world in numbers for at least 150 years!

Nigerians are one of the two best educated ethnic groups in the United States of America with over 60 per cent of our people holding Bachelors degrees.

We are second only to the Indians in America, with 75 per cent of them holding Bachelors degrees.

The first African to graduate from a University was His Royal Highness Olu Atuwatse I (Dom Domingos), a Nigerian, who was the 14th Olu of Warri and who studied and graduated in Theology from the University of Coimbra in Portugal in 1611.

The first African to be called to the English Bar and become a lawyer was Christopher Sapara Williams, a Nigerian, who was admitted to the Inner Temple and was called to the Bar in 1879.

The first four Africans to graduate as medical practitioners were Dr William Broughton Davies, a Sierra Leonean/Nigerian of Yoruba descent, who graduated from the University of St. Andrews in 1858; Dr James Africanus Beale Horton, a Sierra Leonean/Nigerian of Igbo descent, who graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1859; Dr Nathaniel King, a Nigerian, who graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 1874; and Dr John Randle, a Nigerian, who graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1888.

The first African to receive an Honorary Doctorate from Oxford University was a Nigerian by the name of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, who received an honorary Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) degree from the University in 1864.

The first African to be consecrated as a Bishop by the Anglican Church was again Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, and this again took place in 1864.

The first African to attend Oxford University was Christian Frederick Cole, a Nigerian/Sierra Leonean, who initially gained entry as a non-Collegiate student and graduated in Classics in 1876, after which he gained entry into University College, Oxford, studied Law, graduated in 1879, was admitted to the Inner Temple, and was called to the English Bar in 1883.

The first African to attend Cambridge University was George Gurney Nicole, a Nigerian/Sierra Leonean who attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, studied Law and graduated with a B.A. in 1879.

The first African woman to attend Oxford University was Kofoworola Aina Ademola, a Nigerian, who studied Engiish Literature and Education at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford and earned her degree in 1935.

The “smartest and best educated” family in the United Kingdom are a Nigerian family by the name of the Imafadion.

The only family in the history of Africa that can boast of having “five generations of Oxbridge-level University graduates”, spanning from 1893 till 2026, are a Nigerian family by the name of the Fani-Kayode.

The first and only black woman to earn a PhD in pure Mathematics in the 148-year history of the University of South Africa (UNISA) is Professor Oghenetega Ighedo, a Nigerian lady who completed the programme in just 3 years while raising her family.

Some ask why all this matters and the answer is simple: it matters because it reminds both ourselves and our sea of detractors of who we are as a people and where we are coming from.

Our history, education and cultural heritage and our contributions to humanity and the arts are second to none and in terms of tried and tested ancient Empires, Kingdoms and sophisticated organisational structures, unlike most, ours stretch back for thousands of years.

So NO Minister Tshaveni, we are not a nation of drug dealers but a nation of strong-willed, determined, hard-working, versatile, resourceful, courageous, and resilient men and women whose ancestry is rooted in a great and noble heritage and whose head may be bloodied but certainly not bowed.

Yet it does not stop there.

Femi Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Minister of Aviation and the Ambassador-Designate of Nigeria to South Africa.