As Adeboye cautions against evacuating Nigerians from South Africa
Catholic Bishops in South Africa have disagreed with the South African government’s claim that the attacks on Nigerians and other foreigners in the rainbow nation were not xenophobic.
In a statement by Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference Office for Migrants and Refugees issued yesterday, the clergymen said they were not happy with the attack on foreign nationals in South Africa.
“Once again we received reports of the authorities doing very little to protect the victims. We received reports of police standing by idly in Pretoria while shops were being looted and people attacked. Not a single arrest was made on that day.
“Once again the authorities resort to the old explanation: that this is not xenophobia, but the work of criminal elements.
“Let us be absolutely clear – this is not an attempt by concerned South Africans to rid our cities of drug dealers. And this is not the work of a few criminal elements. It is xenophobia, plain and simple. If it was about drugs, why are South African drug dealers not being targeted as well? Are we really to believe that there are none? And why are drug addicts who rob people in our city centres to get money to buy drugs not being targeted? If it is the work of a few criminal elements, why are South African-owned businesses not being looted as well?” he said.
“The teaching of the Church is direct and uncompromising. More than 80 per cent of South Africans claim to be Christians. What are our religious leaders teaching the multitudes that fill our Churches every Sunday? Galatians 3:28 says, ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’.
“By the same token, there is neither South African nor Nigerian nor Ethiopian. We are all one in Christ Jesus.
“Let us take heed of this. We are facing a rising tide of hatred and intolerance, no different to the rising tide of hatred in Nazi Germany. If we do not take urgent actions to stop it, there will be nothing left,” he added.
Meanwhile, general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has urged Nigerians at home not to avenge the attacks on their compatriots in South Africa.
It would be recalled that diplomatic tension between Nigeria and South Africa has reached a fever pitch following the xenophobic violence in the latter leading to the looting of property belonging to Nigerians.
Consequently, the federal government has concluded plans to evacuate Nigerians willing to leave South Africa for home.
Adeboye, who called for caution, urged the federal government to use diplomatic means to resolve the crisis.
He said Nigerians travel to South Africa in search of greener pastures since there are fewer opportunities for them in their country.
“I beg you in the name of God, don’t retaliate against South Africa,” said Adeboye in his sermon during the September edition of the monthly Holy Ghost Service held at the Redemption Camp along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on Friday, Adeboye.
With the vice president, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and wife, Dolapo in attendance, Adeboye recalled his experience as a student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
According to him, the civil war was about to start, students at the University of Ibadan were seized in the Western Region and he and other non-easterners were also seized in the Eastern Region.
“At that time, I was at the University of Nigeria (Enugu State). Col Odumegwu Ojukwu said (on radio in 1966) he could no longer guarantee the safety of those who came from outside the Eastern Region. We were in regions then. So, he told all of us who were not easterners to go home. And all our brothers who were of eastern origin sympathised with us, because our studies at Nsukka were coming to an abrupt end.
“The university authorities called a meeting and they told us that they would make arrangements to transport those of us who were not of eastern origin to our regions. Suddenly, news came over the radio that the students at the University of Ibadan were concerned about their brethren from the East and that they were holding them (easterners) to ransom, saying they would not be released until everybody from Western Region had come back home.
“Immediately, everything changed. All our friends from the Eastern Region, people we had been friends, eating together, playing together, who were sympathising a moment ago, changed. Immediately, they began to hold meetings as to how to keep all of us who were from outside the East in the East until they had all their own brothers returned to them. I mean everything changed,” he said.
“In my life I can count three or four occasions that I have known fear – in the real sense of the word. I knew it that day. All of us gathered together, we were not very many. There was one man among us from Ekiti who was noted for expensive jokes. While we were all trembling, not knowing what we were going to do, he said, ‘Well, my own case is simple. My wife has just got a son. If I die now, nobody will ever say that I never came into the world’.
“Suddenly, the possibility of dying came to us. You don’t know what it means to be in another man’s land, not knowing what would happen overnight. Be careful. Don’t retaliate against South Africa because of the Nigerians who are still in South Africa.
“It took divine intervention to get us across the Niger again, because the moment we saw what was happening, those of us who had money began to run away, to take (public) transport from Nsukka to Asaba. I had just one – what they call in those days – Senate scholarship. It means the Senate of the university was going to pay my school fees and allowances, because I was the best student in the Mathematics Department. So, I had spent the money I had because I knew money was coming. Now, I was down to zero. I had no money, even if I wanted to run away. And the university had said…anyway, let me leave the story there,” he added.
With Punch report
