Of Tyla and the Country We Helped Save

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

It began, as these things often do nowadays, with a concert. South African music sensation Tyla was billed to perform in Lagos. Within hours, social media erupted. Some Nigerians demanded an outright boycott. Others insisted the performance should be cancelled in protest against the recurring xenophobic attacks on Nigerians and other African nationals living in South Africa. A third group counselled restraint, arguing that many law-abiding Nigerians still live and work in South Africa, and that culture should not become another casualty of political failure.

All legitimate positions. Yet, beneath the noise over one artiste lies a much older and more troubling conversation. Tyla is not the story. She is merely the latest excuse to revisit a painful question that Africa has postponed for far too long: how did the country that so many Africans helped to liberate become the continent’s most persistent theatre of anti-African hostility?

For those of us old enough to remember, the answer is wrapped in memories that refuse to fade. We remember apartheid not as an abstract chapter in African history, but as a living wound. We remember the protests, the solidarity marches, the newspaper campaigns, the student demonstrations and the cultural resistance. We remember Sonny Okosun’s haunting anthems, “Fire in Soweto” and “Papa’s Land”, echoing through our radios like musical manifestoes against injustice. We remember writers, journalists, poets and activists lending their voices to a struggle that was never ours by nationality, but became ours by conscience.

Nigeria, in particular, did far more than issue diplomatic statements. Governments came and went, but support for South Africa’s liberation remained remarkably consistent. Through the Southern Africa Relief Fund, ordinary Nigerians contributed financially to the anti-apartheid struggle. Scholarships were offered. Diplomatic pressure was mounted. Sporting and cultural boycotts were embraced. Our universities, labour unions, professional bodies, media organisations and religious groups treated apartheid as an affront to African humanity itself.

We did not ask whether the victims spoke our language, attended our churches or shared our ethnicity. They were Africans. That was enough.

History therefore records a bitter irony. A nation sustained, in no small measure, by continental solidarity now finds itself repeatedly associated with attacks on fellow Africans seeking nothing more sinister than honest livelihoods. Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Somalis, Ethiopians, Congolese, Nigerians and others have all, at different times, borne the scars of violence carried out in the name of protecting jobs, neighbourhoods or national identity.

The tragedy is not merely that these attacks occur. The greater tragedy is that they continue to recur.

To be fair, it would be both inaccurate and unjust to paint all South Africans with the same brush. Many have courageously condemned the attacks. Many have sheltered foreign nationals during periods of unrest. Civil society organisations, faith leaders and ordinary citizens have repeatedly appealed for calm and coexistence. The real indictment lies elsewhere: in the inability of successive governments to convince the world that perpetrators will be identified swiftly, prosecuted decisively and punished visibly enough to deter future violence. 

That perception matters. Every fresh attack deepens the impression that xenophobic violence has become an unfortunate seasonal visitor rather than an intolerable national emergency. Official condemnations arrive. Diplomatic meetings follow. Promises are exchanged. Investigations commence. Then, after public attention drifts elsewhere, another cycle begins.

Nigeria has not exactly covered itself in glory either. Our responses have often oscillated between loud indignation and prolonged silence. We evacuate distressed citizens after avoidable tragedies have unfolded. We summon diplomats, issue strongly worded statements and establish committees. Yet sustained diplomatic engagement, strategic economic leverage and coordinated continental pressure have too often been missing from the equation.

The African Union has hardly inspired confidence. For an organisation founded partly upon the ideals of African solidarity and collective security, its interventions have frequently appeared tentative. Fine communiqués are issued, but robust enforcement mechanisms remain elusive. Continental integration cannot thrive merely on declarations while Africans continue to fear becoming foreigners within Africa.

The uncomfortable truth is that xenophobia rarely grows in isolation. South Africa’s deep economic inequality, persistently high unemployment, violent criminality, frustrated youth population and combustible local politics have created fertile ground for dangerous narratives that blame immigrants for structural failures. Foreign nationals become convenient scapegoats for problems they neither created nor control.

That explanation, however, must never become an excuse. Economic hardship does not justify murder. Job scarcity does not legitimise looting. Frustration cannot excuse burning another person’s business simply because he or she crossed an African border in search of opportunity. Criminality is criminality, whether draped in nationalism or wrapped in populist slogans.

This is why Africa’s response must become firmer, smarter and more coordinated. Governments whose citizens are repeatedly targeted deserve more than expressions of regret. Bilateral agreements should include enforceable protections for migrant communities. Intelligence-sharing and policing cooperation should be strengthened to identify and prosecute organised instigators of xenophobic violence. The African Union should establish a permanent mechanism for monitoring, reporting and responding rapidly to attacks on African migrants. Where governments consistently fail to protect resident African nationals, carefully calibrated diplomatic and economic measures should no longer be considered unthinkable.

Equally important is the battle for public consciousness. Political leaders must stop flirting with anti-immigrant rhetoric for short-term electoral advantage. Schools should teach the history of African liberation more honestly. Young South Africans deserve to know that the freedoms they enjoy today were defended not only by Mandela, Tambo, Sisulu and Biko, but also by millions of ordinary Africans who refused to accept apartheid as South Africa’s burden alone.

Perhaps that is why the Tyla controversy should neither be dismissed nor exaggerated. Cancelling a concert will not end xenophobia. Neither will attending one erase painful memories. Artists should build bridges where politicians erect walls. But bridges are strongest when they rest upon foundations of justice, mutual respect and genuine security.

Africa cannot preach unity abroad while practising suspicion at home. We cannot celebrate the African Continental Free Trade Area, speak eloquently about free movement of people, goods and services, and dream of an African renaissance, while an African trader, student, artisan or entrepreneur remains unsure whether tomorrow’s journey across an African border may end in humiliation or death.

The generation that fought apartheid believed, perhaps naively but sincerely, that freedom would make Africa more humane. That dream deserves better than recurring images of fellow Africans fleeing mobs on African streets.

The country we helped to save must never become the place where Africa loses faith in itself.