First Republic Aviation Minister and elder statesman, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi has frowned at the upsurge of xenophobic attacks against Nigerians and other foreign nationals in South Africa, regretting that the significant roles played by Nigeria during the darkest era of the country were not being appreciated by this scourge called Xenophobia.
Speaking to journalists in his hometown at Ukpor in Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra state, the foremost nationalist who fought for Nigeria’s independence alongside late Nnamdi Azikiwe, reminisced over the memorable period of six months he spent with former late South African president, Nelson Mandela when he took asylum in Nigeria during the apartheid regime of the British rulers in his country home in 1963.
The nonagenarian also condemned the European countries for allegedly conspiring to divide and suppress Black Africans, as well as the military intervention that “did a lot of damage”, advising that Africans would be ridiculed by the European powers if they fail to rise and ‘fix things’ in their countries.
He said: “Honestly, I feel very sad when I read in the newspapers or watch in the television, some of the atrocious things being done in South Africa today, particularly Black South Africans not wanting their brothers to be in their country and particularly Nigerians. My people don’t deserve death in South Africa. The killing going on in South Africa is a lesson to my people to think home, invest in Igbo land. That is the only place you can call home and feel safe.
“Nigeria played a very significant role in the darkest years of the Black South Africans during the apartheid era. You know they were killing them, imprisoning them and in my own government of Eastern region by my party the NCNC then because when we won independence in 1960, I was elected a member of parliament, I was first of all appointed a parliamentary secretary then in 1962 before I was appointed as minister. I was Nigeria’s first minister of aviation and I remained a minister, won election the second time in 1964, reappointed a minister and remained a minister until the military took over the government. Of all the ministers that served in the first republic, I’m the only surviving one amongst them and I’m now 90 years old.
“So we collected a lot of young boys and girls from South Africa, from Zimbabwe, from Tanzania, Malawi and gave them scholarships in Nigerian secondary schools. The Zikist Grammar School here had about 20 South Africans and 20 East and Central Africans when they were being oppressed by the Whites. We gave them education. Most of their politicians, we trained them in the NCNC political training school at Yaba. They went home and became ministers in their own countries.
“When Nelson Mandela was being haunted by South African apartheid government and British Intelligent Service, he went to Tanzania and being a small country, they wanted to round him up there because there were so many whites in Tanzania. So he found his way to Nigeria in 1961 and when he came here, he reported to the governor general at that time which was Nnamdi Azikiwe and Zik said ‘okay, we’ll host you here, we’ll keep you in this country and we’ll give you refuge here. Let me find a nationalist that has similar thinking with you, whom you’ll feel comfortable at home.’ So, Zik sent for me and I went to see him at the State House. He introduced Nelson Mandela and said I should take him and that he should stay with me.
“Mandela came with me and lived with me in my house at number 5 Okokiebu street, Ikoyi Lagos for six good months. The British secret intelligent service were looking for him desperately. South Africa has no representation in Nigeria in the apartheid government, so the British people were fighting for them. They were looking for him but it was impossible for them to get to Mandela because Mandela was with me. I wasn’t a soft person. The British knew me, but they won’t get near me. If they try getting near me, the person will burn. So Mandela felt free with me. Most often, we’ll go to clubs at night, we dance at the Empire Hotel, we go and dance high life and so on. You dare not touch me and then once a month, I use to come home. Mandela and I will come to this village, we stayed here in this village, spend the weekend then on Monday or Tuesday, we go back to Lagos. There’s an African diet he liked very much, Abacus, the flat one, the one they call ‘Akpu mmiri’. Mandela liked it very much and my mother was always very fond of preparing it even when we’re going back to Lagos, she will package it for us because Mandela liked it.”
However, according to Mbazulike, Mandela, the revolutionary that he was, knew that he could not run forever, and decided to return to South Africa and face whatever fate held for him.
“But after about 6 months, Mandela started thinking and said, ‘look comrade, this my stay in Nigeria is not productive. It’s true that I’m with you here but my people are still slaves. I think I better go home because if I go home, one of two things will happen. They’ll either kill me or they’ll send me to prison. Whichever way they do, will give inspiration to other nationalists to fight on and continue with the struggle.’ So he said he was going home and we decided he should go. We rallied a few of the known old Zikists then, we escorted him to the airport and then we sat together and we sang the Zikist anthem. After singing it for him, he boarded the aircraft and went home. Barely three months after he went home, they arrested him and sent him to prison for life,” the elder statesman asserted.
Mbazulike added that Mandela wrote him letters while he was in prison, and continued even after his release and subsequent ascendancy to the presidency.
He stated that, “Significantly, the typical Mandela, he wrote me a letter from prison, signed it and in that letter, he told me that one Dr. Balange, the son of the lawyer who defended them, that the apartheid government was trying to get him so as to imprison him. He said that Dr. Bolange was running away to Nigeria and that I should help him get a job in Nigeria. So he came to Nigeria and reported to me and I arranged the University of Ife to offer him a job as a lecturer. So that was Mandela from prison, writing to think about somebody else’s concern. That’s the nature of the kind of person Mandela was.
“Mandela was eventually discharged from prison after 27 years. He came to Nigeria to say ‘thank you’ to us. By then, Nigeria was under military dictatorship but Mandela said, whatever happened, he wanted to see two people in Nigeria – Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Mbazulike Amaechi. Zik was then a man that has no position as a governor or president at Nsukka, so they arranged then military governor at Enugu who arranged with Mandela to meet with Zik. They sent for me that Mandela was at Enugu and wanted to see me. I went to Enugu with my wife and we met with Mandela. He introduced me with his wife because he came with her. We spent some time at Enugu before we escorted him back home.
“When Mandela died, I wanted to go for his funeral but the Federal Government under Goodluck Jonathan refused to sponsor me. I even begged him to give me a lift in his free aircraft. Then, the secretary to the government, the one from Afikpo, Pius Anyim, said ‘look, what are you going to do in South Africa? The way they do their funeral is not the way we do it here. It’s just to stand on the street and wave when they carry the corpse.’ Peter Obi was the governor of Anambra state at that time. Four days to the event in South Africa, Obi solicited for me. I was in Abuja trying to beg these people but Peter Obi said ‘No, don’t worry. Anambra state government will sponsor you.’ So he sponsored me, my PA and my secretary and we went to South Africa.
“But the significant thing was that my going to South Africa was the only way of letting the world know that Nigeria played a role in the affairs of Mandela and South Africa. Our president, Jonathan, went there, he sat among the VIPs in the field. Only one spokesman was allowed per continent. One woman spoke for Africa, American president spoke, somebody spoke for Europe and so on. But Jonathan was there, nobody took notice of him and he went home. It was only when I arrived that the Nigerian mission in South Africa became very happy. They surprised me at the airport by 5am, they gave me VIP treatment inside the Nigerian embassy in South Africa. They later arranged for me to go to Mandela’s house to sign the condolence register. From there I went to the place and paid my respect to him, then they took me to his village, I saw some bullet marks on the wall when they were fighting during the apartheid. The most important thing was that they arranged a big dinner party of international people for me and a world press conference for me to address the world. It was there that South Africans and the world came to know that Nigeria played a very significant role in the struggle of South African Blacks.”
Regretting the killings of Nigerians and other Black Africans in South Africa by their nationals, the former minister said, “Now that I’m hearing about South Africans killing Nigerians or other Africans, I feel so sad because in their darkest hours, many Nigerians played a role even during military regime. The military in Nigeria, under (Mohammed) Abacha of all people, received Mandela and I think they gave him something but Mandela was not bothered about money. Wealth was not his concern in life. But it’s true that people from Zimbabwe, Malawi and other areas were rushing down to South Africa because of its development and its mineral resources and there’s more wealth there. Most of the South African people, it will be unkind for me to say that they’re lazy but they’re not playing their roles in seeking for employment. They’re just eager to enjoy the new freedom they have than working. And so when others come to work and earn their salaries, they become jealous; it makes one feel very uncomfortable. When they’re killing Blacks, perhaps they don’t discriminate among Nigerians. All Blacks are blacks but Nigeria played a very significant role in the struggle by the Blacks of South Africa to free themselves from the yoke of imperialism called apartheid. So that they should be killing Nigerians like that is not good enough.
“But I must tell you that even some Nigerians are killing themselves in South Africa. When I was there, the High Commissioner called me and told me to address a particular section of Nigerians in South Africa that in the last 6 months, there have been 15 cases of Nigerians killing themselves. It’s true that the economy is bad in Nigeria, it’s true that the government of Nigeria is discriminating against certain sections of the country, the South East and the South South and it has forced many of them to rush out of the country. But I’ll tell them to start thinking home. The Igbos should start thinking home, make some money there and return back home.
“It’s not fair that Nigeria will give protection to big companies like MTN from South Africa, Shoprite and all these big companies and organizations. We give them protection and when our people go there, they’re being killed. So the government of South Africa has a very big responsibility, duty and obligation to protect Nigerians and other Africans in South Africa because when they were in their darkest hour, these people came to their rescue.
“Europe conspiratorially held a meeting to divide Africa. They suppressed Africa and ruled Africa. Black African people struggled and liberated themselves from imperial governments of European powers in those days. Now, if we don’t rule ourselves, if we start killing ourselves here, they’ll ridicule us and say, ‘that’s why they said we should be colonized and ruled’. But unfortunately, amongst so many governments in South Africa, military intervention did a lot of damage like the case of Nigeria. 38 years of military intervention in Nigeria destroyed nationalism in Nigeria, destroyed patriotism, introduced stealing, vandalism, looting, massive corruption, killings and made the nation lose conscience. No ideological reasoning, nobody is thinking about tomorrow. People who go to government now, go there for what they can get out of government but people like us who fought for independence, went into government for what we could give and we gave the best we had but now, these people are extorting, looting and destroying the country.”
Chukwuemeka Chimerue writes from Nnewi
