Xenophobia: ’Leaving S’Africa Was More Emotional Than Physical Abuse’, Returnee Shares Experience

[00:00:03][music] [music] >> Welcome back. Let's talk about what's been playing out in South Africa back and forth the match and match and all of these xenophobic issues. What is a phobia or xenophobic? Well, we have someone who lived in South Africa. It was one of those that returned. I think the last batch of person that returned to Nigeria on the help of the federal government to ensure that our citizens are safe. Well, his story is a little different. Let's talk to him. Sunny Osoro just recently returned from South Africa. He's also a pastor. Sunny, good morning and welcome to the program.

[00:00:42]>> Good morning. Glad to be here.

[00:00:45]>> So, I did remember that when you were talking, I think I saw the interview you did when you were I think in Joburg plus the one you did at the airport.

[00:00:52]>> Yeah.

[00:00:52]>> Uh when you were like look, you didn't really experience all the things you talked about. But so, if you really didn't experience, first tell us practical experience of what you saw, maybe not experience. And what in what informed your decision to say now, I'm not staying here for this.

[00:01:08]>> back.

[00:01:08]Okay, you know, when it comes to abuse, there are people who leave abuse when it's until when it gets physical. Some leave when it's emotional.

[00:01:17]You know, it all depends on how you have programmed your life, you know, to go.

[00:01:23]So, in my own case, leaving South Africa was more emotional than physical abuse.

[00:01:29]When I lived in in an area called Sandton, it doesn't have those kind of the match didn't even get there. You know, however, I do mission work, you know, in South Africa for the past 16 years. I've been doing mission work in South Africa. And most of the places that we go and minister to people in the townships are places where we would have to engage with local South Africans, you know, mostly.

[00:01:58]So, um even though I had security where I lived, but I feel like there's a lot, you know, to the country than just where I live.

[00:02:10]You know, so I didn't want to wait until maybe I get because there's a there's hate in the atmosphere.

[00:02:18]Yes, it's true that there are people that, you know, that love, you know, people that are cool, people that understand life, that understand how what it means to integrate with other um uh foreign nationals, you know, but at the same time, the majority are xenophobic.

[00:02:36]They may not get to the extent of being physically violent, but you can feel it in the body language, the way they relate with you at certain times. You know, at one point there was even a pastor who looked at me and said, "No, you guys cannot hold service in this place. You bring your strange uh uh churches from outside South Africa, you know, down here." And this is a pastor of a church, you know? And we were having a service.

[00:03:05]It I said to him, I said, "You're my brother." He said, "No, you're not my brother."

[00:03:09]You know? So, I've had all of those things. The moment they see that you're Nigerian, especially, they feel threatened. They feel like you want to take over their members, you know? It's it's happening in the business sector. It's also happening in in ministry as well, too.

[00:03:27]You know? So, there are those of them that feel feel threatened, like you can't really uh I [snorts] mean, relate with them, you know, at the level you want to relate with them.

[00:03:37]>> What What What exactly What exactly is our offense, if I may ask?

[00:03:41]>> [laughter] >> What exactly is our offense as Nigerians? What have we done? I mean, there are reports of how many Nigerians are too loud, Nigerians spend more, uh we're we're arrogant, we're with on on documented papers and all of that.

[00:03:55]But >> Okay. Okay, to to make this to put this uh to a more balanced perspective, there are actually a lot that Nigerians do that's wrong in South Africa.

[00:04:06]Um Let's talk about the drugs first of all.

[00:04:12]There's a lot of uh drug dealers who are Nigerians.

[00:04:18]And some of them get to the extent of putting young South African ladies in and using them as uh slaves like pro- for prostitution.

[00:04:31]>> Wow.

[00:04:31]>> You know, and some of those who call them Yes.

[00:04:34]>> We call them heartless hustlers.

[00:04:36]You know, they have these places and they get this uh these young ladies to become uh ad- addicted to the drugs. So, even while they are making money for them, they are also using the money they get to get drugs from them as well.

[00:04:56]You know, and it's very terrible, but I believe from the records, most of the people that bring it into the country are not Nigerians.

[00:05:09]There've been a lot of drug like big uh drug bust and they happen to be South Africans.

[00:05:15]>> You know. The uh sponsors may be South Africans, but the couriers within South Africa are Nigerians.

[00:05:22]>> But mostly Nigerians and some other foreign nationals.

[00:05:26]>> Okay.

[00:05:26]>> Uh so, and then white people as well, too.

[00:05:30]From Well, I don't want to mention any country, you know, bring it into the country. So, what the Nigerians do mostly are the ones who move the drugs [snorts] within the country. And I think part of it from some of these drug dealers that I've spoken to, uh one of them I met him in Cape Town in 2013.

[00:05:53]He looked at me and he said he said he had a 2:1 in mechanical engineering, >> [sighs] >> but he cannot get a job in South Africa because what South Africa does is they put their citizens first.

[00:06:06]Unless it's in uh critical skills like uh scarce resources there yeah they consider people from outside, you know?

[00:06:14]So, they put their citizens first when it comes to employment. So, over the years um getting a job gets harder.

[00:06:23]>> Mhm.

[00:06:23]>> They make the system tougher.

[00:06:25]Uh they they they used to have a general work visa that was rolled off.

[00:06:32]They started issuing only issuing um business visas and the critical skills visas.

[00:06:39]You know, and of course the volunteer um work visa. So, now with the business visas, it even comes with a condition.

[00:06:49]So, it's either you are bringing in at least 5 million rands um as a capital.

[00:06:57]You you're able to prove uh that you've got 5 million rands or it's a business that you're running with a South African citizen as a partner.

[00:07:08]You know? So, before you can get a business visa visa with a life partner.

[00:07:13]So, they make the system over the years it gets harder and harder. They even made it hard for um before if you're born in South Africa as a non I mean, born by two non-South Africans, you could become a citizen by birth.

[00:07:31]>> All right.

[00:07:31]>> You know, but that was rolled off as well, too.

[00:07:34]So, the government is putting in that system to help uh to make the immigration laws tighter so that they could favor uh South African citizens, but they are still not seeing it. They still feel like the government has not done enough.

[00:07:50]So, they there's they feel like there's still a lot >> All right.

[00:07:53]>> in the country.

[00:07:54]>> So, you know, um some would say the history of xenophobia in South Africa is as old as the end of apartheid, and this is not the first time that we're seeing um xenophobic attacks particularly against Nigerians.

[00:08:07]We could, you know, go down memory lane and count the number of deaths of Nigerians amid xenophobia in South Africa.

[00:08:15]From your experience you you've spent and you spent quite some time, by the way, in South Africa, 16 years. So, from your experience, what was different about this round of xenophobia? You know, it started with reports about some people of a particular ethnic group in Nigeria in South Africa, you know, organizing what some misinterpreted to be, you know, not acceptable in in another country not their own. And then it's snowballed into something bigger.

[00:08:45]So, what exactly was different about this round of xenophobia?

[00:08:49]>> Okay. Uh from my observation, I personally think the the advent of the social social media has, you know, contributed a lot to it because um I think people are more aware of things of things spread faster now than it did back in the days. And it's they they become more more organized because uh they're able to reach more people.

[00:09:19]And out of it also, I think, could be uh the trigger from what happened when um an Igbo king was being I don't know if it was a coronation or so in in the eastern key because this came up right after that happened. And there was there was some serious issues. There were um that that's um it sparked up the whole uh thing before it now got to this stage. You know, so I think those two things, you know, must have contributed to this.

[00:09:54]You know, and because people are more aware and um people are more informed, so they're able to spread their message across to their people, especially with TikTok.

[00:10:07]Yeah.

[00:10:08]>> All right. So, in other words, you're totally out of the same. So, uh as we Do you have any plans to go back as a person? Any plan?

[00:10:16]>> Moving back to South Africa, no.

[00:10:18]>> [laughter] >> So, you you you as a person that wanted to go What what what happened to What happened to your ship there? Your plan?

[00:10:22]>> But what about, you know, your investment, the things that you've built over the years? How much have you lost as a result of this big decision?

[00:10:30]>> Okay. My stay in South Africa was mostly on missionary basis. So, every other thing I did was more of um what I run personally as a business as a visual artist. You know, and um painting and all that. So, um I wouldn't say I've lost much, you know, when it comes to that, you know. But like you asked, um ministry-wise, uh most of our work was missionary until was recently that we started as a church. And then we were meeting, we had, you know, growing to a certain stage, and the whole pressure got to this level. You know, I told them, "You going to have to find uh a a a good church, you know, and get planted in."

[00:11:15]>> Did did you know Did the government Did the government do enough for you?

[00:11:19]Did the government do enough >> Yes. Um I want to use this opportunity to thank the federal government because um the government did did so well, so well in the the repatriation, yeah.

[00:11:33]>> Thank you. Sunny, so uh the missionary in South Africa returned recently from the last set of people that came back.

[00:11:38]Thank you. Appreciate you for coming on the program. Good to see you.

[00:11:42]We'll take a break and when we come back after this break we'll switch gears.

[00:11:44]Now, let's talk about football, the World Cup. Argentina versus Spain. It ended as Lamine [music] Yamal, young, one of the youngest ever win the World Cup. We'll talk about it in the moment.

[00:11:54]Cecilia joins us, still with us.

[00:12:01]>> [music]