South Africans, calm down.
Anger is not an excuse for xenophobia. It never has been, and it never will be. What is unfolding is not outrage it is misdirected hostility against fellow Africans, and it is both disappointing and deeply ironic.
When apartheid suffocated your nation, it was not convenient for others to stand with you. Yet Africa did. Nigeria did. We invested resources, took risks, and made sacrifices because we believed your freedom was tied to ours. That was not sentiment it was principle.
Today, that same principle appears to be in short supply.
A symbolic cultural title suddenly becomes a national threat? Let’s be serious. No one declared themselves ruler of South Africa. No sovereignty was challenged. What you are reacting to is not illegality it is unfamiliarity. And unfamiliarity is not a crime.
What is far more concerning is the selective outrage. You cannot position your country as open to the world, welcome capital, tourists, and migrants from across continents, yet turn around and direct hostility at Africans who share your history and your struggle. That contradiction is glaring.
If laws are broken, enforce them firmly and without hesitation. But if no law has been breached, then this outrage has no legal foundation, only emotional excess.
And emotion, when left unchecked, becomes prejudice.
Ubuntu is not a slogan to be recited on ceremonial days. It is a standard. A test of character. If it means anything, it must mean something now when it is inconvenient, when tempers are high, when restraint is hardest.
Africa cannot afford selective brotherhood. Not now. Not ever.
If we begin to criminalize identity, culture, and association, then we are not progressing we are regressing into the very divisions we once fought to dismantle.
Do better.
Otunba Segun Showunmi
Odofin Keesi
African Thought Leader.
