“I am an African! I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land!”
–Thabo Mbeki, 8, May, 1996, on the occasion of the passage of his country’s first post-Apartheid constitution.
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The recent controversy regarding the purported “crowning” of a Nigerian man in East London, South Africa, by his compatriots is both a sign that we Africans still have quite a bit to do regarding our Pan-African ideals and that much about our traditional politics remains esoteric to even the most well-informed observer on the continent.
The matter in question, which has since led to protests, riots and a call for the man in question’s deportation, is really emblematic of a fundamental breakdown in communication between host and visitor communities in the Republic of South Africa. This has been the case since my sister Bebe and I lived there in 2013 and 2014, and in the time since, I’m sorry to say, things seem to only have gotten worse in this regard.
Before I get ahead of myself, though, let me explain what exactly happened that led to the trouble… I’ll then explain why this shouldn’t have been allowed to degenerate to this stage by all concerned – both Nigerian and South African alike.
For King And Country
On March 14th, 2026, a Nigerian man by the name of Solomon Ogbonna Eziko was slated to be installed by fellow Nigerians as the Igwe Ndigbo of East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The chieftaincy title, which translates to “king of the Igbo people” of East London, was seen by many in South Africa as a power grab, an attempt to conquer the country by creating a parallel chieftaincy system to the one that traditionally governs it.
This was a misunderstanding of an important aspect of the Nigerian chieftaincy system; being a fount of honour here does not necessarily constitute sovereignty. In Yorubaland, for example, several diaspora tribes that are resident here have formally recognized chieftaincy structures of their own that are subject to our ruling Obas and Baales. They are not in competition with the actual kings and paramount chiefs described, but rather are the spokespersons for their communities in their palaces.
This system is so well-developed that even non-Nigerian ethnic groups have such diasporic titleholders in my country; in 2019, Chief Mike Zhang was installed as the Wakili of the Chinese people of Kano, the official leader of the Chinese expat community in that historic city. In that capacity, he is expected to represent the interests of the Chinese in the palace of the Emir of Kano and his chiefs. Far from being the exception, this is very much the rule in Nigeria.
By The Grace Of God
Now, whether or not a person can do something is not necessarily an indicator of whether he should. The Nigerian chieftaincy system allows for diasporic chieftaincies – regarding them more as cultural leaderships than as proper traditional kingships whenever they occur. That is fine for us, but it might not be fine for the South Africans whose country the ceremony of installation was supposed to take place in.
The South Africans reacted to the news of the installation with fear and indignation, but to my mind, that probably only happened because nobody from the cultural group that was planning the ceremony had bothered to go to the provincial House of Traditional Leaders and inform its members that a chieftaincy ceremony was about to take place and they had nothing to fear from it.
Let’s be honest with ourselves, even back home in Nigeria, diaspora chiefs aren’t always welcomed by their host communities’ rulers. In Lagos, where I live, the current Oba of Lagos has made his feelings regarding the institution quite clear in terms of this. Still, what studying the practice of the system here has taught me is that diaspora chiefs are the most successful when they work with their host communities, and that sort of thing is only possible when there is trust and good faith. If an installation ceremony was planned, a delegation should have been sent to the House of Traditional Leaders to seek its blessing beforehand. That is an important part of being a good guest.
King’s Gambit
A large part of trust and good faith, however, is reciprocal. If we accept that the Nigerians were at fault for not seeking the prior support of the South African chiefs, we must also state that the South Africans resorting to violence as a response to a misunderstanding of this kind was counterproductive as well. If Pan-Africanism is genuinely something that is wanted, and is not merely a convenient political slogan to be bandied about whenever it suits the powerful, then we must all find a better means to not only agree with each other but also to – perhaps more crucially – disagree with each other as well. That is something that we desperately need as Africans.
In the xenophobic violence that has erupted in South Africa in recent months, a common slogan that has been shouted by irate ideologues is the claim that Nigerians and other African migrants are reaping where they didn’t sow, the implication being that the rest of Africa did not contribute meaningfully to the anti-Apartheid movement and yet is now sending its sons and daughters to ‘steal’ South African jobs. Beyond being painfully reductionist, this claim is just not true; the bordering nations to South Africa – Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana et cetera – were important rearguard bases for the ANC and the other Black liberation organizations from that country during the height of the Apartheid era, and were known as the Frontline States (i.e. the frontline in the war against Apartheid) as a result.
Beyond just that, the support of figures from elsewhere on the continent was instrumental in getting the framework of Apartheid to collapse upon itself due to external pressure. My own country was so involved in this aspect of the struggle, in fact, that it was often regarded as an honorary Frontline State even though it was all the way in West Africa. This is history that must never be forgotten; the Apartheid struggle was Africa’s struggle too.
By Royal Decree
Ultimately, a people is only as culpable as whoever is leading them. Although South Africa has the right to protect its territorial integrity, defend its citizens, police the activities of those that live within its borders and control immigration, the mob justice that is now being fomented by powerful South Africans (one of which, ironically, is himself the holder of a Nigerian chieftaincy title) is the very textbook definition of the draconian fear and insecurity that prevailed during the worst of the Apartheid years. Veterans and heirs of the struggle against it, one of Africa’s most revered, shouldn’t behave like this today. Such behavior dishonours them.
Whether or not the so-called March and March movement has legitimate concerns, the vigilante justice against fellow Africans that it has championed in recent months – extrajudicial actions that have led Nigeria, Namibia, Ghana and other states on the continent to hurriedly repatriate their nationals in order to literally save their lives – is not what Nelson Mandela gave up twenty-seven years of his life for. This is what everybody should always keep in mind.
Conclusion
Both Nigerians and South Africans have allowed for things to happen in the past few months that are absolutely reprehensible. On both sides, we owe it to ourselves and our ancestors to look at this continent and ask ourselves what we want its future to be. Are we going to work in truth and honour towards a future where Thabo Mbeki’s declaration “I am an African!” is taken to its logical conclusion and given true meaning, or are we going to succumb to the same factional, ideologically driven territorialism that has already hamstrung places like post-Brexit Europe?
I suppose that the answer to that question remains to be determined…
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Image: Ashim D’Silva on Unsplash