In the midst of the cacophony of voices, opinions and video clips going all over the place, the xenophobic attacks in South Africa have attracted lots of comments- some from leaders in the South African society have further drawn the ire of many others. In South Africa, there is a TV station that prides itself as taking its viewers on a journey of telling the story behind the story, cutting through the noise to bring you the facts. Not to cut through the noise and present the facts can be dangerous on many fronts.

On 05 September 2019, South Africa’s minister of foreign relations and international cooperation, Naledi Pandor, Ph.D., made comments on national television (eNCA) that there was the belief and reality of South Africans that many Nigerians are dealers in drugs, harming young people by making drugs available to them in the country, also that the Nigerian government should assist in keeping such people away from South Africa.

On 04 September 2019, Dakota Legoete, national spokesman for the governing ANC, told the world on the Al Jazeera news network that the latest spate of violence was sparked by the killing, in Pretoria, of a taxi (bus) driver whilst he attempted to stop the sale of drugs by a Nigerian to South African youths. That the killer was a Nigerian and South Africans were tired of such harmful practices and responded the ways the world has witnessed. It has since been established that the alleged killer is not a Nigerian. The world is waiting for the misleading comments be corrected, with appropriate apologies.

The comments of these two, are part of ongoing narrative to label Nigerians as the kingpins and those largely responsible for the scourge of the harmful effects of drugs on South Africa’s young people and their families. The comments of Naledi Pandor and Dakota Legoete are especially weighty, in the light of their positions in government and within the governing party.

On 09 September, Minister Pandor has been reported to blame the years of apartheid for the violence unleashed by her people on foreigners. At her recent meeting with foreign ambassadors in South Africa, she was told about the unhelpful and damaging comments made by her colleagues in government.

Without any equivocation, the peddling of harmful substances to anyone, let alone the young ones is unacceptably criminal and should be condemned by well-meaning people, irrespective of the nationalities involved.

A lot of people, especially in South Africa, have been fed with incomplete information and thereby misled to believe a certain narrative. So much so that Nigerian nationals have also, correctly so, risen to condemn these harmful practices of dealing in drugs by Nigerians.

May 2008 was the first major outburst of xenophobic attacks against foreigners was in South Africa. Then every year since then, with those of August 2019 being amongst the most wicked and brazen.

The dealing in imported drugs is said to have spiked from 2006. According to court papers, between 2006 and 2009, the wife of South Africa’s Minister of Intelligence and state security, Cheryl Cwele, led an international drug ring that imported harmful drugs into South Africa. This woman had additional responsibility as a government official to protect and promote the health of citizens and people in the communities.

In 2011, Cheryl Cwele, the wife of South Africa’s Intelligence minister was convicted and jailed for 20 years, along with her Nigerian accomplice. How ironic that a government official with the duty to improve the quality of lives of the people is the one convicted for practices that destroy lives.

In the words of the sentencing judge: “Many families are affected by drugs which are brought here illegally. They suffer as a result of dealers who often initiate addiction by constant supply and thrive on that addiction.”

Having expressed concern about the harmful effects of drugs on the youths and their families, perhaps Minister Naledi Pandor and those who have bought into the one-sided stereotypical narrative should be reminded of a few facts:

1. Minister Pandor was in the same executive cabinet as the Minister of Intelligence throughout the period of the drug ring’s operations, arrest of his wife and subsequent sentencing in 2011. Not a word about the harmful effects of drugs on young people and their lives from Minister Pandor.

2. The Minister of Intelligence claimed not to have known of his wife’s illicit drug trade. That speaks volumes on more fronts than one. In the words of Philip Dexter of the opposition party- “Either the minister knew about his wife's operation to distribute hard drugs and benefited from it, or he did not know about it, casting aspersions on his competency for the role of minister of state security”

3. The minister of intelligence and his convicted wife are leading members of the governing party, just as she is. Not a word condemning such practice that had harmful effects on youth and families then.

4. What moral justification is there for both Minister Pandor and the governing ANC then and now, not to have issued similar statements of the detrimental effects of drugs on the lives of young people, to now claim moral grounds of protecting lives of young people from the negative effects of drugs on them and in the same breath claim that as part of the reasons for the latest xenophobic attacks on foreigners in South Africa.

5. Where a farmer plants, it is expected to that such plantings will germinate, grow and at some point produce fruits after its own kind. The seeds sown by Cheryl Cwele and her drug ring- locally and internationally have since germinated, grown and are producing fruits in like fashion. What would one expect of seeds planted by way of the cartel run by the likes of Chery Cwele but that they would bear fruit. The fruits are the found in the increase in the demand for the drug use as a result of the addiction the judge referred to, they are found in the increase in the networks of the drug sellers who were deliberately groomed from 2006 till when they were jailed in 2011; the fruits are seen in the dependence on these dangerous drugs which have found more peddlers in people, including some Nigerian bad eggs.

Comments by the minister are indicative of deflecting from the more fundamental root causes of the drug problems as seen in South Africa today. If sincere efforts are being looked for to solve them, a good place to start is to identify, acknowledge and admit the root causes and from there plot a road map which can then include the help being sought from other countries like Nigeria.

•Toye Abioye is a business and executive coach with interests in social justice and enterprise development.

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