LANRE AGIRI
An artisan, Akin Akinde, has explained how his immediate junior brother, Taiwo Akinde, escaped being lynched to death during one of the xenophobic attacks against the citizens of Nigeria in South Africa.
Akinde said his experience was in 2010 when South Africa hosted the FIFA World Cup, and his junior brother, Taiwo Akinde, who was caught by the police for a case of bisexuality, just left Nigeria after luckily escaping from the police custody but fell into another danger.
“My brother, who had been in South Africa in 2009, was a victim of an attack during the World Cup, as foreign migrants and refugees in South Africa were actually warned to prepare for a wave of xenophobic attacks as soon as the final whistle of the World Cup blew.”
“In that attack where my brother almost lost his life when the locals came in the night to unleash terror on their residents, nationals of Zimbabwe and Nigeria bore the brunt of the violence. That particular incident was attributed to the inciting words of the Zulu king, who called on all foreigners to leave the country.”
Prior to that time, there had been reported attacks in 1998, 2000, 2008, 2009, and 2013. In 2013, the Nigerian government and South Africa signed a memorandum of understanding to reinforce diplomatic ties with the hope of preventing further attacks.
The events of 2016 and 2017 have proven that those efforts were in vain.
