Going by the viral videos which show how Nigerians and other African nationals are forcefully being evicted from their apartments in some parts of China, it amounts to a flight of fancy for anyone to absolve the Chinese authorities of any wrong.
Confirmed reports have it that one or two members of the black community in the city of Guangzhou came down with covid 19 infection. Instead of limiting its intervention to carrying out contact tracing, testing and subsequent isolation or quarantine of suspected cases for treatment, the Chinese authorities abdicated the established protocol to act out a state sponsored racialist script against black Africans.
As a result of this, Nigerians and other Africans are currently being denied entering into their apartments in Guangzhou without recourse to their subsisting rental contracts. Hotels have been directed by city officials to deny access to their African guests. Supermarkets and restaurants are not left out. These have also been directed not to allow Africans especially blacks come near their facilities for fear that they are now the new and only possible “carriers” of Covid 19 in the city. This is the scenario partly captured in the viral videos on social and conventional media.
In other reported instances, some Nigerians that were on quarantine for fourteen days, were forced into multiple quarantine periods and were meant to pay for such services.
The effects however is that blacks, mostly Nigerian businessmen, women and students are stranded in many places in Guangzhou. Hardly able to get food, apartment or mobility, Nigerians now shelter under bridges in Guangzhou where they are exposed to varying manners of risks.
Blacks are now treated as city outcasts in china especially in Guangzhou. This same China that is yet to convince the world of her innocence in certain cloak and dagger delinquencies around covid 19 should not be the one meting out such unacceptable behaviour to anybody.
It would be recalled that their refusal to come out clean early in December of 2019 misled WHO into delaying the proper classification of covid 19 as an international emergency until late in January 2020. This single act of state deceit has led to millions of positive cases accross the world
The question which the Chinese authorities have not been able to respond to is: How come blacks are mow the only ones treated with such dubious urgency? Are the airports in China open to only blacks? Are there no other nationals in Gwuadzhuo requiring a combination of urgent eviction, forced destitution and multiple isolations?
At the last check, the blacks still constitutes less than 0.1percent of infected cases in Guangzhou. Why the harsh treatment to blacks?
The position held by authorities in Guangzhou that a comprehensive testing of all blacks became necessary because one or two black persons tested positive to covid 19 is as crooked as dog hind legs. It does not represent the whole truth in the unfolding racialist episode.
Even in Nigeria, we did not go making destitute of all Italians in Ogun or Lagos States just because our index case for covid 19 was an Italian. We simply did contact tracing in line with established protocol and it yielded the right result.
Something more must be accountable for this unacceptable treatment our people are receiving in the hands of China.
It could well be that the Chinese authority learnt how to treat Nigerians from their government. Will China be expected to treat Nigerians better than our government does? In Nigeria for instance, overzealous law enforcement officers have extra judicially killed 20 citizens in just 20days for allegedly flouting the lockdown directive by various states government. This number may even increase as the effects of the lockdown bites harder.
Similarly, Nigeria’s weak response and ignoble inability to hold South Africa to account or at least make her prosecute known actors in the xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in Johannesburg and elsewhere may have also emboldened the Chinese. They sure know our government lacks interest in citizens-centered diplomacy.
No wonder our minister of foreign affairs’ first reaction on the treatment against Nigerians in China was to wave it off as a mere communication issue. In the interview he granted Channels TV, he struggled to play down the attacks even when faced with a viral video where a Nigerian consulate was making patriotic efforts to retrieve seized international passports from some daring Chinese officials. Rather than consolidate the move by putting in the public space what government’s plan will look like in the coming days, he spent airtime justifying Chinese unbecoming behaviour.
Nigerians do not expect government to cross swords with the Chinese but at least, the minister of foreign affairs should be able to bawl out on china. And set diplomatic processes in motion to restore the dignity of those stranded, iron out whatever communication misplacements at the core of this and immediately evacuate those ready to return home. Anything short of these will not make sense. To sit idly by and expect China to alter her discriminatory programme against Nigerians and blacks is to be asking for the moon. Nigerian government needs to come down to earth and do the needful.
Everyone understands Nigeria government is walking a tightrope regarding China’s usual behaviour, it should however not provide a cover for abdicating call for national duty. Many believe that Nigeria government has gone ape on the huge loan and other relief offers from China that it is willing to let this abuse on our citizens go the way of other reported abuses by foreign nations and even China in the past.
To end the unending series of abuse of Nigerians abroad, government must reinvigorate its interest in citizens-centered diplomacy. Every Nigerian should feel safe anywhere in the world knowing that there is a government at home that will deliver for him. A government that is dependable and predictable, not one that will wax and wane in different occasions.
Nigeria must not fall asleep at the switch that covid 19 presents. Indeed, as nations the world over are placing export restrictions on basic items, it is time we reposition our micro and small scale subsectors to take up the production of things we can create at home. This will help to create self-sufficiency in basic things and of course national pride which is at the core of all the abuses we suffer in foreign lands.
To fail at this critical time in our nation’s history is not an option!
Emeka Nwagwuna
emekanwagwuna9@gmail.com
