What goes round comes round. Hence the wise saying that every time you point your index finger in accusation of someone, bear in mind that no fewer than three of your remaining fingers are simultaneously pointing back at you. That was a lesson South Africans did not appear willing to apply, but which has now rebounded on them to unavoidably confront and ultimately respond to.
In the thick of the xenophobic violence that forced many Nigerian immigrants to flee the country recently, South Africa’s Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, profiled the harried migrants as illicit drug dealers and fomenters of crime whose exit from her native land was a welcome development. She served a cheeky challenge on Nigerian authorities to provide information on locations allegedly used by Nigerian immigrants for drug-related activities, to assist her country’s law enforcement operatives tackle organised crime. As if the Nigerian government had a means of monitoring and shielding illicit conduct of Nigerians, even if true, in that far away territory!
“We’ll be interested to know where the drug dens of Nigerians are. So, they can show us where they have been holding the drugs so that we can clean the drugs in South Africa quite urgently,” she stated among other insolent jibes against Nigerians who lived in South Africa.
Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) lately arrested a 38-year-old South African woman, Jessica Ann Will, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, for allegedly attempting to smuggle 5.75kilogrammes of heroin into Nigeria while using her three-year-old son as a cover to evade security scrutiny. A statement by the agency early last week said the suspect was nabbed on Monday, 6th July, during inward clearance of passengers aboard a Qatar Airways flight from Doha.
According to the agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, the suspect initially denied travelling with any checked-in luggage, but NDLEA operatives established that two suitcases containing 14 large blocks of heroin bore baggage tags corresponding with claim tags attached to her passport booklet. “After the discrepancy was pointed out, she admitted ownership of the bags, claiming she had forgotten she checked them in,” Babafemi said, adding that the suspect told investigators she travelled from Cambodia through Doha to Abuja. Preliminary intelligence showed that she is part of a transnational drug trafficking ring allegedly operated alongside her husband/partner named Jan Coenraad De Jager, who is based in Cambodia. The network is believed to coordinate illicit drug trafficking along the Cambodia-South Africa route.
Being a South African, Pretoria can’t be indifferent towards her case and will most likely post its mission in Nigeria on it. Well, next time Ntshavheni seeks information about drug dealers in her country, she knows where to look.
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