By Chidi Amuta

Nelson Mandela must be churning in his resting place. An exemplary life lived and a myth created on a dream and a vision is now literally reduced to ashes. The rainbow nation with prosperity for all races as a vision has been badly damaged.

Its previously thriving post-apartheid economy is now literally in coma with frequent power outages, labour unrest and the return of racial divide and violence. Irate mobsare back on the prowl.

Donald Trump, America’s rascally President has frequently cited the return of racial violence to South Africa to buttress his   mostly unfounded charges of discrimination against whites in South Africa.

More directly relevant, South Africa has in recent months witnessed a wave of xenophobic mob protests and attacks against other Africans who have since come to settle and regard South Africa as home. Hundreds of thousands of these Africans have been chased out of South Africa by angry mobs of black

South Africans were.  Ostensibly, these mob attacks are motivated by immigration concerns. It is a strange state that resorts to mob violence to enforce immigration restrictions.

Of specific relevance to us is the series of violence and crude treatment that has been meted out against Nigerians as a select group. Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians settled in South Africa for decades have been hounded from their homes and businesses. Property acquired over the years have been dispossessed. Businesses that have for long been thriving and providing employment and livelihood to South Africans have been torched and sacked suddenly. Admittedly, efforts by Nigerian authorities to evacuate these unfortunate Nigerians has been less than impressive if not outrightly incompetent.

This dastardly treatment of fellow Africans by South African mobs with the tacit and obvious collusion of the government in Pretoria is, in every way, a subversion of the history of the country. Africa sacrificed to end Apartheid in South Africa. For decades, how to end apartheid was the cardinal foreign policy thrust of most African countries. Countries with the resources even located far away like Nigeria were branded “front line states” in the battle against the last vestiges of apartheid.

It is in this spirit of continental solidarity that many Africans migrated to the newly independent and democratic South Africa. The rainbow nation welcomed all and sundry as it freed its economy from the stranglehold of apartheid and white domination of the economy. The sacrifice of fellow Africans was never lost on successive regimes in South Africa. Mandela upheld it. Mbeki kept faith. So did Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma before the present unravelling under Cyril Ramaphosa.

Nigerians in SA- traders, property owners, small to medium

For Nigeria, the recent treatment of Nigerian citizens in South Africa does not show sufficient appreciation of the country’s contribution to South Africa’s democracy and freedom.

Nigerian owned businesses have been shut down and looted by irate mobs, people who have for decades made South Africa their home have been forcefully evicted from their homes, assaulted, visited with violence and rendered homeless and hopeless. And to observe the cavalier attitude of the South African government over these months is even more disheartening. Calls for more compassionate treatment and minimal compensation have fallen on deaf ears.

The jobs lost, the businesses closed, the opportunities shut and the services lost will invariably lead to a hemorrhage of the South African economy. There is hardly any evidence that the local South African black population understand the long term damage they have done to their economy. It is doubtful that they have the entrepreneurial capacity and energy of the Nigerians and other Africans they have rudely hounded out. In the months and years ahead, the South African economy is likely to tank and shrink, further worsening the plight of the national economy.

The recent xenophobic assault on Nigerians in South Africa has led to calls for retaliatory measures by Nigerian authorities. Such calls may not fully understand the differential nature of the presence of Nigerians in South Africa or vice versa. Nigerians were mostly in ‘’South Africa as small to medium scale business operators- car dealers, restaurant owners, shop owners and general traders. An anti-immigrant assault on them was bound to root them out in huge numbers without huge consequences for the Nigerian economy.

On the contrary, South Africa is present in Nigeria mostly in the form of huge corporations like telecommunications, banks, entertainment networks and supermarket chains, often employing hundreds of thousands of Nigerians and rendering very strategic services across the Nigerian stretch. More importantly, the South African multinationals operating in Nigeria make very huge tax payments to the Nigerian government, making their presence crucial to the Nigerian economy which is still in dire need of foreign direct investment. Prominent South African players in the Nigerian market include Shoprite, MTN, Stanbic/IBTC, DSTV etc.

Nigeria cannot afford to hound out and expel these huge South African companies from Nigeria without dire consequences for our economy and people. Many jobs will be lost. Tax revenue will be lost. Strategic entertainment and financial services will be disrupted.

However, the command and control of South African businesses in Nigeria can be partially decapitated. Nigeria can limit the number of senior South African managers that these companies send to manage their affairs in Nigeria. This may not amount to outright nationalization but a considerable loss of control by South Africa.

Towards a resolution of the relationship hiatus between the two countries, diplomacy could  play a role. But one- sided adversity does not help diplomatic exchange. The South African economy is now creaky and troubled. Nigeria is also in bad form as well. Economic adversity has led to popular disquiet and political uncertainty.

But we are in a new world ruled by the selfishness of nations fueled by migration pressures and anti -immigration violence.

The pull of African brotherhood is strained by the pressure of national survival. Isolationism. Has suddenly become an attractive option for nations under the pressure of migrant invasion. Mob rule has overwhelmed rational governance and the muscle of parties in power. Under these forces, the strength of governments has withered considerably.

The apparent face -off between Nigeria and South Africa calls for a different type of diplomacy. The imperative is for retributive economic diplomacy, diplomacy guided by the national economic interest and the welfare of our citizens wherever they may be on earth. The protection of our citizens as carriers of our economic interests has become paramount. Our over $25 billion annual home remittances from the Nigerian diaspora boils down to our people working and doing business around the world and sending money home for welfare and development.

It does not look like the current Nigerian has thought deeply about the options open to Nigeria in relation with South Africa in the aftermath of this xenophobia outrage.

By Akin Fadeyi

A man got tired of his wife’s alleged belligerent behaviour. She was never “available” and whenever she chose to be, she was always passive. Her love was dramatised for optics and her joy was influenced by incentives.

The man got tired and after a while took another wife, and handed some of his income management to the new lady. After about a year, they thought of moving from their four-bed bungalow to a more spacious terrace apartment. They moved. Three years later, the man discovered that he had been paying yearly rent on the terrace apartment to a caretaker who always handed the rent back to his new wife. Right under Maigida’s nose, his wife stole his money, built a house, rented it to him and was collecting rent on it. What do we call this? Domestic heist!

Imagine waking up one morning to discover that for years, someone had allegedly been operating a government agency that never existed. Not a tiny neighbourhood association. Not a fictitious NGO. Not a WhatsApp investment platform. A “government agency.” He allegedly had a title, an office, documents, correspondence, and held meetings. He was recognised. He operated 34 bank accounts. Then, one day, the illusion collapsed. A “whistleblower” blew the cover, and the mask came off. And almost instantly, social media delivered its own verdict. “The government must have known. They’re all in on it together.” “Oh, this is Nigeria, anything can happen!”

Within hours, the incident had become less about the alleged fraud and more about a political blame game. Make no mistake, that reaction is understandable and very realistic. This is how our citizens and their overall appraisal of stewardship has been polarised for a while. As we keep placing premium attention on political alignments as our central identity, this defines our focus, ignites our outrage and makes governance-driven civil discourse almost impossible. Whenever public institutions appear vulnerable to abuse, accusations and counter accusations will fill the air. But there is another question we seldom ask. A far more uncomfortable one. What if this story is not just about the government? What if it is also about us? Because before we conclude that an institution must have been complicit simply because it was deceived, history invites us to pause.

Some of the world’s most sophisticated frauds unfolded not in fragile democracies but in countries renowned for strong institutions. On 11 December, 2008, the world woke up to a shocking revelation: that for years in the United States, a man named Bernard Madoff operated what became one of the largest investment frauds in history, orchestrating an estimated $65 billion Ponzi scheme scheme that cost investors tens of billions of dollars over two decades. Prince Adeniyi’s alleged heist is the “Presidential Advisory Council”. Bernard Madoff operated the “Investment Advisory Business,” which lured thousands of investors, fabricating account statements, inflating returns and fooling investors with a deceptive high-yield trading strategy.

Madoff’s closest government ties were in the Security and Exchange Commission. He was said to have “cultivated a close, personal relationship with regulators who were responsible for overseeing and regulating his firm.” Banks interacted with him. Professionals dealt with him. Regulators received warnings. Many intelligent people believed him. When everything collapsed, the public outrage was immediate: “Where was the regulator?” “How could nobody know this Madoff was a fraud?!”

On 10 November, 2021, the same questions echoed across the United Kingdom after the Arena Television financing fraud, in which lenders reportedly advanced about £280 million against television equipment that investigators later alleged either did not exist or had been pledged multiple times. In December 2019, an investment firm named Muddy Waters published a report accusing NMC Health of inflating its cash balances and understating its debt. This signalled the collapse of NMC Health, once listed on the London Stock Exchange. Billions of dollars in undisclosed debt and financial irregularities stunned investors and regulators alike. Different countries. Different governments. Different political parties. The same uncomfortable questions.

The lesson is not that oversight failures should be excused. Far from it. It is that sophisticated fraud is not uniquely Nigerian. When systems fail, institutions deserve scrutiny. But scrutiny should not automatically become a conspiracy. There is a difference. The reported allegations surrounding the so-called Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council expose weaknesses that deserve critical interrogation. If someone could allegedly present himself as the Director-General of an entity that was not lawfully constituted, then our verification processes, inter-agency coordination, documentation culture and internal controls clearly require strengthening. Those are legitimate concerns. But who builds institutions? Every institution is ultimately a collection of human beings. The accountant who approves. The administrative officer who files. The procurement officer who signs. The banker who sees but covers unusual transactions. The consultant who looks away. The civil servant who decides that “it is not my business.” Systems do not collapse by themselves. They weaken, one compromise at a time.

Corruption is a scourge planted, cultivated and harvested by the human mind. Government, therefore, merely reflects society. Our national weaknesses did not begin inside public buildings. They began wherever integrity surrendered to convenience. Which brings me to another uncomfortable truth. Some professionals have unfortunately helped create escape routes for financial criminals. This is particularly troubling where legal expertise is used not to defend constitutional rights, but to create elaborate structures that conceal beneficial ownership, frustrate accountability, delay justice, or sanitise the proceeds of wrongdoing.

To be clear, the overwhelming majority of our lawyers serve society honourably and our legal profession remains indispensable to democracy and the rule of law. But where a minority knowingly enables financial crime, the line between professional representation and profiteering becomes dangerously blurred, and when patriotism loses to profit, the nation pays the price. The same can be said of accountants who manipulate records. Governors who divert federal allocations; contractors who are channels of fraudulent deals; and citizens who celebrate ill-gotten wealth, while mocking honest labour. That is why strengthening accountability must involve more than changing laws. It requires changing culture.

Encouragingly, Nigeria has been investing in digital reforms intended to strengthen identity verification, public administration and service delivery. Initiatives around the National Identity Management system and broader digital integration hold real promise for reducing impersonation, improving authentication, and making certain categories of fraud more difficult to execute. Technology, however, is not a magic wand. Till date, London has not eliminated fraud. New York has not eliminated scheming, and Singapore still prosecutes financial crime. Digital systems, therefore, may stifle pilfering tempting opportunities. They do not eliminate human greed.

This is precisely why continued investment in technology should be encouraged, refined and improved — not dismissed because crime still exists. Progress should never become the enemy of perfection. If technology can close even some of our leakages, protect public records, improve verification, and strengthen transparency, then it deserves support, while we continue demanding accountability from those entrusted with public office.

There is another habit we must abandon as citizens: Before investigations mature, before facts emerge, before institutions complete their work, many of us instinctively ask only one question: “How can this damage my political opponent?“ That instinct is costing us dearly. Every major scandal should not become immediate political ammunition, because crime has no political colour and fraud does not have a party loyalty. Criminality is born in the human mind.

When we reduce every wrongdoing to partisan warfare, we stop searching for solutions and start searching only for opportunities to score political points. That serves nobody. Patriotism demands something better. We should condemn wrongdoing — firmly and without hesitation. But we should resist the temptation to weaponise every crime against political opponents before the facts are known. A nation cannot heal if every scandal becomes a campaign poster. Neither should we pretend that the people committing these crimes fell from another planet. Those arrested for internet fraud; those involved in property scams; those selling one plot of land to multiple buyers; those prosecuted for banking fraud; those forging documents; those laundering the proceeds of crime; those manipulating procurements; landlords and House Agents extorting tenants. They are not strangers. They are products of the same society we all helped to shape.

Perhaps the most patriotic response is neither blind defence nor relentless condemnation. It should be honest introspection. It is insisting on stronger institutions, while also raising stronger citizens. It is applauding integrity wherever it appears. It is refusing to celebrate fraudsters because they are wealthy. It is refusing to amplify every damaging story about Nigeria with a sense of triumph, as though the nation’s embarrassment validates our personal opinions. Sadism is not victory and a mature nation confronts its failures without becoming addicted to them.

If this latest episode teaches us anything, it should be this: Oversight matters. Professional ethics matter. Institutional reform matters. But above all, when we cannot have conversations that strengthen democracy, critical matters of national importance get drowned by partisan noise. Ultimately, the real contest is not between government supporters and opposition supporters. It is between institutional strength and institutional weakness.

Governments will come and go. Political parties will rise and fall. Public officials will retire. But the institutions we build today will determine whether future generations inherit a nation in which public trust is earned through competence, accountability and integrity — or one in which every scandal becomes another chapter in an endless cycle of blame. It is one conviction per person that builds a nation. This is why our character matters, because it takes a strong, constructive, and intentional characteristic to look at the indulgences that tempt us and still muster the morality to look away. The fight against corruption should begin long before a courtroom. It begins from the man you see when you hold up the mirror!

Akin Fadeyi, a citizens engagement and behavioural change expert, is the founder and executive director of the Akin Fadeyi Foundation.

For tens of millions of people across Nigeria, digital finance has changed everyday life. Paying bills, sending money, saving, and running businesses have become faster and easier than ever before. But alongside this progress comes one question that many people still ask: “Can I really trust digital finance?” It is a fair question.

Over the years, stories of fraud, misinformation, online scams, and false claims have made many people more careful about where they keep their money and who they trust with it.

As digital finance continues to grow across Nigeria, trust has become just as important as innovation.

People no longer choose financial platforms simply because they are fast or convenient.

They choose the ones they believe will protect, support, and stand by them every day.

OPay understands this. That is why trust has never been something it simply talks about. It is something it works to earn every single day through secure technology, reliable service, continuous innovation, responsible business practices, and a steadfast commitment to putting users first.

Today, tens of millions of Nigerians use OPay to receive salaries, pay bills, transfer money, grow their savings, support their businesses, and manage their daily finances. Supported by millions of successful transactions daily, a nationwide network of agents, and continuous investment in security, OPay has become a trusted financial partner for individuals and businesses. Behind every transaction is something much bigger than money. It is confidence, peace of mind, and the belief that everyday financial services should work.

This belief is the inspiration behind the new campaign: OPay is Okay. More than a slogan, it reflects what tens of millions of Nigerians experience every day. It is the confidence that comes from consistent service and the reassurance that comes with reliability.

Speaking on the campaign, Dotun Adekunle, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer, OPay, said: “Trust is the foundation of every financial service. Technology or innovation alone is not enough. People need to know that their money is secure, their transactions are protected, and the platform they use will be there when they need it.”

Across Nigeria, many people have heard rumours about digital finance or about OPay. Some have discovered those stories were not true. Others have built their confidence through their own experiences. Their stories remind us that trust grows through facts, transparency, and consistent delivery, not speculation.

Elizabeth Wang, Chief Commercial Officer, OPay, said: “OPay is Okay is more than a campaign. It is a reflection of the relationship we have built with tens of millions of customers, merchants, and agents across Nigeria. Every successful transaction, every business we help grow, and every customer we support strengthens that relationship.”

As Nigeria’s digital economy continues to expand, building trust will remain one of the industry’s greatest responsibilities.

Financial inclusion can only succeed when people feel confident enough to participate.

OPay remains committed to creating financial services that are secure, simple, reliable, and accessible to everyone because trust is built over time. It is earned with every completed payment, every business supported, every customer assisted, every promise kept, and that is why, for tens of millions of Nigerians, OPay is okay. It is the trust earned one transaction at a time.

About OPay

OPay was established in 2018 as a leading fintech company in Nigeria with the mission to make financial services more inclusive through technology. The company offers a wide range of payment services, including money transfers, bill payments, card services, airtime and data purchases, and merchant payments, among others. Renowned for its fast and reliable network and strong security features that protect customers; funds, OPay is licensed by the CBN and insured by the NDIC with the same insurance coverage as commercial banks.