Horror in Minna, Sinophobia in Lagos?
By Wole Olaoye
The god of fortune dispensed tragedy the other day in Niger State when 37 illegal miners in the custody of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) were found dead within 24 hours of their incarceration.
The idea that the very same cosmic force that hands out wealth to miners who seek it in the belly of the earth is also the author of such irreversible ruin is the stuff of which horror movies are made. Surely, there must be some explanation that makes sense and soothes our collective pain?
Instead of projecting professional accountability and moral clarity, the NSCDC, in an infantile reaction, first attributed the horrendous loss of human lives on this horrific scale to a “sudden disease outbreak.” Whoever conjured such a sick alibi ought to have his thinking faculty fumigated, dry-cleaned and recalibrated.
Crisis Management
Tagging the simultaneous death of dozens of Nigerians in a single night in the same holding facility as the result of an unnamed disease is not just unfeeling; it betrays the level of ignorance that renders the particular spokesperson unfit for crisis communication. Pathogens do not discriminate by custodial boundaries, nor do they typically strike down scores of individuals in a matter of hours without prior warning.
In trying to shift the focus away from NSCDC responsibility, the narrative pre-emptively exonerates custodians before independent forensic investigations are concluded.
More tellingly, it reduces human beings—individuals with families, stories, and constitutional rights—to statistical victims of an anonymous, context-free ghostly disease.
The insensitivity of the “sudden disease” narrative becomes even more stark when juxtaposed against testimonies from those who survived the detention facility. Reports indicating that dozens of men were crammed into unventilated, overcrowded cells point toward a far more recognisable human crisis: severe overcrowding, extreme heat, and acute respiratory distress.
When official statements favour speculative medical theories over the immediate testimony of survivors who recall scrambling for oxygen, the state demonstrates a dismissive posture toward the lived experience of its citizens. It trivialises the suffering of the victims in their final hours.
Underlying this dismissive attribution is our pervasive culture of penal indifference. Individuals held in state custody, particularly those arrested under broad sweeps targeting informal sectors like mining, are often stripped of their humanity and public voice before trial. Suspects are treated worse than convicts. In many cases, they are regarded as non-persons.
PR-Gone-Wrong
Denying the possibility of structural failure signals to grieving families that their relatives’ lives were unworthy of a thorough, self-critical investigation. Detainees do not lose their fundamental right to life or safe conditions simply because they are in custody.
When 33 lives end abruptly in a cell, the primary response must be transparent self-scrutiny, independent forensic investigation, and immediate structural reform—not public relations damage control.
As a public relations practitioner of several decades standing, I am ashamed at what passes for crisis management these days. To default to the narrative of a “sudden disease” before transparent autopsies are completed is an insult to the dead, the bereaved families, and the rest of thinking humanity.
The suspension of the NSCDC commander in the state is a good beginning in trying to get to the bottom of what happened. We must now set up a grand inquest to forensically examine all the facts, ensuring that those found culpable are punished, and processes are put in place to ensure that this kind of mass homicide is not possible in the future.
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We wouldn’t have learned anything if we didn’t seize this opportunity to re-humanise the system as it pertains to personnel and facilities.
It is impossible to watch the video clip of the victims, as most of them lay spread-eagled on the floor—and not shed a tear or two. May their death exorcise our system of the sin of treating poverty as a crime and the poor as guilty until ransomed by the rich.
Sinophobia?
After the well-advertised Afrophobic predilections of Black South Africans, I won’t play the ostrich and ignore any such development in my backyard in this land of the happiest people on Planet Earth.
When I heard chants of “China must go!” orchestrated by Nigerian traders at the Auto Spare Parts and Machinery Dealers Association (ASPAMDA) market within the Lagos Trade Fair Complex, my mind flashed back to the terrible scenes that played out in South Africa only a few months ago.
Could we be suffering from a not-too-ancient ailment known as Sinophobia?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines Sinophobia as “a fear or dislike of China, or its people or culture. Other sources that address the sociology of the problem explain that Sinophobia includes negative attitudes, cultural stereotyping, and systemic discrimination against people of Chinese descent or anyone perceived to be Chinese.
These attitudes manifest in various ways, from everyday microaggressions, verbal harassment, and online scapegoating to physical violence and exclusionary policies.
Remember how China was scapegoated over COVID-19?
At the heart of the ASPAMDA protest is an anxiety regarding market distortion. The protesting traders’ primary complaint is that foreign (Chinese) manufacturers have bypassed the traditional hierarchy of manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers to delve into direct retail to local consumers.
Local business owners argue that unchecked foreign participation in retail threatens indigenous livelihoods, starves the local middle tier of the supply chain, and transfers wealth entirely away from the domestic economy.
However, critics of the protest point out a harsh domestic reality—many local traders have historically maintained inflated profit margins. In an economy squeezed by inflation and diminished purchasing power, everyday consumers naturally gravitate toward cheaper alternatives.
From a free-market standpoint, foreign competition can drive down hyper-inflated prices, forcing a recalibration of how local businesses source and price goods.
Some of the complaints against the Chinese also looked suspiciously like carbon copies of the allegations against Nigerian traders in South African markets and malls in the mobilisation towards violent assault on Nigerian-owned businesses recently.
Symbiotic
Many analysts pointed out that there is a large community of Nigerian petty businessmen, middlemen, and merchants living happily in China and that the Sinophobic protest would only hurt Nigerians at the other end more than it could ever harm Chinese nationals living in Nigeria.
I saw the Chinese entry into our local commerce coming. In my article of December 23, 2024, titled “The Chinese Armada,” I predicted as follows: “Very soon, Chinese boys and girls will be selling pure water on our highways.
Many of them will out-sprint our own hawkers, and there will be messy street fights. Write down that prediction and remember to acknowledge my copyright to that prophecy when it comes to pass.”
Now, it is happening. Our reaction shouldn’t be one of hostility. As long as the Chinese are not smuggling what we can manufacture locally nor are they engaged in illegal mining and criminality, they are more tolerable and tameable than our slave masters of yore.
It ought to be a symbiotic—not adversarial—relationship.
We should, as a matter of deliberate policy, avoid rowdy protests targeting foreigners and giving the impression that, whereas we want to benefit from emigration to other countries, we don’t want other nationals in our local economic space. Sinophobia will easily backfire. Big time!
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