Diplomatic snubs are delicate tools. When handled with precision, they signal that a nation’s patience has expired. When miscalculated, they merely substitute administrative pique for effective statecraft. President Bola Tinubu’s decision to decline an audience with South Africa’s foreign minister, Ronald Lamola; sent to Abuja as a special envoy by President Cyril Ramaphosa, was a missed diplomatic moment that betrayed the Nigerian president as small and petty. Worse even, the snub had no redeeming value, given that in international relations, there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies; only permanent interests. And in diplomacy, you don’t just talk only to your friends; you talk even to your enemies as well. Refusing to meet South Africa’s envoy over xenophobic attacks may score points at home, but it abdicates the presidential leadership needed to break a dangerous cycle.
On paper, President Tinubu’s irritation is entirely understandable. Mr Lamola’s delegation arrived in Nigeria without securing a prior appointment, an infraction of protocol that invited a bureaucratic cold shoulder. More importantly, domestic fury in Nigeria is running high. Renewed anti-immigrant violence in South Africa has once again targeted Nigerian nationals and businesses, forcing the humiliating spectacle of government-sponsored evacuations to bring hundreds of citizens home.
For a Nigerian president whose citizens routinely invoke the country’s historic financial and diplomatic sacrifices during the anti-apartheid struggle, allowing Pretoria’s envoy to drop in unannounced was politically unacceptable. Relegating the delegation to Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Sola Enikanolaiye, allowed Tinubu to strike a posture of righteous indignation. Yet gratifying domestic anger is not the same as solving a crisis. By delegating the encounter down the bureaucratic chain, President Tinubu missed a vital opportunity to exercise the high-level presidential leadership required to compel Pretoria into real accountability.
The friction between West Africa’s primary economic powerhouse and Southern Africa’s industrial hub is neither new nor self-correcting. It is a structural malady. For decades, recurring waves of vigilante violence in South Africa have targeted migrants, driven by deep-seated economic anxieties, high unemployment, and local politicians who find foreign shopkeepers to be convenient scapegoats. South African officials, including Mr Lamola, reliably respond with familiar rhetorical formulas: condemning xenophobia while insisting on their sovereign right to enforce immigration laws and combat crime.
Breaking this impasse requires more than ministers exchanging boilerplate communiqués over tea. It demands direct, unvarnished presidential summitry. Only a head of state can extract binding commitments on institutional reforms such as dedicated joint intelligence units, swift prosecution of mob ringleaders rather than mere administrative deportation of victims, and early-warning networks to protect targeted communities. By refusing to face Mr Lamola, President Tinubu allowed Pretoria to offer easy condolences through low-level channels without having to look Nigeria’s commander-in-chief in the eye and account for its security failures.
The risks of leaving this relationship to simmer at the ministerial level are acute. Unchecked xenophobic attacks in South Africa inevitably invite calls for economic retaliation against South African corporate giants operating in Nigeria. At a time when the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) requires Nigeria and South Africa to act as twin engines of integration, a protracted diplomatic feud undermines the broader Pan-African project.
Protocol matters in international relations, but statecraft matters more. President Tinubu was right to insist that Nigeria’s national dignity must be respected and that mob violence cannot be excused as routine law enforcement. But the surest way to project that dignity was not to hide behind his Aso Rock doors. It was to receive the envoy, deliver Nigeria’s terms directly, and demand a firm timetable for a presidential summit with Mr Ramaphosa. Leadership requires engaging in tough conversations, not avoiding them.
By Emmanuel Emeke Asiwe