Dear Cyril Ramaphosa – Frank Ofili

During the WW II, Japan took several steps to provoke America and draw her into a war she was disinterested in. A combination of factors made Washington to ignore those provocations as though they were harmless irritations from a toddler. Emboldened, and perhaps believing that America was afraid to go to war, the Japanese Army commanded by the flinty General Hideki Tojo continued on the path of provocation against the US even as diplomatic efforts between Washington and Tokyo went on. The Imperial Navy of Japan commanded by the tactically shrewd Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was wary of the Army’s antics, much as Japanese Prime Minister Kanoe Fumimaro was.

For a war time prime minister, Fumimaro was a weakling. The powerful and hot-headed General Tojo was the de facto prime minister. In time, he succeeded in manoeuvring Fumimaro to commit to war with the US against wise counsel from Yamamoto who was opposed to the attack from the onset and did indeed warn the Japanese government that a war with the US would have severe consequences for Japan. As America seemingly dillydallied, Japan, together with Italy, entered a tripartite pact with Hitler’s Germany in what became known as the Axis Alliance. From then on, Tojo called the shots.

And so having no choice but to obey, Yamamoto prepared his naval fleet for war with the US. On December 7, 1941, he ordered the Japanese Imperial Navy to attack the US military base at Pearl Harbour. Pearl Harbour – then America’s largest military base outside the US – was devastated, some 2,403 American servicemen and civilians died in the attack, their warships decimated, the worst hit being USS Arizona. American pride was damaged almost beyond redemption.

As Japan celebrated her “victory” over the US, Admiral Yamamoto warned the Japanese government that all they had done “… was to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve”. Subsequent events proved Yamamoto right. Six months later, America bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The rest, as they say, is history. Yamamoto’s fears had come to pass.

South Africa is currently doing to Nigeria what Japan did to America during WW II. The difference is that this is no war time. Nigerian government’s silence and almost near disinterest in the ongoing xenophobic attacks against Nigerians by South Africans is likened to the ambivalence of the US government towards Japanese provocations during WW II.

But it will suicidal to take Nigeria’s silence for granted.

My dear President Cyril Ramaphosa, please call your country men and women to order. Their xenophobic attacks against Nigerians and their business have gone far enough. Nigeria may be a sleeping giant, but she is not stupid. Any day she chooses to strike, trust me, your country, South Africa, cannot stand her.

Nigeria knows how to bite and bite she eventually would if these attacks don’t stop. More to the point, Buhari is a patient general slow to anger. Don’t let him get angry, for if he does and strikes, he is deadly. Ask Hissène Habré, former Republic of Chad president

So, like Admiral Yamamoto, let me advise you sir, not to allow your country men and women to “awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve”