NIG vs RSA; A Never Ending Battle

There has been a virus affecting African countries for quite some time and this virus is the need to express supremacy over neighbouring African countries. It has become a norm for citizens of a country to ‘call out’ citizens of neighbouring countries based on issues that a normal person would think of as trivial. These issues range from native food, economic conditions, state of living, and many more with each country trying to declare itself the leading counterpart.

Over the past few weeks, there has been quite a rave of noise on the social media network X, as some South Africans took to the platform to express their dissatisfaction about Nigerians living and working in their country. This led to a series of arguments, ranging from discussions about which country’s economy was better, how Nigerians’ presence in South Africa was boosting their economy, and whatnot.

This died down for some time and one would think it was all gone for good till a South African citizen, @nimrodernest1 took to his X handle and tweeted “When I’m bored, I request a Bolt ride in Nigeria, akere their brothers are disrespecting us.” His fellow South Africans found this hilarious and decided to join the trend of ordering rides with random addresses in Nigeria and cancelling at the last minute. Well, as we or should I say, the whole world already knows, Nigerians are peace-loving people who only react when overly provoked. As expected, this issue didn’t go down well with them as most people complained that the South Africans were creating problems for the Bolt drivers who were just trying to make an honest living.

As the saying in the Book of Wickedness goes, “When they go low, you go lower.” Since the South Africans have decided not to back down from their deeds, Nigerians have decided to pay them back in the same coin as several X users have also started ordering rides in South Africa and messing with the drivers in the chat box before cancelling. Some have done it to the point where their accounts were blocked due to several rides cancelled but still went ahead to create new accounts, a typical Nigerian behaviour.

As common knowledge to all, Nigerians tend to overdo, whatever the context maybe, as long as they were not the ones that initiated it. Some people have decided to ‘raise the bar’ and instead of ordering fake rides, they have decided to order the South African sex workers instead. Some even went to the point of ordering household items to random house addresses, using the Pay on Delivery option. This is not going to end soon as more and more Nigerian X users have been tweeting screenshots of them installing the Bolt app. From the look of things, it is very clear which side will suffer the consequences the most when a country decides to take on another country whose total population is over three times bigger than theirs in an e-war, as most like to call it.

However beneficial this whole issue might be, in terms of engagements for X users, entertainment for spectators, and whatnot, this writer feels there is a need for it to die down as it complicates matters for the Bolt drivers who are only doing their work, especially with the current issues of fuel scarcity.

Shittu, Opeyemi Habeeb