Chika Oduah Profile picture
Sep 4, 2019 10 tweets 4 min read Read on X
My first experience with xenophobia in South Africa:

I was pulled aside by an "official" upon arriving at the Cape Town airport from Nigeria. 2016. I had come as a finalist for the CNN African Journalist Award.

Thread
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#XenophobiaInSouthAfrica
#SayNoToXenophobia
My first experience with xenophobia in South Africa:

The man who pulled me aside at the airport was hostile. He demanded that I follow him to a room. The man was not wearing any type of official uniform, therefore I hesitated to follow him anywhere.
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#SayNoToXenophobia
My first experience with #XenophobiaInSouthAfrica:

I tried to go to baggage claim. The man blocked my path, standing in front of me. He did not allow me to move. Me being a Nigerian female traveling alone to South Africa aroused his suspicion.
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My first experience with #XenophobiaInSouthAfrica:

The man was rough, shouting at me. I'm very soft-spoken. I was extremely uncomfortable. People were looking at me as if I was a criminal. No one came to help me. I felt trapped. I wanted to cry.
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My first experience with #XenophobiaInSouthAfrica:

He asked for my profession. I told him, journalist.He smirked and rolled his eyes.
He asked where? I told him, I work with Aljazeera. He said, " I've never heard if Al Jazeera." He told me to follow him to a room. I refused.
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My first experience with #XenophobiaInSouthAfrica:

In that moment, I understood what so many Africans living in South Africa must have felt: xenophobic hostility. I told the man I was in town for the CNN African Journalist Award. He rolled his eyes again. He blocked my path.
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My first experience with #XenophobiaInSouthAfrica:

Finally, a woman came. I saw she was wearing an airport staff uniform. I told her what was going on and she came to my rescue, scolding the man right there. He was furious. I left and realized my hands were shaking.

End.
My second experience with #XenophobiaInSouthAfrica:

In the taxi, the driver didn't know I was Nigerian. He heard my American accent. He said it's a good thing I'm not Nigerian. Why, I asked.

"Because if you were Nigerian I would have robbed you."

The way my heart leaped...
Correction and clarification: The CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Award ceremony had taken place Oct. 15, 2016 in Johannesburg. I came as a finalist and ended up winning an award there, left SA then four days later...
...returned from Nigeria to attend a data and civic journalism event in Cape Town organized by Code For Africa. When asked by the "airport official" if I had recently been to SA, I told him I had come as a finalist for the award (four days earlier).

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More from @chikaoduah

Jun 3, 2023
I am officially stepping away for the corporate Western mainstream news media space.

A thread.
I've been a journalist since I was 16 years old. I'm now 37. I have seen face-to-face that mainstream media outlets continue to perpetuate negative narratives about Africa. It's a narrative that highlights war, disease and disaster.
Re-telling this narrative to the global audience has not helped Africa. In fact, it often does the opposite.
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Oct 9, 2021
The women of the Mau Mau uprising (the 1st post–war armed liberation struggle on the African continent)that gave rise to Kenya's independence,are often forgotten.

Muthoni wa Kirima joined the fight against the British at age 20 as a spy and rose up the ranks.She's 90 yrs old.
The British forces suppressed the Mau Mau uprising: burning fields of crops, poisoning rivers, dropping bombs.

Muthoni was wounded on two occasions but was never caught.
Muthoni describes her hair as her "history."It's been locked ever since she joined the Mau Mau in Kenya's Aberdare Forest (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site)to fight the British colonizers.

Locked hair became associated with the Mau Mau,tagged by the Brits as terrorists/savages.
Read 15 tweets
Sep 24, 2020
History is often not far away.

On Feb 4, 1999, a young West African man named #AmadouDiallo was standing in front of his New York City apartment when 4 cops shot him 41 times, thinking Diallo had a gun - he was only carrying his wallet.

The 4 cops were all found not guilty.
His mother, Kadiatou Diallo, flew to New York from her home in Guinea when she heard that her son was killed.
Married at the age of 13, Kadiatou was pregnant with Amadou at age 16. They had a close bond. He wanted to go to America to study computer science. She supported his aspirations and helped him go to America.
Read 9 tweets
Aug 6, 2020
"As China and Russia compete in what is effectively a new scramble for Africa, African countries should come to the realisation that it is in the continent’s interests to negotiate fairer agreements..."

- oped in @dailymaverick

bit.ly/3fzSuGI
@dailymaverick Brookings explains China and Russia's growing influence on the emerging economies of developing nations explained this way:
@dailymaverick China’s influence is often described as a form of economic colonisation, adding to the debt burden of developing nations through massive infrastructure projects, project financing and investments in the extractive industries.
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Jul 7, 2020
To the African men who say women belong in the home/the kitchen:

"What is not traditional is restricting [African] women to the kitchen. The African woman is a miracle of versatility. Mother, cultivator, market woman, negotiator."
- Ali Mazrui

bit.ly/2Z8eSC9
“Women all over Africa are at least as central to the economy as men, and certainly more so than most Western women. Who says nature intended women to be just homemakers? Certainly not indigenous Africa.”

- Ali Mazrui speaking on traditional/indigenous societies in Africa
There is a false belief across Africa - largely perpetuated by men - that African tradition calls for women to be restricted to home, specifically the kitchen.

But there is so much research that contradicts this. This belief was introduced to Africa by the Arabs and Westerners.
Read 6 tweets
Jun 25, 2020
#AfricanLivesMatter

Attention on the extremist group #BokoHaram is dwindling. Some may feel the topic isn't "sexy" anymore.

But there's still a conflict raging in the Lake Chad area. People are still getting killed. Women are still getting kidnapped.
For those who are unfamiliar with Boko Haram and what's going on in northeast Nigeria/Lake Chad region, I recommend following Abdulkareem Haruna's reporting on @PremiumTimesng

He's done brilliant some brilliant reporting

premiumtimesng.com/author/abdulka…
Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish has consistently covered the Boko Haram insurgency, when many other news outlets looked away

@newhumanitarian also has in-depth coverage, much from @Enugu62 and others.

@CrisisGroup keeps an eye on the insurgency also

#AfricanLivesMatter
Read 5 tweets

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