Africa: Church Disaster a Test for Relations Between Africa's Big Powers

By Liesl Louw-VaudranSouth Africa and Nigeria have to work together for many continental initiatives to really take off: by all accounts, it is one of the most important relationships to take Africa forward.
Recently, however, the already strained relations between Africa's two biggest economies have once again been tested after the collapse of a guesthouse belonging to the Nigerian charismatic preacher, TB Joshua.
Altogether 84 South Africans died in the incident in Lagos - the biggest number of South Africans ever killed in such a tragedy in a foreign country.
The reaction of the Nigerian government provoked the ire of many South Africans - the main complaint being that lives could have been
saved if the Nigerians acted more speedily and if South Africa had been informed earlier of the scale of the tragedy.
The South African relief effort was delayed for several days, allegedly because the government was never informed of what really happened and because of bureaucratic wrangling on the Nigerian side. The TB Joshua affair led to a flurry of criticism in newspaper columns and on social media, in many cases bordering on xenophobia, against Nigerian 'incompetence' as reports filtered through of how the South African consul-general in Lagos struggled to get information.
The youth league of the ruling African National Congress has called for Joshua to be barred from entering South Africa until there is a full investigation into what happened. The opposition Democratic Alliance also called upon Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, to assist victims and their families.
They called for the minister to institute a class action against TB Joshua and to investigate 'the assistance of the South African government and the cooperation of the Nigerian government in as far as the tragedy is concerned.'
It is alleged that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is reluctant to condemn Joshua's church for being negligent, with only five months to go before crucial presidential elections take place in his country. One doesn't want to make an enemy of one of the country's richest and most influential preachers at such a juncture, it is speculated.
The South African government, on the other hand, is being praised for its swift action by some local media - a rare accolade for President Jacob Zuma's government, who increasingly has his back against the wall due to spending on his private residence at Nkandla. Zuma's solemn address to the nation five days after the horror collapse, along with regular updates to the media, contrasted sharply with how the government has been acting on many internal issues.
While accusations fly back and forth, officials, however, have tried to keep the mudslinging from getting out of hand. Minister Nkoana-Mashabane refrained from pointing a finger directly at the Nigerian government during a press conference a few days after the collapse.
She admitted, though, that there had been difficulty in obtaining information, saying that South Africa learnt of the number of dead mainly through its own sources. She reportedly described the relations with Nigeria as 'very cordial and good'.
Clearly, officials from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation realise that too much is at stake to scupper relations that are already problematic. A number of serious incidents in the last few years have added strain to relations, including the expulsion of a group of 125 Nigerians by customs officials in 2012.