Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has renewed attention on Nigeria’s role in the struggle against apartheid, arguing that South Africa would not have overcome white minority rule when it did without sustained Nigerian support.
Speaking in an interview on C-Suite Café hosted by Ikem Okuhu, Obasanjo said Nigeria’s involvement in the liberation struggle was rooted in opposition to racial discrimination and a belief that no African should be regarded as inferior because of their skin colour.
“We did it for our race,” Obasanjo said, arguing that Nigeria’s support for liberation movements across Southern Africa was not primarily motivated by expectations of political or financial gain. He described the approach as a form of “enlightened self-interest” while maintaining that Nigeria should be proud of its contribution.
There is substantial historical evidence supporting the former president’s broader assessment of Nigeria’s importance to the anti-apartheid struggle. Nigeria was among the most prominent African states outside Southern Africa to provide political, diplomatic and financial backing to liberation movements and to oppose the apartheid government internationally.
In 1977, Nigeria hosted the World Conference for Action Against Apartheid in Lagos in cooperation with the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity. The conference brought together governments, liberation movements and international organisations at a time when opposition to apartheid was becoming increasingly coordinated globally.
Nigeria also used its diplomatic influence to challenge South Africa’s international position. It supported campaigns to isolate the apartheid government and was active within United Nations structures dealing with apartheid. Former South African President Jacob Zuma, addressing Nigeria’s National Assembly in 2016, recalled Nigeria’s provision of support to South African exiles, students and refugees and referred to the Southern African Relief Fund established in 1976.
The Nigerian public also contributed to the campaign. Voluntary deductions from the salaries of Nigerian civil servants became known as the “Mandela Tax”, providing another indication of the extent to which the struggle resonated beyond government institutions.
Nigeria’s role, however, formed part of a much larger African campaign and should not be separated from the contribution of South Africans themselves or other states across the continent.
The struggle against apartheid was led fundamentally by South African political and social movements, including the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress, trade unions, churches, student organisations and civic movements. Resistance took many forms over several decades, from mass political mobilisation and strikes to armed struggle and international advocacy.
Neighbouring African states also carried considerable costs for supporting the liberation movement.
Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and, following independence, Zimbabwe became central members of the Frontline States. Their governments provided political and logistical support to South African liberation movements while facing economic pressure and, in several cases, military attacks and destabilisation by the apartheid government.
South African historian and archival records document the role of these states in sustaining the liberation struggle despite their economic and security vulnerabilities. The experience demonstrates that opposition to apartheid was not simply an international campaign directed towards South Africa, but a regional political struggle in which independent African states accepted substantial risks.
The distinction is important when assessing Obasanjo’s claim that South Africa would not have achieved liberation without Nigeria.
Nigeria’s contribution can be established historically. Its diplomatic pressure, financial support, assistance to liberation movements and role in international institutions strengthened the campaign against apartheid. However, whether apartheid would have survived without Nigeria is a counterfactual question that cannot be conclusively established.
The end of apartheid resulted from the interaction of numerous forces: decades of internal resistance, the activities of liberation movements, regional African solidarity, international sanctions and diplomatic pressure, economic changes and negotiations that eventually produced the democratic transition of 1994.
Nigeria was therefore a significant component of a much wider process rather than the sole external force responsible for apartheid’s demise.
Obasanjo’s comments also carry contemporary significance as relations between Nigeria and South Africa continue to be tested by tensions over migration and xenophobia.
The former Nigerian president criticised attacks on African migrants living in South Africa, arguing that allegations of illegal immigration or criminal activity should be dealt with through the law rather than violence against individuals and their businesses.
His intervention comes against a backdrop of recurring tensions involving Nigerian and other African migrants in South Africa. These disputes have sometimes been framed through competition for employment, crime and irregular migration, although such explanations do not adequately capture the complexity of migration and economic relations between the two countries.
The historical relationship provides a contrasting perspective.
Nigeria and South Africa only established formal diplomatic relations in 1994, the same year South Africa held its first democratic elections. Before then, relations between the societies were shaped substantially by Nigeria’s opposition to apartheid and its support for South African liberation.
That history illustrates a broader African reality that can be overlooked when the end of apartheid is viewed primarily through the experiences of South Africa or through international pressure from outside the continent.
The defeat of apartheid was fundamentally rooted in resistance by South Africans, but that resistance was strengthened by a network of African states, liberation movements and civil society organisations that treated the struggle as a continental concern.
Nigeria was one of the most influential members of that network. Its contribution deserves recognition, while remaining part of a wider history that also includes the sacrifices of the Frontline States and millions of Africans who supported the struggle.
Obasanjo’s remarks consequently serve as a reminder that the liberation of South Africa was not an isolated national event. It was also an expression of African solidarity, diplomacy and collective resistance to racial rule.
The historical record supports recognising Nigeria as a major contributor to that effort. It also suggests that the most accurate account is not that Nigeria alone brought apartheid to an end, but that its sustained support helped strengthen a continental and international struggle whose culmination came with South Africa’s transition to democracy in 1994.
