We have detected that the browser you are using is no longer supported. As a result, some content may not display correctly.
We suggest that you upgrade to the latest version of any of the following browsers:
close notification
Date
: 07/02/2003
Source: Department of Foreign Affairs
Title: Mbeki: State banquet in honour of Nigerian president
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA, THABO MBEKI, AT THE STATE
BANQUET IN HONOUR OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF
NIGERIA, CHIEF OLUSEGUN OBASANJO, Pretoria, 7 February 2003
Your Excellency, President Olusegun Obasanjo,
Your Excellencies, Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Your Excellencies, Ambassadors and High Commissioners,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Mr President, it is indeed a great pleasure to welcome you and your
distinguished delegation to South Africa. We receive you to our
country not as visitors but as truly part of us. We are therefore
honoured to say to you - welcome home!
Even as we were engaged in struggle against the apartheid regime,
you, Mr President, visited our country. You did not come as a
tourist or a friend of the system of racism that was claiming the
lives of many of our people. You came as a liberator, an opponent
of tyranny, a proponent of a united, non-racial and democratic
South Africa.
At that time, we too, Mr President, came to Nigeria at your
invitation, to strengthen the cooperation between our peoples in
the common struggle for a united, non-racial and democratic South
Africa.
Accordingly, when we say welcome home, Mr President, we say welcome
home to a fellow combatant for the liberation of our people. We
receive you here in our capital city of Tshwane as an architect of
the victory that has enabled us to embark on a route of
reconstruction and development. This route will lead all our people
out of the division and misery imposed on them by the system of
colonialism and apartheid.
When Nigeria took her place among the front ranks of the African
and world fighters against apartheid, she did so to assert the
common responsibility that Africans have towards one another. She
did so because she upheld the view that an injury to one is an
injury to all, because she is firmly of the view that as Africans,
we share a common destiny.
When Nigeria fought to end apartheid tyranny in our country, she
did so because she wanted to see our people unite across the colour
line to confront the challenges of poverty and underdevelopment
together. She wanted to see our country working together with other
African countries, no longer a force for aggression and
destabilisation, but a partner in the common struggle to defeat the
legacy of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism.
In a lecture entitled "The Empire Fights Back", the renowned
Nigerian and African writer, Chinua Achebe, said: "Looking back now
on that incredible 1950s decade (which saw the publication of a
relatively large number of books about Africa, written by
Africans)...it does become easy to indulge a temptation to see
History as mindful, purposeful; and to see the design behind this
particular summons and rendezvous as the signal at long last to end
Europe's imposition of a derogatory narrative upon Africa, a
narrative designed to call African humanity into question."
When Nigeria joined the struggle against white minority rule in our
country, she, together with Chinua Achebe, responded to the
particular summons and rendezvous, at long last to end Europe's
imposition of a derogatory narrative upon Africa, a narrative
designed to call African humanity into question. Nigeria fought
against apartheid to assert the dignity of the African people and
to open the way to Africa's renewal.
Your presence in our country today, Mr President, serves to
underline all these objectives. It emphasises the imperative for
the peoples of Africa to act together in unity in conditions of
peace, together to determine their collective destiny, together to
defeat poverty and underdevelopment on our continent, together to
achieve Africa's renaissance.
As South Africans, we are privileged to have you and your country,
Nigeria, as a steadfast, tried and tested partner in the
challenging quest to achieve these objectives. We are greatly
strengthened by the fact that the relations between our countries
and peoples are growing from strength to strength, helping us
equally to respond to the task of development and the improvement
of the lives of our people.
We have moved from this common base to enhance our shared capacity
to contribute to the realisation of the continental objectives
represented by the African Union and NEPAD. This includes the
urgent challenge to achieve peace and stability throughout our
continent, including the Cote d'Ivoire, the DRC, Burundi and
Sudan.
It is also from this common base that we have sought to do
everything we can to contribute to the resolution of other
international challenges such as the issues of Palestine and
Israel, Iraq and an equitable global economic system.
Your visit, Mr President, has given a further impetus to all these
common endeavours, confirming the permanence of the relationship
between our two countries and peoples, a relationship among proud,
African comrades-in-arms.
May I therefore request everybody to rise and drink a toast to the
President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, HE Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo, to friendship between the peoples of Nigeria and South
Africa, to the renaissance of Africa!
Thank you.
Issued by the Presidency: Republic of South Africa on 7 February
2003
Source: Department of Foreign Affairs (http://www.dfa.gov.za)
Map
