How South Africa is Helping to Destroy Nigeria’s Soft Power

From the 2000s into the early 2010s, Nigeria was the undisputed giant of Africa. Nigeria was leading Africa in music, films, art, writing and, later, online content. When people thought about Africa, Nigeria was one of the first countries that came to mind.

Nigeria was not called the giant of Africa for nothing. Its influence was not based only on the size of its population or its economy. Nigeria had something much more powerful. It had soft power. When an average African thought about Nigeria, they did not necessarily think about poverty, crime or dysfunctional public services. They thought about the Nigeria they saw on television.

Nigerian movies showed big houses that many Africans had never seen before. They showed big cars, beautiful women, expensive clothes and people splashing money. They showed a Nigeria that looked rich, confident and powerful and that became the image of Nigeria. Nollywood played a massive role in creating that image. Nigerian music did the same thing. Nigerian artists were becoming household names across Africa. Nigerian culture was everywhere.

But Nigerian soft power was never built by music and movies alone. There was another part of it that I believe is often ignored. Nigeria became the voice of Africa on the internet. When YouTube, Facebook and other social media platforms began gaining traction across Africa, Nigeria had something that other African countries simply did not have at the same scale: sheer numbers of internet users and people producing content. You could search for almost anything about Africa and find a Nigerian talking about it.

Top 10 most beautiful countries in Africa? A Nigerian would make the video.
Top 10 countries with the most beautiful women in Africa? A Nigerian would make the video.
Top African countries to visit? A Nigerian would make the video.
And, quite often, Nigeria would be number one.

This was not necessarily because Nigeria was objectively number one in everything. It was because Nigerians were producing the content and Nigerians were very proud of their country. There is something about Nigerian culture that is loud, confident and unapologetically proud. Nigerians took that attitude to the internet. They were not simply participating in the African conversation. They were becoming the people who were defining the conversation.

For years, Nigerians were effectively the voice of Africans online. And that mattered. If you control much of the conversation, you influence how people see you.

But something has changed. The image of Nigeria has changed. I believe the waning of Nigerian soft power did not happen because Nigeria suddenly stopped producing music. In fact, Nigerian music has become even more powerful. Nigerian artists have broken into the American market, the European market and even parts of Asia. Afrobeats has become a global force. So, music is not where I see the biggest problem.

I see the problem somewhere else. Nollywood has changed. In the past, Nigerian movies gave many Africans a picture of Nigeria that was aspirational. But in recent years, a large part of the Nigerian movie industry has moved away from stories that many Africans can actually relate to. Interestingly, when you look at Nigerian movies that are trending on YouTube, you will often find that the movies that perform very well are the ones that return to everyday Nigerian realities.

Stories about religion, Stories about school life, Stories about poverty, Stories about family problems, Stories about ordinary people. Those stories connect because people recognise themselves in them. The problem is that a lot of the wider Nigerian movie industry has been producing stories that no longer reflect what ordinary Nigerians, or ordinary Africans, actually experience. And when the Nigerian image presented through entertainment stops matching reality, soft power begins to weaken.

People stop seeing themselves in the story. Then they move elsewhere. They watch Indian movies. American movies. South Korean movies. Chinese movies. Filipino movies. Turkish movies. This does not mean Nigerian entertainment has disappeared. It has not. It means the Nigerian cultural monopoly that existed in the past has weakened.

Then came the internet The internet once worked heavily in Nigeria’s favour. Nigerians were producing enormous amounts of content about themselves and about Africa. But the internet has changed. The conversation about Nigeria is no longer controlled by Nigerians and this is where I believe something much more serious has happened.

The negative image of Nigeria has become extremely easy to spread. If you search for something negative about Nigeria, you will find it. Boko Haram, kidnapping, scamming, crime, dirty cities, open defecation, poor infrastructure, dysfunctional public transport, poverty, corruption and the list go on.

None of these problems are imaginary. Nigeria has real problems, just like every other country. The problem is what happens when these problems become the dominant story about a country. The positive side of Nigeria begins to disappear from the conversation. Nigeria has one of Africa’s largest economies. Nigeria has an enormous population. Nigeria has a huge entrepreneurial class. Nigeria has some of the continent’s strongest creative industries. Nigeria has enormous industrial potential. Dangote has built one of the most significant industrial projects in modern African history with the Dangote Refinery. Nigeria continues to produce globally successful musicians. Nigeria has universities, technology companies, engineers, filmmakers, writers and businesses operating at a huge scale.

But these things do not necessarily go viral. A negative story about Nigeria can travel much faster. This is where I believe South Africa has become particularly important.

South Africa’s role in the new Nigerian narrative

South Africa is not the only reason Nigerian soft power is weakening. I am not arguing that. There are many reasons. Nigeria itself has contributed to the weakening of its image. Western media has contributed to it. Nigerian criminals operating abroad have contributed to it. Nigeria’s own economic and social problems have contributed to it. But over the past few years, I have observed something that I believe deserves far more attention.

South African online discourse has become one of the biggest engines amplifying negative narratives about Nigeria. This is where xenophobia enters the picture. South African xenophobia against Nigerians is not new, but social media has changed the scale at which these narratives can spread. What I have observed is a pattern, something bad happens in Nigeria, someone finds it, someone posts it, someone turns it into a joke and someone generalises it to Nigerians.Then another person finds another negative Nigerian story. Then another and another. Eventually, you create an entire online environment where Nigeria is constantly presented through its worst examples.

This is not simply criticism anymore. It becomes a narrative. Once a narrative becomes established, people start looking for evidence to confirm it. If someone already believes Nigeria is a terrible country, every negative story about Nigeria becomes confirmation. A dirty street becomes confirmation. A kidnapping becomes confirmation. A criminal case involving a Nigerian becomes confirmation. A picture of a poor neighbourhood becomes confirmation. A story about corruption becomes confirmation.

Even something that happens in one Nigerian city can be presented as if it represents the entire country and that is what makes this dangerous.

The Indian citizenship example

I recently came across many examples on X that illustrates what I am talking about.

Someone posted that nobody was trying to obtain Indian citizenship. The obvious implication was that India was supposedly such a bad country that nobody would want to move there. A South African responded:

“Trust me, Nigerians are.”

The implication is not subtle. It presents Nigerians as people who would supposedly be desperate to live in India because Nigeria is so bad. The post received hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of likes. Then look at the comments. The conversation becomes a mockery of Nigerians. Nigerians are presented as people who are desperate to leave their country, people who are everywhere, people who supposedly add little value.

This is how stereotypes are created. Not through one post. Through repetition. One post, another post, another joke, another video, another comment section and another negative story. Eventually, people begin to think that this is simply what Nigerians are.

The Ibadan example

Another example that caught my attention was a post using an aerial image of what was identified as Ibadan. The image showed old, rusty roofs and a poor-looking urban environment. The caption compared Zimbabwe’s problems with Nigeria and essentially suggested that Nigerians were living in hell. The post received around one million views. Think about that. One million views for a negative depiction of Nigeria. This is the part that people underestimate. Social media is not simply entertainment. Social media creates images in people’s minds.

If millions of people repeatedly see Nigeria presented as dirty, dangerous, dysfunctional and desperate, eventually that becomes the Nigeria they imagine. They may never have visited Nigeria. They may never have spoken to a Nigerian. They may know nothing about Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, Port Harcourt or Kano beyond what they have seen online, but they form an opinion anyway.

The new African hierarchy

What is particularly interesting to me is how other African countries have started joining this conversation.

I have seen Ugandans picking on Nigerians.
I have seen Kenyans picking on Nigerians.
I have seen Zambians picking on Nigerians.
I have seen Namibians picking on Nigerians.

And, increasingly, you see people from different parts of Africa presenting their own countries as superior to Nigeria. Recently, I saw a Zambian saying that Zambia was far better than Nigeria. The Nigerian reaction was telling. There were disappointment and defensiveness. But what struck me was something else.

Nigeria is increasingly losing the psychological position it once occupied. There was a time when saying that Nigeria was the giant of Africa carried enormous weight. Today, people can openly ridicule Nigeria and use Nigeria as an example of what Africa should supposedly not become. That is a massive change. The economy made the situation worse, then came the naira devaluation.

Nigeria’s economy did not suddenly become incapable. The underlying economy is still enormous. The currency devaluation caused Nigeria’s nominal GDP measured in US dollars to fall sharply. Nigeria went from being the largest economy in Africa to being pushed down the rankings. GDP per capita also fell dramatically when measured in US dollars. And this matters psychologically. For years, Nigeria could point to its economy. Nigeria was the giant. Nigeria was the biggest economy. Nigeria was the most populous country. Nigeria was the entertainment superpower. Nigeria had the numbers. Nigeria had the influence.

Now the economic numbers are no longer as useful in defending that image. The Nigerian online audience also cannot easily respond to every criticism by simply saying, “We are the giant of Africa.” The narrative has changed. And when the economic image weakens at the same time that negative online narratives are increasing, the damage to soft power becomes greater.

The racism problem

There is another part of this story that cannot be ignored. Western racism has also played a role in shaping the image of Nigerians. For years, when Western media and online communities discussed African scams, Nigerians were often used as examples. A Nigerian commits a crime in America or Europe and suddenly the conversation becomes about Nigerians.

A Nigerian scammer becomes evidence that Nigerians are scammers. A Nigerian criminal becomes evidence about Nigeria. This has created a stereotype that Nigerians are among the biggest scammers in the world. Whether that stereotype accurately reflects Nigerians as a whole is another question. The important point is that the stereotype exists. And once a negative stereotype has been established in the West, it becomes much easier for other people to use it.

This is where South African online xenophobia becomes particularly damaging.

The same negative material that Western societies have used against Nigerians can now be recycled inside Africa. It is as if the internet has created a massive archive of everything negative that has ever been said about Nigeria. And people are searching through that archive every day. South Africa is not destroying Nigeria

Let me make something clear. I am not saying South Africa is destroying Nigeria itself. South Africa cannot destroy Nigeria. Nigeria is too large, too populous and too economically powerful for that. I am talking about something different. I am talking about Nigeria’s image. I am talking about Nigeria’s soft power. I am talking about the respect that Nigerians once enjoyed across Africa. And I believe South African xenophobic online discourse has become one of the leading forces attacking that image.

The reason it is so effective is because it does not have to invent everything. It takes real Nigerian problems and repeatedly presents them without the wider context. That is the template. Find something bad. Show it repeatedly. Generalise it. Make it funny. Attach it to the identity of Nigerians. Repeat. Eventually the problem stops being the individual incident. The problem becomes the Nigerian. That is how prejudice works.

Nigeria still has the power to reverse this. The interesting thing is that Nigeria is not actually becoming irrelevant. In some areas, Nigeria is becoming more powerful. Afrobeats is global. Nigerian artists are international stars. Nigerian businesses are expanding. Industrial capacity is increasing. The Dangote Refinery is one example of what Nigeria is capable of building. It still has enormous human capital. It still has one of the continent’s strongest creative industries. The problem is that the image of Nigeria is no longer keeping up with what Nigeria is becoming. The country is producing progress, but the internet is often producing a completely different Nigeria.

And that is why soft power matters. A country can be economically powerful and still have weak soft power. A country can have millions of talented people and still be mocked internationally. A country can build refineries, produce musicians and create businesses while the rest of the world is busy circulating pictures of its worst streets. That is the battle Nigeria is facing. The African internet is becoming a battlefield of narratives. This is why I believe the future of African soft power will not be determined only by GDP, population or military strength.

It will also be determined by who tells the story. For years, Nigerians told Africa’s story. Now everyone has a microphone. South Africans have a microphone. Kenyans have a microphone. Zambians have a microphone. Ugandans have a microphone. Zimbabweans have a microphone. Namibians have a microphone.

And everyone is fighting for the right to define what Africa is. Nigeria used to have a huge advantage because Nigerians were among the loudest voices online. That advantage is disappearing. And South African xenophobic online discourse has, in my view, become particularly effective at exploiting Nigeria’s weaknesses.

The danger is not that every South African hates Nigerians. That would be absurd. The danger is that a loud and highly visible online minority can create a narrative that travels far beyond the people who created it. Once other Africans start repeating it, the source almost becomes irrelevant. The narrative becomes African. And that is when Nigeria has a serious problem. Nigeria’s soft power is not dying because Nigerian music suddenly became bad. It is not dying because South Africa suddenly became the new cultural superpower. It is weakening because the story surrounding Nigeria has changed.

And South Africa, particularly through the increasingly aggressive xenophobic discourse visible online, is playing a major role in that change. Soft power depends on something more fragile. It depends on what other people think about you. And right now, the Nigerian story is being told by too many people who do not like Nigeria and that is the real danger.