Former African Union Commission chair and South African politician Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has revealed that her first passport was Nigerian rather than South African, highlighting Nigeria’s critical role in the anti‑apartheid struggle.
Speaking at a recent gathering, Dlamini Zuma recalled: “As a younger one, my first passport was not a South African passport, it was a Nigerian passport. Before that, I didn’t know what a passport looked like. Other countries started giving us their passports. They knew we were South Africans, but they gave us passports so we could travel across the world more easily because Africa was working together.”
She also noted how Nigerian universities offered scholarships to Black South African students barred from education at home. Civil servants had “Mandela Tax” deductions from salaries to fund the struggle. Without Nigeria’s material and moral support, the fall of apartheid would have been far more difficult.
Her words underscore Nigeria’s immense sacrifice during the apartheid era. Nigeria provided financial aid, military training, and diplomatic support to liberation movements like the ANC. It also issued travel documents to exiled South Africans, enabling them to mobilise international opposition to the racist regime.
