President and Founder of the Africa Development Studies Centre (ADSC), Victor Oluwafemi, has released a policy research presentation challenging long-standing narratives, attributing the origins of organised crime and drug trafficking in South Africa to Nigerians.
The study, titled: “Crime, Drugs, Apartheid and Historical Memory: Reassessing the Origins of Organised Crime in South Africa,” argues that violent crime networks, illicit drug economies, and gang structures in South Africa predate significant Nigerian migration into the country and are rooted in colonial and apartheid-era systems.
Key Highlights:
- A new ADSC study says organised crime in South Africa began before major Nigerian migration.
- The report shows South Africa had anti-drug laws and drug trafficking issues as early as the 1920s.
- Researchers traced violent crime to apartheid-era problems like inequality, segregation, and political violence.
- The study says Nigerian syndicates later joined criminal activities but did not create South Africa’s crime networks.
- ADSC warned that blaming Nigerians for crime fuels xenophobia and distracts from deeper social and economic issues.
Presenting the findings under ADSC’s continental governance and security research initiative, Oluwafemi said the evidence contradicts widely circulated claims that Nigerians introduced criminality into South Africa.
According to the report, South Africa had already established anti-drug legislation as far back as 1922, with early regulatory frameworks targeting cannabis, locally known as dagga.
The study also referenced historical records indicating that by the mid-20th century, the country was already dealing with documented cases of illicit drug trade and cannabis seizures.
The research further traced the evolution of violent crime to structural conditions under colonial rule and apartheid, including racial segregation, forced removals, migrant labour systems, township underdevelopment, political violence, illegal arms circulation, and entrenched economic exclusion.
Oluwafemi, while presenting the findings, said historical interpretation must not be shaped by emotion or ethnic profiling.
“Historical evidence must prevail over emotional narratives, misinformation, and xenophobic assumptions.
“Crime and drug trafficking in South Africa did not begin with Nigerians, nor were Nigerians responsible for introducing criminality into the country,” he said.
He noted that available institutional data show that by 1992—two years before the end of apartheid—South Africa already recorded extremely high violent crime levels, including murder and armed robbery rates that placed it among the highest globally at the time.
The report also examined how post-apartheid reintegration into the global economy, combined with porous borders, unemployment, institutional weaknesses, and expanding international trade routes, contributed to the diversification of organised crime involving actors from different nationalities.
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While acknowledging that some foreign criminal networks, including Nigerian syndicates, later became involved in parts of South Africa’s illicit economy, the ADSC maintained that there is no historical evidence linking Nigerians to the origin of the country’s criminal structures.
The study warned against what it described as nationality-based stereotyping, saying such narratives fuel xenophobia and distort policy responses.
“Reducing highly complex historical and institutional realities to nationality-based accusations only fuels social division, xenophobia, diplomatic tensions, and misinformation across Africa,” Oluwafemi stated.
He added that the core drivers of crime in South Africa remain structural, including inequality, unemployment, governance deficits, and institutional fragility.
The research also reviewed the evolution of gang networks in the Western Cape, township criminal economies under apartheid, illicit mining operations, and smuggling routes that expanded in the post-1990s era following South Africa’s global reintegration.
ADSC said the study forms part of its broader continental programme on governance, migration, security sector reform, and organised crime analysis across Africa.
Among its key findings, the report highlights that anti-drug laws existed in South Africa before 1930, organised gangs predated Nigerian migration, violent crime escalated sharply during the late apartheid period, and post-apartheid organised crime became increasingly transnational in nature.
The centre added that the full publication will be released through its official research platforms in the coming weeks.
