By Bababunmi Agbebi
Let me start with what may be an uncomfortable truth: if you choose not to watch Netflix’s The Polygamist as an act of solidarity with Nigerians who have suffered xenophobic attacks in South Africa, that is not a bad thing. In fact, it is a deeply personal and, in many ways, responsible decision. Nobody should be mocked for choosing principle over entertainment. If your conscience tells you to withhold your viewership because of the painful history of xenophobia against Nigerians in South Africa, that is your right.
But if we are going to have this conversation, then we must have it honestly.
Because what I find increasingly difficult to ignore is the selective outrage that often trails these moral positions. Some Nigerians are loudly castigating others for watching The Polygamist, yet continue to patronise South African-owned brands, services and products in Nigeria without a second thought. That contradiction is where the conversation gets uncomfortable.
Let us be frank: how many Nigerians who are aggressively boycotting a South African series have also stopped using MTN? How many have refused to shop from South African-linked retail chains, consume South African products, or benefit from businesses with South African roots operating freely in Nigeria? If the argument is that every South African cultural export should be rejected because of xenophobia, then consistency should matter.
And that is where the outrage begins to look less like solidarity and more like performance.
This is not to trivialise xenophobia. Far from it. Xenophobic attacks against Nigerians and other Africans in South Africa remain one of the darkest stains on the idea of African brotherhood. Lives have been lost, livelihoods destroyed, and dignity stripped from people whose only “crime” was crossing a border in search of opportunity. We cannot and should not speak lightly about that pain.
But even within that pain, there are facts we must not ignore.
When some of the Nigerian victims of xenophobic attacks returned home, there was visible relief and gratitude at the reception they received. Reports from the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission show that returnees were welcomed back with support packages, and Abike Dabiri-Erewa herself publicly acknowledged MTN’s support for the evacuees, including financial and communication assistance to help them settle back in Nigeria.
So, I must ask the difficult question: why are some Nigerians determined to cry louder than the bereaved?
How do we explain a situation where actual victims, people who had every reason to be bitter, accepted help and support wherever it came from, while those far removed from the direct trauma are busy policing what others should watch on Netflix? At what point does solidarity stop being about the victims and start becoming a public display of outrage for its own sake?
Again, let me be clear: this is not an argument that xenophobia should be forgotten because of a television series. It is not an argument that Nigerians must consume South African content to prove open-mindedness. It is simply an appeal for consistency and perspective.
Because The Polygamist is, first and foremost, a work of storytelling. Netflix describes it as a South African telenovela adapted from Sue Nyathi’s novel, following the collapse of a powerful man’s carefully curated life under the weight of deceit, excess and betrayal. It is dramatic, messy, chaotic, and yes, wildly entertaining. But beyond the entertainment, it is also a story about power, manipulation, ego, consequences, broken trust, and the women left to survive the damage of one man’s recklessness.
That is bigger than nationality.
That is bigger than South Africa.
That is bigger than the passport attached to the production.
To reduce The Polygamist to “that South African series Nigerians should not watch” is, in my view, to flatten a much broader cultural and human conversation. Art often travels where politics fails. Stories can cross borders even when governments and citizens are failing one another. A film or series can come from a country whose policies, people, or social climate have hurt others, and still contain lessons worth engaging with.
And The Polygamist does offer lessons on toxic masculinity, on the emotional labour women are forced to perform in broken systems, on the illusion of power, on family, shame, revenge and survival. To watch it is not necessarily to endorse South Africa’s failures. Sometimes, it is simply to engage with a story and take from it what it reveals about people, relationships and society.
What I oppose is not the boycott itself. What I oppose is the self-righteousness that often accompanies it.
If you genuinely want to boycott South African content and brands, then do so with your full chest and with consistency. Boycott the entertainment, the telecoms, the retail chains, the products, the partnerships, all of it. That is a position, and at least it is intellectually honest. But if you will keep your MTN line active, continue spending money with South African businesses in Nigeria, and still shame someone else for pressing play on The Polygamist, then perhaps what you are practising is not solidarity. Perhaps it is convenience wrapped in moral language.
And Nigerians must be careful with that.
Public morality is often easiest when it demands very little from us. It is easy to drag a stranger online for watching a series. It is harder to interrogate the South African brands embedded in our daily lives. It is easy to weaponise patriotism on social media. It is harder to build a truly principled position that costs us something.
That is why I believe this conversation requires more honesty than outrage.
Yes, xenophobia is real.
Yes, Nigerians have every right to be angry.
Yes, choosing not to watch The Polygamist is a valid personal protest.
But no, we do not get to shame others from a pedestal built on selective activism.
We do not get to pretend that a Netflix watchlist is the ultimate test of solidarity while our wallets, phone lines and shopping habits tell a very different story.
This may be controversial. It may even offend some people. But uncomfortable truths do not become false because they are inconvenient. The truth remains that solidarity without consistency quickly turns into theatre. And if we are truly serious about standing with victims of xenophobia, then our activism must be deeper than social media outrage and more coherent than picking and choosing which South African exports to reject.
If you do not want to watch The Polygamist, that is your choice and it should be respected. But if others choose to watch a series that offers entertainment, cultural insight and important life lessons, that does not automatically make them less Nigerian, less compassionate, or less aware of the pain xenophobia has caused.
Sometimes, the most mature thing we can do as a people is to stop performing outrage and start having honest conversations.
This is one of them.
