‘…when a leopard wants to feed on its young ones, it first accuses them of smelling like goats’, (Chinua Achebe). Introduction Ladies and Gentlemen, we meet at a time when our social world is undergoing massive forms of social engineering; in terms of, the new structures and currency of communication brought about by social media in its variegated forms. Much as this celebration of the rise of social media may be seen as an important ingredient in conjuring a kind of communicative action – of mediating and representing subaltern voices; i.e., by giving them a kind of public sphere for airing their views and thus empowering them, it maybe important for us to consider the enormity of the challenges faced by ethnic minorities and the restrictive conditions within which they have been forced to subsist. ‘For the nation to live the tribe must die’ – underlying historical currencies To begin with I prefer to refer to these as ‘travails of ethnic minorities & the brutality of nations’ on their minorities. And so, before I discuss the possible preventing scenarios; allow me to foreground my point of departure. By stating that, the state of ethnic minorities in Africa in general, and in particular, Southern Africa is quite an invidious one - all as a result of the fledgling African national project purveyed by nationalists whose majoritarian mindset informed them to coin and celebrate the statement – ‘divided we fall, united we stand.’ While the imperative has been to easily celebrate this view as an avowal for a progressive people, especially in the previous liberation obsessed era; a critical interrogation of this statement as a kind of ‘mantra’ presents to us with a clear case of