Nigeria Blows Hot On Xenophobic Attacks: ‘We’ll Take Definitive Actions’ – Onyeama
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, has reacted fiercely to the latest xenophobic attacks on Nigerians by South Africans on Sunday.
THE WHISTLER had earlier reported that businesses owned by Nigerians and foreign nationals were said to have been looted and razed by South Africans in the Jeppestown area of Johannesburg on Sunday.
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The attack, according to the President of the Nigeria Union South Africa (NUSA), Adetola Olubajo, led to the deaths of three persons and destruction of several foreign-own business.
“Late in the evening of Sunday, Sept. 1, a group of violent locals suspected to be Zulu hostel dwellers besieged Jules Street in Malvern, Johannesburg looted and burned shops/businesses,” said Olubajo.
Reacting to the fresh attacks, Onyeama said the Nigerian Government “will take definitive measures” in response to the fresh wave of attacks on the country’s citizens.
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Recall that the latest attacks came less than one week after Nigerian and other foreign-owned businesses were looted and razed by South Africans in the Pretoria Central Business District (CBD) of the country.
The fresh attacks also came less than a week after South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, assured President Muhmmadu Buhari during their meeting at the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7) in Yokohama, Japan, that the country was “looking into” xenophobic attacks on foreigners by South Africans.
In her reaction, the Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, decried the attacks and called on the African Union to intervene in the matter.
“Sad, Reports from South Africa attacking foreigners. I can’t verify most of the videos. However,whatever decisions to be taken now can only be at the Ministerial level. AU intervention may be crucial. This is not what we should be doing to ourselves as Africans,” Dabiri-Erewa tweeted.
