President Bola Tinubu has directed Nigerian missions in South Africa to immediately establish a crisis notifications unit for imperilled citizens, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, warned that the ongoing anti-foreigner campaign in the country may be more accurately described as “Afriphobia” than xenophobia.
The directives followed a phone conversation between Odumegwu-Ojukwu and her South African counterpart, Ronald Lamola, on Thursday amid worsening tensions in the southern African nation.
Nigerians in danger were advised to contact South African security authorities whenever dangerous situations arise.
“The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu, has directed that the Nigerian missions in South Africa set up, with immediate effect, a crisis notifications unit for imperilled citizens who have also been advised first and foremost to contact SA security authorities whenever dangerous situations arise,” the minister said in a statement on Thursday.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu said Lamola expressed concern and misgivings over Nigeria’s evacuation plans during the call, but she held firm, insisting that the government could not stand by while its nationals were being harassed, humiliated, and killed extrajudicially.
“I maintained that our government cannot stand by and watch the systematic harassment and humiliation of our nationals resident in SA as well as the extra-judicial killings of our people, and that the evacuation of our citizens who want to return home remains our government’s priority at this time,” she said.
She also pressed Lamola to ensure that South Africa’s police and justice systems treated cases of extrajudicial killings of Nigerians with greater seriousness, demanding clear and immediate consequences for perpetrators.
“I also highlighted the need for their police and justice systems to take the cases on ground of extra-judicial killings of Nigerians in South Africa more seriously and that there should be clear and immediate consequences for such acts,” the minister said.
On anti-foreigner political rhetoric, Odumegwu-Ojukwu warned that the violent and indiscriminate actions of South Africa’s anti-foreigner political parties were not only threatening the lives and property of Nigerians and other nationals but could also produce dangerous blowback closer to home.
“Our discussions also centred on the violent and indiscriminate rhetoric and actions of South Africa’s anti-foreigner political parties which puts the lives and properties of Nigerian and other nationals at risk, but which conversely might also have the effect of jeopardising the safety of South African interests in Nigeria,” she said.
The minister disclosed a particularly distressing dimension of the crisis, that Nigerian children and those born of both Nigerian and South African parents, referred to as “Sougerians,” were being bullied in schools and taunted to “return to their country.”
“This is reprehensible and capable of causing trauma to young minds for whom such incidents may remain etched in memory,” Odumegwu-Ojukwu said.
She added that Lamola acknowledged South Africa had a responsibility to protect innocent children and that authorities were working through education supervisory bodies to discourage the practice.
Commending the conduct of Nigerians in the volatile environment, the minister said their restraint had been exemplary.
