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| President Jacob Zuma, South Africa |
By Toye Faleye
Honourable
Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Senior Special Assistance to the President on Foreign
Affairs and Diaspora has said at a media chat that the recently witnessed
xenophobic attack in South Africa is triggered by the opposition party who craves
for power at all cost.
She
says “the opposition party is inciting the low income earners to go out and
attack foreigners, who, according to the party, are no longer welcome in their
country. We have lost about 116 Nigerians in the last two years. And in 2016
alone, about 20 were killed. This is unacceptable to people and government of
Nigeria,” Dabiri-Erewa said.
She
therefore urges the South African government to call the opposition political
party to order and stop inciting people, saying the Nigerian government would
not tell its citizens to fight back.
“As
of now we have appealed to Nigerian citizens to be careful, calm, vigilant and
be retrained. The South African government has also promised that the police
will protect our citizens,” Dabiri says.
Speaking
further, she adds that the dimension things are going, there might be possible reprisal
attack, saying the major problem is that South African citizens are ignorant
and are not aware of the role Nigeria played to get it (South Africa) liberated
from Apartheid.
It
will be recalled that Abike has called on the South African government to take
decisive measures to protect Nigerian citizens and other Africans. She has
equally called on the African Union (AU) to intervene urgently.
The
Nigerian community in South Africa led by one Ikechukwu Anyene confirmed the
attacks and the looting of Nigerian-owned business in Pretoria West last
Sunday.
It will be remembered that Nigeria and other
foreigners witnessed Xenophobia attack in 2015, which was instigated by the
Zulu King who ordered South Africans to go after foreigners who were seeing as
nuisance.
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