As violence against South African business escalated in Nigeria in the recent days, South Africa has temporarily closed its mission in Lagos, giving a further twist to the alleged Xenophobia outbursts happening in South Africa, particularly in Johannesburg and Pretoria. Earlier, there were attacks on foreign-owned stores in Johannesburg, mainly targeted at Nigerians. In the meantime, Nigeria announced plans to evacuate its nationals from South Africa. There are a number of Nigerians in South Africa engaged in odd jobs like manual workers, mechanics, etc. A recent report indicated that most of them had migrated to South Africa, when the economic situation in Nigeria was at a low ebb and stay put there even after the discovery of oil in their country, which transformed the Nigerian economic landscape.
Of late, there has been tension between the South Africans and migrant community mainly triggered by large scale unemployment in South Africa. www.trendsnafrica.com has been regularly posting the developments in both countries in our various dispatches. Unfortunately, the postures of both governments have further complicated the situation. While the Nigerian government has highlighted the Xenophobia as the root cause for the outbreak of violence, the South African government is terming the violence as a case of loot and unlawful activity. It says that the police are acting only against the violators of law and the police firing was only meant for dispersing a crowd engaged in arson and looting. The Nigerian side scotches this argument and says that the unfortunate incident brings to forth Xenophobia undertones of the host government.
In the last editorial of the Africa4U, a sister publication of our news portal titled “One step forward and two steps backwards” it was pointed out how such untoward developments would affect Africa’s march towards a free trade area.
Explaining the reasons for the closure of the mission in Nigeria, South African Foreign Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor said that the decision was taken to ensure staff safety. There were threats on the mission, the minister added and said that a temporary closure of the mission will give much needed reprieve.
The announcement to close the mission, according to informed sources, is indicative of worsening diplomatic relations between the two African countries. Nigerian side claims that announced plans to evacuate its nationals from South Africa following a series of attacks on migrant foreigners, particularly targeted at Nigerians. As a sequel to this, the Nigerian government has offered to send a commercial airline to evacuate Nigerian willing to relocate to their country. Also, Nigeria pulled out of its delegation attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. It also recalled its high commissioner to South Africa, Kabiru Bala.
Seven Nigerians lost their lives in Johannesburg and Pretoria on account of rioting and suffered untold miseries and loss of properties. The two largest economies in Africa, Nigeria and South Africa , are interdependent in many ways. Nigeria has a large immigrant population in South Africa, while South Africa has huge business interests in the other country in areas like telecommunications, banking, energy, hotel and media.
