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ABUJA. – South Africa has deported 97 Nigerians for various offences following a series of raids, Nigerian officials said yesterday, amid heightened bilateral tensions over anti-immigrant violence in South Africa.
Abike Dabiri-Erewa, senior special assistant to Nigeria’s president on diaspora matters, said the deported Nigerians had arrived home on Monday.
“Some of them claimed they were returned for irregular migration offences when the South Africa authority withdrew their voluntary work permits that it had hitherto given to African migrants, and made . . . work permits more difficult to get,” she said.
“They (Nigerians) have been arbitrarily raided . . . More (deportations) will likely follow,” said Dabiri-Erewa, adding that drug offenders among those sent back had been handed over to the Nigerian police.
Uche Ajulu-Okeke, Nigeria’s consul-general to South Africa, confirmed the deportations in a text message, saying they were due to a “lack of documentation”.
Some had said their documents were destroyed in anti-immigrant violence, so they were no longer able to prove they had legal documents, she said.
“I know, coming in the wake of xenophobia, that it (the deportation) was not a very sensitive act,” she said.
Anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa flared up in late February against a background of near-record unemployment, with foreigners being accused of taking jobs from locals and getting involved in crime.
In retaliation, protesters in Nigeria vandalised the head office of South African mobile phone company MTN in the capital Abuja last month.
Some Nigerians have demanded that South Africans leave their country.
Asked about the deportations yesterday, Mayihlome Tshwete, a spokesman for South Africa’s home affairs ministry, said his country deported people of different nationalities “on a day-to-day basis”.
“Deportation is a 90-day process and it happens on an on-going basis, so I won’t get into a singling out of Nigerians,” he said, when asked for details about the Nigerians deported.
Meanwhile, at least six Nigerian lawmakers are reportedly set to visit South Africa following the recent xenophobic attacks in Pretoria and Johannesburg.
According to Punch.com, the Nigerian delegate would be led by Femi Gbajabiamila, the Majority Leader of the west African country’s House of Representatives.
The lawmakers, the report said, would also be accompanied by foreign affairs officials.
The visit’s aim was to ascertain the “true state” of affairs regarding both Nigerian and other foreign nationals living in South Africa.
Outbreaks of xenophobic violence were recently reported in Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Reports indicated that more than 20 shops were targeted in Atteridgeville, outside Pretoria, and at least 12 houses were attacked in Rosettenville, south of Johannesburg.
Angry residents raided what they called drug dens, telling the tenants they did not want them living there.
They also called for “pimps” to release prostitutes and send them back home.
Punch said: “Over 100 Nigerians have been killed in South Africa in the last two years.
“There were instances where the police clobbered defenceless Nigerians to death on suspicion of being involved in criminality.”
The lawmakers reportedly accused the Nigerian government of not “doing enough” to protect Nigerians in the southern African country.
The chairperson of the committee on foreign affairs, Senator Monsurat Sunmonu, said it was time for Nigeria to impose sanctions on South Africa, adding that Nigeria should also consider retaliatory moves against the southern African country.
Sunmonu’s remarks came just a week after Nigerians staged an anti-xenophobia protest outside the South African embassy in Abuja, calling on authorities to “stop attacks on African nationals”.
The protest, organised by members of the National Youth Council of Nigeria, urged the South African government to urgently address the situation.
The protesters carried placards such as “South Africa we say stop killing our people” and chanted slogans denouncing the attacks. – Reuters/ News24.
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