Minister of State for Fori Affairs, Ambassador Sola Enikanolaiye (first on the left) Nigeria’s Ambassador to South Africa, Ambassador Femi Fani-Kayode (last on the right) and other officials who received the South African delegates on Monday in Abuja. Photo: Deborah Musa
The Federal Government on Tuesday said it is in the process of issuing forms to Nigerians who lost property during the recent wave of attacks in South Africa to formally document their losses.
It said this is part of preparations to table compensation claims in ongoing diplomatic negotiations with the South African Government.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Sola Enikanolaiye, disclosed this after briefing President Bola Tinubu on Monday’s meeting with South Africa’s Foreign Minister Roland Lamola, who visited Abuja as a special envoy of President Cyril Ramaphosa in response to the diplomatic crisis triggered by the attacks on Nigerian nationals.
Enikanolaiye said, “In preparation for us lodging our claims, we have designed a form to be filled by all Nigerians who may have lost property in South Africa.
“We want to be able to proceed on the basis of data, on the basis of the quantum of losses they have suffered, and then we go back, because our engagement with South Africa is ongoing. It is not a one-off event.”
“Yesterday was a continuation. We intend to meet going forward. Then we will be able to table those claims and see how we can explore options for compensation,” he added.
The minister revealed that the President affirmed his framing of the violence as Afrophobic rather than xenophobic.
Xenophobia, as used in South African political discourse, has been associated with attacks on all foreign nationals.
Afrophobia, by contrast, specifically indicts the pattern of violence as being directed at Black Africans, exempting white immigrants and expatriates from the targeting profile.
“The President agreed with me that it is Afrophobic, and that Africa must unite in ensuring that we put an end to this spiral of violence targeted at Africans in South Africa,” Enikanolaiye said.
He noted that Tinubu recalled his close personal relationship with Ramaphosa and indicated a willingness to leverage that relationship to arrest the pattern of violence.
“I told him that is something we would like to leverage on to ensure that we put a stop to this ogre of violence, death and destruction of our nationals in South Africa,” the minister said.
Enikanolaiye confirmed that approximately 1,490 Nigerians had been evacuated from South Africa, and that two of the evacuation batches were funded not by the Federal Government but by private Nigerian individuals who stepped in.
He acknowledged that a significant number of Nigerians still wished to return and that alternative funding sources were being explored.
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On specific commitments extracted from the South African side during Monday’s meeting with Lamola, the minister said Pretoria had agreed to quickly activate the early warning mechanism between the two countries and to reinvigorate the Bi-National Commission.
The minister argued that even undocumented Nigerians in South Africa had a right to life and could not be targeted with violence on the grounds of irregular immigration status.
He stated, “Whether they are regular or irregular, they are human beings, and we made that very clear. Criminals have a right to life.
“You cannot say because they are criminals and you begin to hound and kill them. We made that very clear, and South Africa agreed with that position.”
He also hinted that Nigeria’s diplomatic patience had its limita as all options remain on the table.
“Nigeria has options, and the president agreed with me. There are options. We are not helpless in this situation.
“All options are still on the table. We would prefer diplomacy and negotiations to continue until we can arrive at a mutually acceptable outcome that will protect Nigerian citizens, their lives and property in South Africa,” he said.
The current crisis is the fourth major outbreak of attacks against Nigerians and other African nationals in South Africa since 2008, when widespread xenophobic attacks killed more than 60 people across the country.
Subsequent waves in 2015 and 2019 also targeted Nigerian-owned businesses and resulted in diplomatic protests, the temporary recall of the Nigerian High Commissioner, and retaliatory attacks on South African businesses in Nigeria.
In 2019, the Federal Government summoned the South African High Commissioner.
Nigeria and South Africa are bound by a Bi-National Commission framework established in the early 2000s to manage the depth and complexity of their bilateral relationship, which spans trade, investment, diaspora, labour and cultural exchanges.
Nigerian nationals are the third-largest African immigrant community in South Africa, with estimates ranging from 1.5 to 2 million people.
South African companies, including MTN, Shoprite, Standard Bank and MultiChoice, have invested billions of dollars in Nigeria.
