The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, has broken silence on the xenophobic attack on Nigerians abroad especially on the recent one in the Union of South Africa.
He said the attack in South Africa was not exclusively targeted at Nigerians adding that violence in South Africa dates back to the apartheid days.
He shed light on what Nigerian government had done so far to forestall future attcks by directly engaging the government of South Africa.
Apart from what they have done, he said , Nigeria can not send its police or military to protect Nigerians in South Africa or any other country where attacks were being targeted at Nigerians.
He said, ''The xenophobic attacks in South Africa were not exclusively targeted at Nigerians. Since the end of the apartheid regime, South Africa has been struggling with the issue of violence. There has been violence against itself and against African migrants. That has been a real challenge for the South African society and the South African Government. What we have done is to directly engage the South African Government at the highest level. We identified that the best way to go about it would be to engage all the parties involved. We were able to bring the South African Government face-to-face with Nigerian representatives in the country. We agreed to form a permanent mechanism to address this situation. We feel that was a major step in this process, by setting up an early warning mechanism. This mechanism is designed to bring together South African police and Nigerian unions. Nigerians in South Africa felt that police officers there were not providing adequate protection. We felt this was a major breakthrough.
The thing with violence of this nature in any country is that, nations are sovereign. No nation has direct influence over events taking place in other countries. When you talk of protecting Nigerians in other countries, there is a limit to what you can do. We cannot send our policemen or military there to secure our people. We completely depend on the agencies of the various countries. All we have to do is to prevail on the governments of the affected countries and in this case, the Government of South Africa.''
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