Senate Cautions
Nigerians Against Traveling To South Africa
In
response to th spate of violent attacks being meted out to
foreigner living in South Africa are no longer controllable, the
Nigerian Senate has urged the Government to issue security alert
to Nigerians intending to travel to the Republic of South Africa
to give a break because the attacks “are mainly on citizens of
Nigeria by the hoodlums”.
This is coming on the heels of reported cases of armed robbery
and attacks targeted at Nigerians in South Africa in recent
times, which was confirmed by a team of senators who visited
that country recently.
Moving a motion to that effect on behalf of nine other senators,
Senator Grace Bent said: “The Senate notes with serious concern
the protracted and unabated intimidation, brutalization and
cases of robbery and sundry attacks on innocent Nigerians, both
high and low, in South Africa.”
She said: “The South African immigration, amongst others, are
being alleged of complicity in such robberies that have taken a
familiar trend. Worst still, Nigerians are being painted as
criminals, fraudsters, etc, forgetting that a sizeable
percentage of Nigerians go about their business legitimately.”
According to Bent, “The South African government is so far
unable to bring the situation under control. This is evident to
an extent that the South African government is getting helpless
about the situation.”
Seconding the motion, Senator Umaru Dahiru said the matter calls
for urgent concern because it appeared hopeless.
Senator Dahiru, who was part of a recent official trip by
senators to South Africa, said: “It was more worrisome because
the hoodlums identified us by our national dress and this
incidence occurred less than two hours from our arrival. Their
method is to trail their victims from Oliver Thambo
International Airport, Johannesburg to their destinations and
then rob them violently.”
But the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, advised his
colleagues against a sweeping condemnation of the South African
government, saying that “cases of criminality can be found
everywhere. It has not been established here that there was a
conscious effort by the South African government to unleash
armed robbers on citizens of our country, so we should be
cautious in our comments so that we don’t strain relationship
between two friendly countries.”
In his comments, Senate President, David Mark, said the issue in
South Africa called for concern and seems to be beyond the
authority of the government. He, however, said: “The aim of the
motion was not to castigate the South African government.”
Senator George Anthony Manzo reminded his colleagues that
Nigeria’s first duty is to protect its citizens and alert them
on the situation in South Africa.
He added that “normally, when this kind of things happen, the
consular in that country should approach the home government to
try and find a solution to it. Besides, I advise that we issue a
travel alert to all our citizens going to that country to take
adequate security measures”.
At the end of the debate, the Senate directed its committee on
Foreign Affairs to obtain more information on the development
and report back to it in two weeks.
MP/MICHAEL
