– The chairman of House of Representative committee on Foreign Affairs, Nnenna Ukeje-Elendu has blamed ongoing xenophobic attacks on South African government
– Ukeje-Elendu said the South African government is not working towards producing jobs for its citizen and the government is fond of apologising rather than acting
The chairman House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Nnenna Ukeje-Elendu, has said the South African government should be blamed for the ongoing xenophobic attacks on Nigerians by South Africans.
Daily Post reports that Ukeje-Elendu said that without a sustained international coalition that includes economic, diplomatic, and social sanctions against South Africa, the government will continue to issue apologies to countries of victims of xenophobia and other hate crimes but would do nothing to stem the ugly tide in the country.
South African government is encouraging xenophobic attacks – Ukeje-Elendu
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She said: “It’s tragic; it’s unfortunate. As one of the leaders – the second largest economy in Africa, I think they should be alive to their responsibility to the rest of the world.
“And for me, as far as I am concerned, this is the worst case of memory failure for the South Africans because surely, they must remember that it was the same foreigners that came together to liberate them from their country.
“So, asides from it being the worst case of memory failure I have seen, I also think it has just gone unabated; and every time it happens, South African government issues apologies to the rest of the world. The rest of the people pick up their lives and go back again, and then, they do nothing about institutional political reasons behind it and it just continues unabated.
“With the economic figures coming out of South Africa, unemployment is at 26 percent, growth at 0.2 percent; Hunger, anger, feeling of disenfranchisement, and lack of government policies to make provisions for people living in the townships and so on. Unless there is some kind of international intervention, we are not going to see changes in the next couple of months.
“The South-African xenophobic attacks have become a recurring decimal. Since 1994, we have had concerns about these xenophobic attacks that have carried on repeatedly over time. And, of course, this recent spate of xenophobic attack is just further confirmation that, unfortunately, South–Africans are people who have xenophobic tendencies.
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“Every so often, we have these conversations, be it 62 people dead or seven people dead as in last year, or whatever. We just keep seeing a recurring decimal. And, I think the time has come for us to have some kind of institutional and international coalition against xenophobia.
“We have seen the same kind of international coalition against racism in South Africa where the rest of the world came together and decided it was time to stamp out apartheid. I think the time has come quite frankly for there to be the same sustained international coalition against South African xenophobia and all hate crimes.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Government has asked the South African Government to investigate and punish those involved in the killing of a Nigerian in Johannesburg in December last year.
It also called on Pretoria to end extrajudicial killings, criminalisation of immigrants and xenophobic attacks in South Africa.
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