Barely 24 hours after the visit of South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa to Abuja, a Nigerian national,

Mr Martin Ebuzoeme was shot dead by unknown gunmen in that country.

The President of Nigerian Union in South Africa, Adetola Olubola said the victim was killed in Yeoville, Johannesburg around 7:30 pm on July 12.

Ramaphosa had during his visit on July 11 said the killing of Nigerians and other foreign nationals in the country was an act of criminality, and promised to end the killings.

“Government is, however, doing all best possible to bring it down,” Ramaphosa had said.

The Nigeria Consul General in Johannesburg, Mr Godwin Adama, said that latest killing did not have anything to do with xenophobic attacks.

The killing happened in a crime infested area of the country, Adama said.

“The man was killed by unknown gunmen and has nothing to do with xenophobic. The place is a crime-prone area and those kinds of assassinations happened often in that area. There is no investigation that showed that it was xenophobic,” he said.

There have been increased killings of Nigerians in South Africa in recently.

Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora had said over 117 Nigerians have been extra-judicially killed in that country since 2016.

On July 6, a Nigeria, Mr Ozumba Tochukwu-Lawrence, was shot dead by an unknown gunman at 10 Koppe, Middleburg, Mpumalanga, South Africa.

Another Nigerian, ThankGod Okoro, was also reportedly shot dead in Hamburg, Florida West Rand, Johannesburg, on April 9 by the South African Police Flying Squad.

There was also the killing of Clement Nwaogu in April, a father of two who was burnt to death by his assailant.

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