The House of Representatives is to investigate the losses, damages, and casualties suffered by Nigerians resident in South Africa, and to take inventory of property abandoned by them as a result of previous and recent xenophobic attacks in the Republic of South Africa.

The House is also asking its relevant committees to recommend appropriate diplomatic initiatives, legal mechanisms, and bilateral engagements with the South African government to ensure accountability for perpetrators, enhance the protection of Nigerian residents in South Africa, and ensure the effective implementation of relevant international human rights obligations.

This followed a motion on notice sponsored by Babajimi Benson (APC, Lagos) calling for an investigation into the losses, damages, and casualties suffered by Nigerians in the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa.

Benson said Nigeria remains one of the foremost architects of South Africa’s liberation, having committed enormous diplomatic, financial, and political resources towards dismantling apartheid, including sustained advocacy at the United Nations, the Commonwealth, and the Organisation of African Unity, the establishment of the Southern African Relief Fund, educational scholarships for South Africans, and the imposition of economic sacrifices on its own citizens in support of the struggle for freedom.

According to him, notwithstanding this historic relationship, Nigerians residing lawfully in the Republic of South Africa have, for nearly two decades, remained recurrent targets of xenophobic violence characterised by killings, mob attacks, physical assaults, arson, looting of businesses, destruction of property, forced displacement, intimidation, and hate campaigns, principally directed at African migrants.

He said significant outbreaks of xenophobic violence were recorded in 2008, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, and on several occasions thereafter, each resulting in renewed diplomatic tensions between both countries, emergency evacuations of Nigerian citizens, and repeated assurances by the South African Government that adequate preventive measures would be implemented.

He said the recent resurgence of coordinated anti-foreigner campaigns and inflammatory rhetoric by groups such as Operation Dudula and similar organisations created widespread fear amongst Nigerian residents, with many reportedly abandoning homes, businesses, and investments while seeking emergency evacuation following threats and unlawful ultimatums issued against foreign African nationals.

Benson said that successive sessions of the National Assembly have, on several occasions, debated motions condemning xenophobic attacks against Nigerians in South Africa, expressed sympathy with victims, and urged diplomatic engagement between both Governments, but none has culminated in a comprehensive legislative enquiry to establish the actual number of Nigerians killed, injured, or displaced, or the aggregate economic losses suffered by Nigerian citizens over the years.

He lamented that every successive wave of xenophobic violence has been followed by public condemnation and diplomatic protests without a corresponding institutional effort to comprehensively document the losses suffered by Nigerians, thereby denying the Federal Government and the National Assembly an authoritative evidential basis for policy formulation, legislative intervention and sustained diplomatic negotiations.

Benson said that a comprehensive legislative enquiry has become imperative not merely to establish responsibility for the recent attacks but also to document the cumulative human, economic and social consequences of xenophobic violence against Nigerians in South Africa, with a view to recommending enduring legislative, diplomatic and institutional solutions for the protection and reparation systems for Nigerians in the diaspora. (The Nation)