Nigeria’s House of Representatives has mandated its Committees on Diaspora and Foreign Affairs to investigate the losses, damages, and casualties suffered by Nigerians during the recent xenophobic violence in South Africa.
The resolution, which followed a motion of urgent public importance by Babajimi Benson, wants the executive to take proper inventory of property abandoned by Nigerians arising from previous and recent xenophobic attacks in the Republic of South Africa, recommend appropriate diplomatic initiatives, legal mechanisms, and bilateral engagements to ensure accountability for perpetrators.
Benson, in his motion called for enhanced protection of Nigerian residents still in South Africa, and to ensure effective implementation of relevant international human rights obligations.
The lawmaker expressed worry that despite public condemnation and diplomatic protests that follow every successive wave of xenophobic violence, no corresponding institutional effort to comprehensively document the losses suffered by Nigerians has been made; a situation he says deny the Executive and the Legislature an authoritative evidential basis for policy formulation, legislative intervention and sustained diplomatic negotiations.
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He insists that a comprehensive legislative enquiry has become imperative not merely to establish responsibility for the recent attacks but 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.
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(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
