In a “breaking news” brief shared with FTW Online via Whatsapp - clearly pointing to a serious backlash over incidents of xenophobia in South Africa - the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has ordered South Africans to leave Nigeria.
The message reads: “South Africans and their companies operating in Nigeria have been given seven days to pack up their bags and leave Nigeria.”
The reason for the threat, NANS says, is “an increase in xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in South Africa”.
Companies mentioned in the warning to leave Nigeria include MTN, Multichoice, Stanbic IBTC bank and Shoprite.
At a press conference held in Abuja, NANS president Danielson Bamidele Akpan said although it had been hoped that xenophobia aimed at Nigerians living in South Africa would cease, recent violent attacks on foreign nationals had forced them to call for retaliation.
“The killings have continued and have even assumed a more dangerous dimension.
“This worsening development calls for a swift reaction. Importantly, we want to call on all Nigerians in South Africa to consider their stay in South Africa and return home.”
Alarmingly, Akpan added, NANS has decided to encourage students in Nigeria to “take on South Africans (in the) same way they are doing to our people.
“We have seen the helplessness of the South African government in reining in their citizens and wish to condemn in unambiguous terms the continued pampering of those involved.”
Akpan said that because Nigerians were not allowed to work peacefully in South Africa, South Africans and local businesses attempting to make a living and do business in Nigeria should not be allowed to do so.
Adding some calm and reason to what appears to be a call for insurrection against South Africans in Nigeria, the chairperson of the Nigerian Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said her country’s government was doing all it could to help quell the violence.
She said President Muhammadu Buhari would be meeting with his South African counterpart about attacks against his subjects in due course.
She stressed though that xenophobia in South Africa had reached “a tipping point.
“We are getting to a point where Nigerians are getting really angry and can’t take it anymore.
“One more death in South Africa. It’s becoming unbearable for Nigerians.”
And although Akpan called for solidarity from the Nigerian government in SANS’ call for South Africans to leave his country, he said: “Diplomacy has failed.
“We wish to announce that Nigerian students have decided to take on South Africans.”
