South Africa, Nigeria Spar over Xenophobic Violence
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The recent xenophobic violence in South Africa against migrant workers has sparked a new diplomatic rift with Nigeria, with the South African government condemning Nigeria's decision to withdraw its envoys from Pretoria.
On Sunday, the South African government released a statement calling Nigeria's move "an unfortunate and regrettable step" and said the government and a wide range of civic organisations had been "decisive and unequivocal" in condemning the attacks on foreign nationals in the country.
The statement by South Africa's Department of International Cooperation, however, goes on to deride the Nigerian government over its inability to rein in the Boko Haram insurgency in the north of its country. It also points out that South Africa did not blame the Nigerian government for mishandling the aftermath of the collapse of a church building in 2014, which left 84 South Africans dead.
Nigeria's acting high commissioner in South Africa, Ambassador Martin Cobham, and the consul-general, Ambassador Uche Ajulu-Okeke were called home on Saturday to brief the Nigerian parliament about the welfare of Nigerian citizens in South Africa following the anti-immigrant violence in Durban and Johannesburg, Al Jazeera reported.
Tolu Ogunlesi, West Africa editor of the Africa Report magazine, criticised the tenor of the South African government's statement.
Ogunlesi said it was not logical to compare the Nigerian Church disaster in 2014 to the xenophobic attacks and referring to the church disaster was misplaced in a diplomatic context. The Nigerian government has been criticised for mishandling the response to the collapse, with bodies repatriated some nine months after the incident.
"The statement sounded like the thoughts of someone, rather than a diplomatic response," he said.
Many South Africans however, including prominent South African analyst, Eusebius McKaiser, have described South Africa's response as justified.
“This response from South Africa - via Clayson Monyela (deputy director-general of the Department of International Relations and Co-Operation) - is fully justified in my view," McKaiser wrote on Facebook on Sunday night.
"However it certainly helps neither South Africa nor Nigeria - and definitely not the continent, geopolitically - for diplomatic relations between us to deteriorate," he added.
While some have described Nigeria's decision to recall its envoy as "opportunistic", others say the action has only come after public pressure.
