July 22, 2026 by Tony Akowe, Abuja
Reps to probe deaths, damages suffered by Nigerians in South Africa
The House of Representatives is to investigate the casualties and damages suffered by Nigerians in South Africa due to xenophobic attacks on foreigners by the locals.
The House will also inventory property abandoned by the over 3, 500 Nigerians evacuated by the Federal Government as a result of previous and recent attacks in South Africa.
Besides, the House asked its relevant committees to recommend appropriate diplomatic initiatives, legal mechanisms and bilateral engagements with the South African government to ensure sanctions for perpetrators, enhance protection of Nigerians still resident in that country and ensure implementation of relevant international human rights obligations.
The decisions followed a motion on notice by Babajimi Benson on the need to investigate the fate that befell Nigerians.
Benson said Nigeria remains one of the foremost architects of South Africa’s liberation, having committed enormous diplomatic, financial and political re
According to him, notwithstanding this historic relationship, even Nigerians residing lawfully in South Africa have, for nearly two decades, remained targets of xenophobic violence.
He said significant outbreaks of xenophobic attacks 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 Nigerians and repeated assurances by the South African Government that adequate preventive measures would be carried out.
Benson said the recent resurgence of coordinated anti-foreigner campaigns and inflammatory rhetoric by groups such as Operation Dudula created widespread fear amongst Nigerian residents, with many reportedly abandoning their homes, businesses and investments.
The lawmaker, who added that successive sessions of the National Assembly have, on several occasions, debated motions on xenophobic attacks against Nigerians, but none have culminated in a comprehensive legislative enquiry to establish the actual number of Nigerians killed, injured, displaced or the aggregated economic losses suffered by them over the years.
He lamented that every successive wave of xenophobic violence has been followed by public condemnations and diplomatic protests without a corresponding institutional effort to comprehensively document the losses, thereby denying the Federal Government an authoritative evidential basis for policy formulation, legislative intervention and sustained diplomatic negotiations.
He 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.
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