KOWA Party decries FG’s nonchalance to xenophobic attacks

KOWA Party has accused  the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government of nonchalance over the xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in South Africa.
The party said this on Thursday in a statement issued by its National Secretary, Mark Adebayo, noting that while the actions of the South Africans were totally condemnable, the nonchalant attitudes of the Nigerian government to the tragic incidents was, to say the least, reprehensible.

According to KOWA Party, “The Federal Government has demonstrated terrible lack of capacity to protect Nigerians at home and abroad in view of the APC government’s seeming helplessness in the face of mass killings across the country by suspected foreign gun men and marauding herdsmen.”

The party commiserated with the families of the victims of the recent xenophobic attacks on fellow Africans in South Africa, especially Nigerians, lamenting that Nigerians were not safe within and outside the country.

It said seeing Nigerians maimed, killed and burnt alive in South Africa with their businesses destroyed by organised mob actions while Nigerian government played dumb was quite disheartening.

“The current government lacks a robust or effective foreign policy profile capable of protecting Nigerians abroad and engaging other countries on superior or equal footing.

“At the last count, it was alleged that over one hundred Nigerians have been lynched in the last one year alone. In many instances, the South African police have been reported to clobber many Nigerians to death on mere suspicion of unsubstantiated criminality. All these go without as much as a protest from the Nigerian government,” the party said.

Speaking further, KOWA Party said giving the situation on ground, the options available to the Federal Government were two namely, diplomatic and economic sanctions against South Africa.

“South African business interests run into billions of dollars in Nigeria and fares far better than Nigeria in terms of comparative trade advantage. A comprehensive economic sanction against South Africa with concurrent severing of diplomatic ties pending a show of seriousness on the part of the South African government to protect Nigerians in that country would have gone a long way to forestall the latest mass killings of Nigerians by South Africans.

“Nigerians don’t deserve this type of beastly treatments from South Africa that we sacrificed huge resources to support during their decades-long anti-apartheid struggles. Moreso, that South Africans live and work safely in Nigeria under the protection of the Nigerian government that refuses to act in the defence of her citizens in South Africa,” the party said.

The party further condemned in its entirety the Federal Government’s nonchalance, carelessness, incompetence, and abject failure in the face of mass killings of Nigerians in a foreign country.

It reminded that if a country like Uganda could act swiftly to evacuate her citizens when they came under attacks in South Africa, it was such a shame that the Nigerian government was seating on its hands helplessly, confused, and absolutely unconcerned.

It, however, enjoined Nigerians in South Africa to be vigilant and united in insisting that their rights be respected or, better still, relocate back home for a collective effort to revamp Nigeria’s economy.