Xenophobia: Stop patronising South African businesses, NANS urges Nigerians

The National Association of Nigerian Students has called on Nigerians to withdraw patronage of businesses with South Africa interest in Nigeria.
The call by Comrade Hussaini Ebbo, Chairman, NANS Joint Campus Committee, Niger State Axis, is in reaction to recurring killing of Nigerians in South Africa, with recent strangling of Elizabeth Ndubuisi-Chukwu as the latest.
Until the tragedy, Ndubuisi-Chukwu was Deputy Director-General of Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria. She was in South Africa for a conference and was killed in her hotel room in Johannesburg.
Ebbo made the call at a meeting of NANS with Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger in Minna on Thursday, where he expressed the association’s concern over the killings of Nigerians in South Africa.
He urged Nigerians to stop patronising MTN, DSTV and Stanbic IBTC, advising that they should move over to alternative network providers such as Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat.
Ebbo said that no fewer than 200 lives of innocent Nigerians had been cut short through xenophobic attacks in South Africa between 2016 and now, and declared that the trend was unacceptable.
He said: “I wish to once again condemn in strong terms the indiscriminate looting and killing of Nigerians, who are either residing or visiting South Africa.
“The only way to stop further killings of Nigerians in South Africa is to picket all the business entities owned by South Africans in Nigeria.
“As Africans, we had expected that the South Africa xenophobic attack on any African should have long been repudiated by the government and people of South Africa.”
He explained that it was now obvious that South Africans see Nigerians as competitors, not as brothers and sisters, and warned that such acts would no longer be accepted.
Ebbo said that Nigerians in South Africa deserved to be treated with dignity, respect and freedom “and mostly be protected from further provocation, looting and killings’’.
He disclosed that the association had planned to embark on peaceful demonstration against the incessant killings, but was advised by security agencies to step down the action due to security challenges in the country.
Responding, Bello said that the killings of Nigerians in South Africa call for sober reflection, noting that such act was condemnable and unacceptable in any society.
He said: “As Nigerians, we must be respected in an African country, especially in South Africa which benefitted a lot from Nigeria. It is a wake-up call to every Nigerian.
“It is a situation that should not be accepted anywhere in the world, Nigerians are peaceful people, therefore must be allowed to live their lives peacefully.”
Bello, who was represented by his Chief of Staff, Alhaji Ibrahim Balarabe, assured that the concern and grievances of NANs would be transmitted to the Federal Government.
He commended the association for resorting to a peaceful way to register their concerns and pledged government’s continuous support to all students’ activities in the state.