NIGERIA AND SOUTH AFRICA IN FRESH DIPLOMATIC WAR

Diplomatic tension between Nigeria and Pretoria have reached boiling point, partly fueled by the xenophobic attacks in recent times. South African government officials are furious about the Nigerian Senate’s public reprimand following the xenophobic attacks.

“We restrained ourselves when they had the bodies of our citizens who were killed there,” said a senior official who declined to be named, referring to the 84 South Africans who died when a building collapsed at Pastor TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations last year. We had grounds to make a scene, but we didn’t,” he said.

On Thursday, Nigeria’s Senate asked the government to immediately recall its ambassador from South Africa and to take Zwelithini to the International Criminal Court. One senator also called for South Africa’s suspension from the African Union (AU). The AU’s next summit is set to be hosted in Johannesburg in June.

On Monday, Nigeria’s foreign ministry summoned South Africa’s high commissioner to Nigeria, Lulu Mnguni, “to register Nigeria’s protest over the ongoing xenophobic attacks”.

While one Pretoria official described the summons as a “hostile act”, Nigeria’s acting high commissioner to South Africa, Martin Cobham, has said that “it is normal for a government to ask you to come for clarification or a briefing on events as they unfold”.

Meanwhile, Security has been beefed up at the Durban offices of the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) after a series of violent threats.

Anonymous callers have threatened to burn down the office if it continued its investigation into Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini after his alleged anti-foreigner speech in Pongola last month, which is widely believed to have sparked the xenophobic attacks in KwaZulu-Natal three weeks ago.

A source within the SAHRC revealed one of the threatening remarks: “If you do not immediately stop with the investigation against the king, your office will be burnt with you in it.”

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