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By Prince Osuagwu & Nkiruka Nnorom
South Africa’s Consul General to Nigeria, Prof Bobby Moroe, yesterday, announced that over 80 persons in connection to the Afrophobia attacks that happened in South Africa recently, have been arrested.
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This is even as the African Union Executive Council has declined to take up Ghana’s request to place violence against African migrants in South Africa on the agenda for its October Summit after Pretoria argued that the matter belonged in a broader forum.
Moroe made the revelation at Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, during a breakfast forum of the Nigeria-South Africa Chamber of Commerce, themed: “The Future of Nigeria-South Africa Bilateral Relations in a Changing World”
He also revealed that investigation still on going even as more arrests are likely to be made soonest.
Moroe admitted that in the South African law, nobody has the right to trample on another’s rights and that it will not be to the interest of the present government in the country to sit and watch people’s human rights abused in the manner witnessed recently, without making the perpetrators pay for their actions.
According to him, “South African government is always ready and prepared to provide support to all those who have been victims, but most importantly to prevent the recurrence of the current violations of human rights in South Africa. You will also be interested to know that yesterday I saw an announcement of a breakaway of one faction which used to constitute part of March to March group. They said they broke away to give government an opportunity to continue doing what it has been doing, including law enforcement agencies arresting, apprehending, and making sure that perpetrators are brought to court. So I can assure you, my sisters and my brothers, that the law is taking place in South Africa.
“On the insinuations that emergence of such tendencies are always towards elections. I think, as government, we have never really focused on that. Our main focus is to protect individuals and to protect property and also ensure that we uphold the constitution. But the constitution of South Africa also provide rights to individuals. Whether you want to form a political party, whether you are a member of a political party, whether ruling or opposition, people have the right to exercise their choices in South Africa. So, whether these acts usually manifest towards elections, for us it is not significant. What is significantly important for us is to make sure that government continues to protect the security of individuals, to protect citizens and non-citizens in South Africa, because whether regular or irregular migrant, the South African Constitution guarantees you protection” he added.
Meanwhile, the African Union Executive Council has declined to take up Ghana’s request to place violence against African migrants in South Africa on the agenda for its October Summit after Pretoria argued that the matter belonged in a broader forum.
The exchange took place at the meeting of AU Foreign Minister in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where Ghana raised the issue during as AU executive meeting on Wednesday, prompting South Africa’s International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Ronald Lamola to respond to the proposal.
Ghana had asked that the treatment of African migrants in South Africa be added to the agenda of the mid-year coordination meeting set for October in Egypt.
The motion to add xenophobia to the agenda was not adopted. Instead, South Africa’s proposal for a standalone continental conference on migration emerged as the option before the council, with the underlying disagreement between both countries over how and where the issue should be addressed unresolved.
South Africa’s position was that the coordination meeting, which draws only 12 heads of state representing the AU Bureau and Regional Bloc, was not the right setting for an issue of this scope.
Lamola told the Council that Pretoria was already engaging the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights ahead of a planned visit by his country’s rappoteur, and was in contact with the Commission’s Refugee and Asylum Seeker Mandate Holders, engagements he described as the appropriate channel at this stage.
He referred to a 2015 AU Assembly decision and a 2019 Peace and Security Council communique that had both called for a dedicated continental migration conference that was never convened and asked the Council to finally hold one.
