Nigeria won’t avenge xenophobic attacks – Minister

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama said Nigeria will not retaliate against South Africa or any other country over xenophobic attacks against its nationals living in those countries.

Speaking at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum yesterday in Abuja, the minister said retaliation is not rooted in Nigeria’s culture as well as in diplomatic relations.

In recent times, there have been renewed xenophobic attacks on Nigerians resident in foreign countries especially South Africa and India.

“I would like to think that Nigerians will not start targeting innocent citizens for no other reason than that they are nationals of the countries in which some Nigerians were attacked. We are better than that and so far we have proved better than that,” he said.

The minister also said that the ministry was putting modalities in place to ensure that Nigerians abroad got fair treatment through Nigeria’s embassies and missions. He said complaint about services was not limited or peculiar to embassies alone but something that needed general change of behaviour

“Unfortunately, this is not something that is peculiar to embassies; the service culture is something we have to work on in Nigeria, it is obviously not something that comes naturally to us.”