The Nigerian government is to send security agents to work with the South African police, to protect the lives and properties of its citizens who have suffered xenophobic attacks.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama stated this on Tuesday while speaking with State House correspondents after he met President MuhammaduBuhari.
“We are hoping to see the possibility of sending some security agents, deploying them initially in the Nigerian High Commission in South Africa to work closely with the South African Police Force.
“We believe that that will be a very important process to address this kind of thing and to preempt this kind of attacks and possibly for them to also be embedded within the police force of South Africa.
“So, you have some certain number of Nigerian security people trying to work with the South African Police Force,” he said.
Onyeama said the security proposal that the country has made to South Africa aimed at safeguarding the security of Nigerians in the future.
According to him, ”the proposal is one of the issues that President Buhari’s Special Envoy will take to President Cyril Ramaphosa.”
Onyeama said the Nigerian government has registered “a strong protest to the government of South Africa and has put forward to the government what we think would make a big difference.”
The minister said the other proposals that the Nigerian government has put before South Africa was compensation to those who have suffered loss in the attacks.
“It is just those two key issues, the compensation payment and what security mechanism be put in place to ensure that this kind of attacks does not recur, we need to have a viable mechanism in place,” the minister added.
