State Response and Resilience to Xenophobic Attack on Nigerians in South Africa: A Discourse, The Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Nigerian Forum.

Abstract

In the recent time, Nigerians in South Africa have witnessed renewed attack from their South Africa counterparts due to struggle for limited social and economic resources in the country. Xenophobic attack was not new, it stated in 2008 and reoccurred in 2015 though with minor attention from Nigerian Government. However, the recent attack on Nigerians in South Africa is only debilitating but also endemic thus draw reaction from both the local populace and Nigeria Government. This paper therefore, discusses the Nigeria’s government responses to xenophobic attack on Nigerians in South Africa and her capability to curtail future attack on Nigerians by South Africa. The paper adopts relative deprivation theory, a theory that situates violent struggle on economic resources on the deprivation or lack of access to the resources by a party to the crisis. Data were sourced from available literature on the topic and analyzed qualitatively. Findings reveal that Nigeria Government diplomatic responses to the attack were of international standard but the Government needs to among others, improve her economic fortunes in order to improve her citizens international recognition and respond to such crisis appropriately.