Xenophobia: Buhari’s Meeting With Ramaphosa Will Address Issue, Says Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed optimism that the proposed meeting between President Muhammadu Buhari and his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, would go a long way to address the issue of xenophobic attacks on Nigerians living in that country.

He stated this on Saturday while answering questions from journalists at his Presidential Library in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.

“The meeting that President Buhari and President Ramaphosa will have during the first week of October should smoothen the ground and the right statement and the right action coming from both sides should encourage our people to go back,” the elder statesman said.

He added, “My joy is that President Ramaphosa is ready to do what needs to be done to stop this ugly incident and to put the relationship between Nigeria and South Africa on the right track.”

The former president was confident that the meeting of the two leaders scheduled to hold in October would provide the much-needed avenue for smothering of the near strain relationship between their countries over the xenophobia in South Africa.

He supported the calls for compensation for those whose businesses were destroyed during the recent attacks in that country.

Obasanjo commended the steps taken so far by the two presidents and called for the reactivation of the bilateral commission between the two countries.

He, however, asked Nigerians to be law-abiding and be good ambassadors of the country wherever they find themselves.

“As I have always said, Nigerians living outside Nigeria must try to be good citizens of wherever they live.

“And when I was president, when I met Nigerians abroad; I said look, being good citizens of the country in which you live and then, tie to when you will be good citizens of the world and when you come back home, you will be good citizens of Nigeria,” the elder statesman noted.