Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has said the Early Warning Mechanism proposed by the Federal Government to check xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in South Africa is beginning to yield positive results.
She made the disclosure, yesterday, on the sidelines of the Technical Workshop on Diaspora Remittances and Sustainable Development held in Abuja.
The workshop organised by the Rabat Process (Euro-African Dialogue on Migration and Development), in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was amongst other objectives, aimed at improving on Rabat Process partners’ technical understanding of remittances and sustainable development.
The Early Warning Mechanism proposed by the Federal Government, was the brainchild of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, in the efforts by the government to proffer solutions to series of xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in South Africa.
Dabiri-Erewa said the last two attacks which happened in South Africa after the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari, were crime-related rather than xenophobic attacks.
She noted the high rate of crime in South Africa, saying one has to separate crime from xenophobia when looking at attacks in South Africa.