We are dealing with the xenophobic attacks – Mnguni, South African High Commissioner in Nigeria 0 By Our Reporter on April 18, 2015

Mr. Lulu Mnguni spoke to Channels television’s Sunrise Daily yesterday on the hate tantrums of his na­tionals against foreigners. Ex­cerpts:
What is your government doing about the crisis?

Our government is deploying the police to normalize the situa­tion. It has also disposed the min­ister of police service, minister of state security and others that can assist in containing the situation, we are also appealing to traditional leaders and community leaders to talk to the people and making sure that the situation is normalised. The root of the problem is limited resources and poverty in some of the communities.
It is said that Zulu state­ment started all these prob­lems, how true is that?
The first time I heard about it was in the media like you as I was here in Nigeria. But what is really important is that President Zuma is talking to all leaders. He has ad­vised all our royal highnesses to try and assist in containing the situa­tion by checking their utterances. He advised them to be sensitive to the nature of the situation so that whatever they do, will come to complement the efforts of our pres­ident to restore normalcy.
What assurance are you giving the people that it won’t happen again?
Yes, it’s not the first time as you said but we are looking at a number of issues that are at the base of the problem and try to address them in a radical way rather than sub­tleness. We have to let them know that we cannot be at loggerheads with our fellow Africans in a strug­gle like the apartheid.
What lessons are there in this situation?
We have come to realise that we have not focused much on how to make sure that the people get enough resources. Enough resourc­es can be shared between our peo­ple in South Africa and our sisters. At the realisation of this, the pres­ident has deployed ministers who are relevant, the minister of small business, minister of welfare and the minister of home affairs have been sent there to talk to the peo­ple and to see how the situation can be quelled so that we do not have a recurrence of this. I think our effort must be to try to be more develop­ment-oriented. That is how we can come with an irreversible solution...expdonaloaded.blogspot.com
Do you think you are pay­ing Nigeria in good faith?
We want to appreciate the role played by Nigeria during our strug­gle. I want to emphasize on this area where this occurrence is hap­pening. It is the area where there are poor people with thin resourc­es and, of course, there is a strug­gle for these resources by all. The resources there are not enough to carter for all there. The government is trying to distribute the resources evenly. That was why I said our ap­proach should be development-ori­ented trying to make sure that there is more development in that area and there are more resources and then there won’t be problem of competition and the occurrence will be curtained.
In the area of small business, we have deployed our minister of small business to see how things can go smoothly for all South Af­ricans and Nigerians. I am sure this will also help to solve the problem.
Some of the violence happened right in front of the South African police. How so?
What is happening is that a lot of policemen have been deployed in the areas of this conflict to try to contain the situation. We also ask some of the land capital organi­sations to assist people who have been displaced by the violence. We have also asked the UNACR to help curb the situation. We are doing a lot to try to make sure that the situation is handled as quickly as possible and, of course, we are sharing experiences and ideas with our African sisters on how this can be contained. Our minister of home affairs and different ambas­sador of countries that are affected have held meetings to try and talk to them and condole with them.
Are you afraid of what other countries will do to in retaliation?
We are talking to our principals on a daily basis on the effect of these occurrences in our country and the relations of our host coun­tries. That is why our minister for foreign affair is having meetings with African heads of commission in our country to tell them that we are working had because we value our relationship with Nigeria and other African countries.