Johannesburg - South Africa slammed Nigeria on Sunday for recalling its ambassadors from the country following the recent spate of xenophobic attacks which left at least seven people dead.
A statement from Nigeria's foreign affairs ministry said Acting High Commissioner Martin Cobham and Deputy High Commissioner Uche Ajulu-Okeke had on Saturday been asked to return to the country for consultations on the attacks.
The decision to withdraw the two was an unfortunate and regrettable step, said Department of International Relations and Co-operation spokesperson Clayson Monyela.
"If this action is based on the incidents of attacks on foreign nationals in some parts of our country, it would be curious for a sisterly country to want to exploit such a painful episode for whatever agenda," he said.
A Nigerian delegation which attended an Africa-Asia Summit in Indonesia alongside deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa last week had at no stage made their intentions known about withdrawing their ambassadors.
South Africa remained committed to creating a strong bond and bilateral relations with Nigeria.
"It is for this reason that when 84 of our citizens perished on Nigerian soil, we did not blame the Nigerian government for the deaths and more than nine months delay in the repatriation of the bodies of our fallen compatriots, or for the fact that when these bodies eventually returned, they were in a state that they could not be touched or viewed as required by our burial practice," said Monyela.
The 84 were part of a group of 116 that were killed when a guest house of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, headed by TB Joshua, collapsed in September last year.
Monyela said South Africa would raise its concerns through diplomatic channels with the new Nigerian administration which will assume office next month.

This SA goverment is similar to nigeria politians that love to claim rights even when they are caught in the act of corruption.....God will punish you all with your criminal boldness

Why the Slamming Are they Mad Ni

I think the fedral government should have recalled the ambassador earlier...

There's something wrong with them...if they choose to bring the synagogue building collapse into this issue which is unrelated (which is unreasonable), they should continue to dig until they remember the way they embarrassed our government recently before we went to Russia to buy arms.

We can't continue to do big brother with lives of our citizens (civilians and military). We have done enough for South Africa, the next steps of the next administration won't be this mild if they do not call their people and companies to order.

Acekidc4:
Why the Slamming Are they Mad Ni

They are on 84-0 loss, they got an opportunity to increase their score and You are recalling.





Just joking

The FG should slam them back with stricter sanctions ..

laplace12:


They are on 84-0 loss, they got an opportunity to increase their score and You are recalling.





Just joking

lol

who are southafricans sef?

Abeg make FG take am jeje with s.a since no Naija person die for d matter.make FG first let me collect my money from MTN o,before any further actions against S.A.

I knew this was coming as soon as Nigeria started increasing their responses on the Xenophobic attacks.

What has the deaths of the South Africans in Nigeria_an accident, have to do with deliberate killing and looting goods of foreign nationals in South Africa. Apples and oranges.

This is what you call Nationalistic Chauvanism. Instead of these people to deal with the fact that their people have been so isolated for so long and have no real solidarity with the rest of the continent and need to deal with the aftermath effects of this, they are here trying to play political russian roulette.

They need to make up their minds, just deport every African foreigner, isolate themselves and pull all their companies out of the rest of Africa.

There was Africa before South Africa emerged in 1994. There will be an Africa if they chose to carve themselves out of the continent.