Nigeria Moves To Recover Returnees’ Lost Assets In South Afric
The Federal Government has said it will engage South African authorities to secure compensation for Nigerians who abandoned businesses and other valuable assets while fleeing renewed anti-immigrant hostility, a move that signals a tougher diplomatic posture as the country’s evacuation programme stretches into its third week.
Acting Nigerian High Commissioner to South Africa, Ambassador Alexander Ajayi, disclosed this on Tuesday during an appearance on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, as another batch of Nigerians was expected to arrive in Lagos under the Federal Government’s ongoing voluntary evacuation programme.
Ajayi said the government had already begun compiling records of businesses, vehicles and other movable and immovable properties left behind by returnees, and that the documentation would anchor talks with Pretoria. He said discussions had already started, noting that he and the South African Deputy Minister of Finance had met three days earlier on the matter.
He stressed that the exercise goes beyond evacuating citizens, insisting the government is determined that affected Nigerians do not lose investments built over many years.
The acting envoy also pushed back against the widely repeated claim that most Nigerians in South Africa are undocumented. He explained that delays in processing immigration documents by South Africa’s Home Affairs had left many foreign nationals stranded despite having migrated legally, attributing the backlog to a deluge of applications over the past three or four years that were not attended to due to systemic issues.
The evacuation began this month after a fresh wave of anti-immigrant agitation swept several provinces. On June 7, the Federal Government approved five Air Peace evacuation flights to repatriate Nigerians after more than 500 citizens were screened, with the first flight on June 11 bringing home 262 returnees and a second batch of 66 arriving on June 25. A further 271 citizens were expected in Lagos on Tuesday, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noting that more than 1,000 Nigerians had expressed interest in returning home.
The current unrest is tied to the citizen-led movement March and March. In April and May 2026, the group organised demonstrations against undocumented migrants in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Durban, with violent and sometimes fatal results. Anti-immigrant groups set a June 30 deadline for foreign nationals to leave, although officials have said the ultimatum has no standing in law. Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini appealed for calm, pleading with his people to avoid bloodshed.
The crisis fits a long and painful pattern. At least 62 people were killed in the 2008 attacks, while a 2015 wave that followed remarks by the late Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini left seven dead, and 2019 attacks in Johannesburg that also targeted Nigerian businesses killed 12 people. A report to Nigeria’s House of Representatives noted that 116 Nigerians were killed in South Africa within two years, and that an estimated 118 lost their lives to xenophobic violence between 1999 and 2018.
Analysts trace the recurring hostility to economic strain. South Africa’s unemployment rate stood at about 32.1 percent in 2025, with youth unemployment above 60 percent, conditions in which migrants are easily cast as competitors for scarce jobs. Statistics South Africa put the number of foreign nationals at 2.4 million in 2022, about 3.7 percent of a population of 65 million.
Whether Abuja secures actual compensation remains uncertain, as no framework or timeline has been made public.