The Nigerian Consulate General in Johannesburg has condemned the deaths of three Nigerian nationals in separate incidents in South Africa within four days, saying the pattern raises fresh concern about the safety of Nigerians in the country.
According to a statement issued on Monday by the Consul General, Ambassador Ninikanwa Okey-Uche, the three men died between 18 and 21 September 2026 in Bloemfontein, Pretoria and Ekurhuleni. The Consulate named them as Kenechukwu Christopher Igwemmadu, Olaniyi Olaleye Olatunde and Christian Hillary Nnaemeka, and called on South African authorities to establish the circumstances of each death and hold anyone found responsible to account.
The Consulate said Igwemmadu died on 18 September at Kenlin Court on Douglas Street in the Bloemfontein central business district, where he was said to have fallen while trying to escape what the statement described as police harassment. It gave no further official account of that incident, and the police version has not been made public.
In the second case, the Consulate said Olatunde, who worked as a security guard, was shot on 20 September at a night club in Mamelodi East, Pretoria, after trying to stop a customer leaving with a cup belonging to the club. According to the statement, the customer drew a firearm and shot him, fled, then returned to threaten witnesses. The Consulate said Olatunde was taken to Mamelodi Hospital and confirmed dead the following morning. No arrest has been announced.
The third death has drawn the most attention. The Consulate said Nnaemeka died on 21 September in Primrose, Ekurhuleni, after an encounter with the South African content creator and politician Xolani Khumalo and members of his Sizok’thola team. The statement alleged that the crew assaulted and tortured him during an operation despite finding nothing incriminating on him, and that he collapsed after attempting to climb a fence and was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.
Those are the Consulate’s allegations. The circumstances have not been tested in any court, and no charge has been confirmed in connection with Nnaemeka’s death. Khumalo has not issued a public response to the Consulate’s account.
Khumalo is a familiar figure in South Africa. He rose to prominence as presenter of Sizok’thola, a Moja Love programme that confronts alleged drug dealers in township communities. In 2023 he was charged with murder, robbery and malicious damage to property after the death of a suspected drug dealer during filming. Court records show those charges were provisionally withdrawn at the Palm Ridge Regional Court in April 2025. In October 2025, the party ActionSA named him its mayoral candidate for Ekurhuleni ahead of the 2026 local government elections, and its leader, Herman Mashaba, described him as a fearless community activist.
The Consulate linked the latest case to an earlier death. It said that on 9 February 2026, another Nigerian, Emeka Clement Uzor, was shot during an encounter with Khumalo’s reality television crew in Windsor East, Randburg, and that no arrest had followed. South African outlets reported that shooting as occurring in Linden on 8 February, that a murder case was opened, and that ActionSA confirmed Khumalo was present. The Johannesburg Metro Police and the national police both denied involvement in that operation, saying officers arrived after shots were fired.
Wider figures cited alongside the Consulate’s statement came from Nigeria’s High Commissioner to South Africa, Femi Fani-Kayode. In remarks shared on his X account, he said the three latest deaths brought the number of Nigerians killed in South Africa in 2026 to 12, and claimed that 112 Nigerians had been killed there since 2022, including 32 by members of the South African security forces. Those totals are the High Commissioner’s own count and have not been independently confirmed.
The Consulate framed its intervention in cautious terms. It said its position was that Nigerian and all lives matter, that where allegations exist there are proper steps to justice, and that everyone should be presumed innocent. It stopped short of declaring the deaths a coordinated campaign, saying instead that the incidents pointed to what seemed to be a pattern and deserved thorough investigation.
The killings revive a recurring source of tension between the two countries. Nigerian officials and community groups have repeatedly raised concern over attacks on nationals in South Africa in recent years, and periodic waves of anti foreigner sentiment have strained relations between Abuja and Pretoria. For now, what is confirmed is limited to the Consulate’s account of three deaths and its call for investigation. What each inquiry establishes, and whether any prosecution follows, remains to be seen.