Xenophobic attack: NANS pickets MTN, others

Nigerian students under the aegis of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) on Thursday protested the continued attacks on Nigerians and their businesses in South Africa.

The students, led by their National Financial Secretary, Danladi Jonah, marched through major streets in Yola, Adamawa state, picketed Yola offices of South African businesses in Nigeria, including Stanbic Bank, DSTV, and MTN.

The students carried placards with inscriptions such as: ‘NANS say no to xenophobia,’ ‘Why kill our citizens and loot their properties?’ ‘Enough of spiral silence,’ ‘Nigerian students can no longer keep quiet while South Africans kill Nigerians,’ ‘Nigerians are no weaklings or cowards,’ ‘End South African businesses in Nigeria.’

Addressing the management of Stanbic Bank at the bank’s branch office on Aliyu Mustapha Way, Jimeta, Danladi Jonah said the bank branch would remain shut for all of Thursday and Friday in line with the directive for the anti-xenophobia protest from NANS leadership.

“We are giving South African businesses seven days to relocate, after which we will take the next plan of action,” he said.

Addressing the students, Stanbic Bank Zonal Operations Manager, Abubakar Usman enjoined them to be calm, assuring that he would communicate their grievance to the headquarters of the bank.

The NANS National Financial Secretary, who later fielded questions from journalists, said the protest in Yola was part of a nationwide plan of action by NANS against killings of Nigerians in South Africa.

He said he was leading Adamawa students to warn South African interests in the state that Nigerian students would not continue to tolerate the violence against Nigerians living in, or visiting South Africa.

NANS has for a while been protesting in states across the country following its leadership’s declaration for the protest last month following the alleged murder in South Africa of a Nigerian top insurance executive, Mrs Elizabeth Ndubuisi, one of the prominent of such killings of Nigerians in South Africa.