South Africa has turned down Nigeria’s request to compensate Nigerians who lost properties after being evacuated from the country amid renewed xenophobic attacks on African migrants.
Nigeria’s Acting High Commissioner to South Africa, Temitope Ajayi, had earlier disclosed that the Nigerian government was compiling records of businesses and properties left behind by returnees, with plans to use the data as a basis for compensation talks with South African authorities.
But South Africa’s Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, ruled out any government payout while addressing journalists on Friday.
She explained that only properties formally registered with authorities would be recognised, noting that informal settlements have no legal standing in the country.
“So there’s no compensation that will come from the government,” Ntshavheni said, adding that owners of properly registered assets—whether movable or immovable—are free to sell them on South Africa’s open property market.
The minister, however, drew a sharp line around informal settlements. “Squatter camps and informal settlements are never properties because they are illegal in the country. So you are already violating our law if you are going to tell us about a shack in some informal settlement,” she said.
Ntshavheni went further, turning the conversation toward allegations of drug-related activity among Nigerians in South Africa, asking Abuja to hand over details of suspected drug dens.
“We’ll be interested to know where the drug dens of Nigerians are. So they can show us where they have been holding the drugs so that we can clean the drugs in South Africa quite urgently,” she said.
She also confirmed that the South African government has approved new measures aimed at stopping demolished informal settlements from being rebuilt.
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