Criminals behind killings of Nigerians in S/Africa – Ramaphosa

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa said yesterday that criminals were responsible for the attacks of Nigerians and other nationals in some parts of his country, South Africa.
Fielding questions from journalists at a joint press briefing after a close-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Ramaphosa said authorities in South Africa were doing their best to tackle criminal activities in the country.
He said the killings are caused by high level of unemployment among the youth as well as other social factors emanating from long apartheid misrule while government is doing all best possible to bring it down.
He said: “There have been quite a number of incidences in our country where foreign nationals some of whom are Nigerians have lost their lives and are being attacked.
I will like to say here and now that, that has been as a result of criminal activity among our own people which we are focusing on from a criminal element point of view.
“I want to state here and now that South Africans do not have any form of negative disposition or hatred towards Nigerians and in the main Nigerians in South Africa and a number of places of our country live side by side, they cooperate very well and some are in the corporate structures of our various companies and some are traders and some are into a number of things.
“So, I want to dispel this notion that when a Nigerian loses his or her life in South Africa, it is as a result of an intentional action by South Africans against Nigerians.
That is simply not true.
“You will know that South Africa has a number of challenges, one of which is criminality which is all pervasive.
We have over a number of years been bringing down a number of crimes in our country and we are working on a concerted basis to ensure that crime does come down.
“And the criminality that we have is borne out of a number of factors, one of those is unemployment among people.
27 per cent of South Africans are unemployed which amount to about 9 million and most of these are young people.
Poverty is still very pervasive in South Africa and this emanate from our very sad history of apartheid misrule.
“There is still inequality in South Africa, a few people are extremely rich and majority of our people are very poor and all these factors and other social factors have contributed to the high levels of crime.
And criminality is something like I said that we are focusing on, doing everything to bring it down.
“And on top of everything else, people in various parts of the country who get engulfed in acts of criminality, majority of them are South Africans and some of them will be foreign nationals and will either be Nigerians and other people from other countries.”