Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bianca Ojukwu, has held talks with Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Samuel Ablakwa, in response to recent protests in Ghana targeting Nigerian residents.
The meeting, revealed by Ojukwu in a statement on her official social media account Thursday, centered on concerns raised after demonstrations in Ghana accused Nigerians of contributing to rising crime.
“Meeting with the Hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ghana, Hon. Samuel Ablakwa, to address the situation of Nigeria-Ghana citizens’ relations in the aftermath of protests against Nigerians living in Ghana,” she wrote.
According to Ojukwu, the Ghanaian minister reassured her that Nigerians in the country have nothing to fear. “The Minister assured that the lives, properties and businesses of Nigeria and Nigerians living in Ghana are safe and protected, and that there is certainly no threat of mass deportations of our nationals residing in Ghana,” she said.
The diplomatic engagement came a day after Ojukwu disclosed she had arrived in Accra at 9:30 p.m., where she was received by Ghana’s Inspector-General of Police at Kotoka International Airport.
She noted that the Federal Government of Nigeria is exploring all avenues to bring a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, which stems from widespread protests in Ghana against Nigerian nationals following repeated incidents of criminal activities blamed on foreign residents.
The protests tagged Nigerians Must Go, which were captured in a viral video, showed demonstrators calling on Ghanaian authorities to expel Nigerians over alleged misconduct.
In response, the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) on Tuesday urged calm and condemned the generalisation of Nigerians as criminals. NiDCOM Chairperson, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, described the accusations as unfair and misleading.
“Nigerians are not criminals. They are good ambassadors wherever they find themselves, while those bad ones should be fished out to face necessary sanctions,” Dabiri-Erewa stated in a release issued by the agency’s Director of Media, Public Relations and Protocols, Abdur-Rahman Balogun.
She appealed to both Nigerians and Ghanaians to avoid inflammatory remarks that could escalate tensions, stressing that there was no verified evidence of attacks on Nigerian-owned shops or properties in Ghana.
“There is no evidence to that, and we must at all cost try to prevent any reprisal attacks,” she said.
Dabiri-Erewa also reassured the Nigerian community in Ghana that the relevant authorities were actively addressing the matter. “We urge our citizens not to be provoked or resort to violence,” she added
