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Nigerians living in South Africa faced a renewed and explicit threat on Wednesday as thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Durban, demanding the mass deportation of undocumented foreign nationals and singling out Nigerian migrants among those they say have no place in the country.
The demonstration, led by controversial civic group March and March and backed by political parties including ActionSA and xenophobic vigilante movement Operation Dudula whose name means “push back” in Zulu was among the most charged displays of anti-immigrant sentiment the country has seen in recent years.
For the Nigerian community, which has long been one of the most visible and frequently targeted foreign groups in South Africa, it was a familiar and frightening spectacle.
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba made the targeting explicit.
“We are seeing our government allowing our country to be flooded by groups from all over the world as far as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Mexico, all over the world,” he told the crowd. “We are saying to our government: this is unacceptable.”
That Nigeria was named alongside countries from outside the African continent was not lost on observers, and underscored how Nigerian migrants have come to occupy a particular place in the rhetoric of South Africa’s anti-immigrant movement.
March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, whose group was marking its first anniversary, did little to temper language widely condemned as xenophobic. She questioned why undocumented foreigners were permitted access to public healthcare.
“If you are saying you can’t refuse them healthcare, why must it be public? Make them pay for their own healthcare if they want to be here milking our resources,” she said.
On the ground, the grievances were personal and raw.
Thembi Dlamini, 81, from Clermont, west of Durban, said she had attended last year’s march as well. “Jobs are being taken away by our brothers from other parts of Africa who are here illegally,” she said.
“Where will our children get jobs?” Fellow marcher Muzi Xaba was blunter still. “We must remove foreigners and then hire South Africans,” he said.
Police had initially held marchers back from the beachfront, which protesters claimed was overrun by drug dealers a charge anti-Nigerian sentiment has historically fastened onto.
But a small group broke away, harassing bystanders and looting shops, prompting a show of force from law enforcement. Anticipating trouble, some business owners had shuttered their premises long before the march began.
The economic backdrop lends the protests a combustible edge. South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised economy, draws migrants from across Africa despite an unemployment rate that hovers around 32 percent.
The national statistics agency puts the total foreign-born population at approximately three million, or 5.1 percent of residents. For unemployed South Africans, that figure has become a source of deep resentment — and Nigerian traders and entrepreneurs, often highly visible in townships and urban centres, have repeatedly borne the brunt of it.
The history is bloody. Waves of xenophobic violence in 2008, 2015, and 2019 left dozens dead and thousands displaced, with Nigerian-owned businesses and homes among the most heavily targeted.
Each cycle has strained diplomatic relations between Abuja and Pretoria, with Nigeria periodically recalling its ambassador and organising evacuation flights for citizens caught in the violence.
With local elections now less than a year away, critics warn that Wednesday’s march is less a spontaneous expression of public anger than a calculated political mobilisation one that uses Nigerian migrants and other foreigners as electoral ammunition.
For the Nigerians living and working in Durban, Cape Town, and Johannesburg, that distinction offers little comfort.
