Following the murder of the Deputy Director-General of Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, Elizabeth Ndubusi-Chukwu, in her hotel room in South Africa recently, the Senate has sounded a warning to the South-African government to find a way to stop the killing of Nigerians by South Africans, or grave consequences may follow.
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan said the South African government should accord mutual respect to Nigeria and not take the nation for granted.
The Senate President said this following the point of order raised by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, the Senate Minority Leader.
In his point of order, Abaribe had said “Elizabeth Ndubusi-Chukwu, a mother, and an indigene of Anambra State, was found dead in one of the rooms at the Emperors Palace Hotel and Convention Centre, on June 13, 2019, where she lodged.
“She went to South Africa to attend the Conference of the African Insurance Organisation (A10) and initially was suspected to have died of cardiac arrest.
“The Insinuation was proved wrong, following autopsy report released on June 20, 2019, by South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs, which indicated in a Death Certificate that the death was unnatural and suspected to be murder due to strangulation.
“The suspicion that she could have been murdered was further confirmed in a separate document issued by South Africa’s Department of Health on June 27, 2019, where it corroborated the autopsy report and revealed that she was strangled.”
Abaribe further said there had also been other incidents of Nigerians dying in suspicious circumstances in South Africa.
In response, the Senate President said “We are a responsible country. That is why we will not take the law into our own hands in the way of retaliation, but we shouldn’t be taken for granted.
“Nigeria provides leadership for Africa, but in this leadership position we should be able to tell every African country the truth.
“We have taken this killing, for too long and I think the time has come for us as Parliament to tell the South African Parliament where the South Africans are represented that we have taken enough and we shall not take it anymore.”
