The murder of a Nigerian man in a drug-related turf war in Goa, India's most well-known tourist destination, is snowballing into a diplomatic row between Abuja and New Delhi.
Obado Simeon was hacked to death on 31 October. His body, bearing many stab wounds, was found lying nearly 500 yards away from the house of a local legislator.
The small Nigerian community in Goa attacked the police in response, damaging property and blocking traffic on a main highway for hours. They blocked the police jeep carrying the body of the dead man and the corpse was dumped on the road.
Police arrested 53 Nigerian nationals and the government launched a crackdown on all foreigners staying illegally in Goa, a popular destination for sun-starved Europeans.
"There are only 50,000 Nigerians living in India but there are over a million Indians living in Nigeria. Thousands of Indians living there will be thrown out on the streets if the forcible eviction of Nigerians in Goa does not stop," Jacob Nwadadia, Nigeria's consular attaché, said.
The Nigerians' bust-up with the local people has ruffled many feathers in Goa, which is ruled by the Hindu nationalist BJP, which has cracked down on the drug-peddling and hippie-type tourism that the beach state is famous for.The chief minister of Goa, Manohar Parrikar, said that the killers would be arrested, regardless of nationality.
"Property was damaged and a national highway was blocked. The Nigerians involved don't even have proper documents," he said.
The government's eviction order on illegal visitors was met with allegations of racial discrimination."Indians need to understand that a large number of Nigerians are living legally in India and even if some are living illegally, there are laws in place to deal with that and those should be implemented", Ndubuisi Vitus Amaku, Nigeria's high commissioner to India, said.
Amaku raised concerns for the safety of thousands of Nigerians living in India.
The attack on Simeon came on the brink of peak tourist season in Goa, whose silver sands attract hordes of Europeans, particularly from Britain, every year. In 2012, about 120,000 UK citizens visited the region.
It looks pristine, but drug peddling, gang violence and a staggering number of murders every year make for Goa's seamier profile. According to official records, as many as 61 foreign tourists were killed in Goa in 2012. One third of the dead were British, according to the BBC.
Locals say that Goa's drug mafia is controlled by gangs from different parts of the world. In October, a British man was arrested in the biggest ever drug seizure in Goa, worth 20.5 million rupees ($330,000).
In 2012 Goa's government, led by a party which espouses the puritanical Hindu nationalist ideology, put foreigners under unobtrusive surveillance in order to put the brake on drug peddling and related offences.Drinking and dance club ban
In April 2013, the government banned drinking on beaches and legal drinking hours were slashed. A ban was enforced on dance bars and rave parties were raided.
The recent crackdown has implications for the narcotics industry in Goa, the police said.
"The local drug mafia which appears to have engineered the murder now has an upper hand. The Nigerian gang will not have time to consolidate their position before the tourist season hits its peak and drugs sales hit a peak," a senior police official told IANS news agency.
While the local government said it would not roll back measures to curtail the "menace of drug-peddling", the Indian federal government offered an olive branch to the Nigerian population.
A spokesman of the Indian foreign ministry said the government was sure that the row could be settled "amicably".
"Obviously the Nigerian High Commission is concerned and there is a sense of anguish at what may have happened to some of their nationals," the official said.
A Nigerian presence has been growing in India in recent years. Many Nigerians go to India to do business and for pursuing higher education. The Goans, however, are apprehensive about the growing number in the state and their alleged involvement in drug peddling and crimes. According to a Goan legislator, many Nigerians who accept a place in Delhi universities pack their bags and go to Goa instead.
"The incident has painted all the Nigerians as bad," said Anil Kester Ible, a Nigerian national who runs a restaurant in Goa. The intervention of the Nigerian government on the issue would ease tension, allowing genuine Nigerians to live in the state peacefully, he added.
The Goans are equally agitated about the way Nigerian officials handled the issue.
"Does the Nigerian ambassador expect me not to arrest Nigerians taking the law into their own hands?" asked the chief minister. He also claimed that a Nigerian official had sent offensive text messages to a police officer investigating the case.
The government said the police have arrested the alleged murderer of Simeon and would continue its crackdowsn on crime and illegal immigration but that sparked claims of racial profiling.
"There is a large Indian community working in Nigeria," said a spokesperson at the Nigerian High Commission. "There are two temples in Lagos and all Indians have freedom to worship and for their other activities. We are demanding the same."
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/520671/20131108/drugs-gang-war-murder-goa-india-nigeria.htmPolice in Goa have made an arrest in the case, but that hasn’t appeased the anger of Nigerians who claim they are subject to constant abuse, prejudice and discrimination from Indians. Agence France Presse described the suspect as an Indian man in his mid-30s who was part of a gang who attacked and killed the Nigerian victim. A police official said he expected to make additional arrests. Goa News identified the murder victim as Obodo Simon and the first suspect as Surendra Poll.
To protest the killing, some 200 Nigerians blocked the main highway to Goa, leading to the arrest of more than four dozen demonstrators. Goa police have attributed the murder to a conflict between Indian and Nigerian drug dealers, an assertion which led the state’s Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to order police to arrest and deport illegal Nigerian immigrants immediately.
But Nigeria's High Commission in India has called for better protection of its nationals living in India, as well as financial compensation for the family of the murder victim. Ndubuisi Vitus Amaku, the Nigerian high commissioner in India, complained to BBC that his countrymen in India feel "aggrieved" over the murderous attack, adding that the order to expel illegal Nigerians from the country only worsens the situation.
BBC reported that about 40,000 Nigerians currently reside in India, but Amaku insists most of them carry proper documents and abide by the law. "Indians need to understand that a large number of Nigerians are living legally in India and even if some are living illegally, there are laws in place to deal with that and those should be implemented," Amaku said. "If Nigerians are living illegally you don't wait till their compatriot is murdered before you go around picking them up and threatening them with deportation -- that is like rubbing salt on their wounds."
More ominously, Nigerian diplomats have warned that the Indian community in Nigeria – who number in the hundreds of thousands, principally in Lagos – may be vulnerable to retaliation if Goa officials do not prosecute all the killers and stop “evicting Nigerians” from the area. "There is a large Indian community working in Nigeria. There are two temples in Lagos, and all Indians have freedom to worship and for their other activities. We also are demanding the same [rights]," said a Nigerian official.
Indian government officials have sought to calm down the Nigerians, perhaps reflecting the reality that India imports oil from the West African giant. Indeed, Nigeria is India’s fifth-largest source of crude -- behind only Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Venezuela. "Obviously the Nigerian high commission is concerned and there is a sense of anguish at what may have happened to some of their nationals," said Indian foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin. "They have requested us to carry out a thorough investigation and to bring to [arrest] those who are involved in the death of a Nigerian national and the consequent issues that followed from that."
However, some other Indian lawmakers, reflecting a general disdain for Africans, have insulted the black people in their midst.
Dayanand Mandrekar, a Goa minister who belongs to the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said, "Nigerians are like cancer," while another BJP legislator, Subhash Phaldesai, equated black Africans to “wild animals.”Some Nigerian and African students in India worry that the gathering storm in Goa will only make life worse for them by increasing the bigotry they already face on a daily basis. An African student in New Delhi named Sadiq told The Hindu newspaper: “I have encountered many situations in Delhi where I was abused and harassed merely because I am black. Thankfully, down South [India], people generally do not behave in such fashion.” Another African student, Zulkar Naili, complained to the paper: “We face many challenges every day. Although on the campus we come across many amicable Indians, it is altogether a different world outside. Misconceptions [and] ignorance … lead locals to target us without any provocation. My advice to fellow Nigerian friends is to ignore such racist slurs and comments.”
In fact, according to some Indian news agencies,
a backlash against Nigerians has already surfaced, even intensified. The Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported that local elders of the village of Parra in north Goa passed a resolution expressly banning anyone from renting rooms or property to Nigerians, citing that most of them use fake student visas in order to deal drugs in the residential community. "We had to stop this to save our village. The chief minister himself says that many Nigerians are living here on fake papers. That is why we wanted to pass the resolution," said Delilah Lobo, a local official and wife of a BJP lawmaker. Another coastal village, Sioliom-Sodiem, has already passed such a resolution against Nigerians.Back in Nigeria, the readers’ comments sections in some newspapers were filled with vitriol against Indians. The following are samples from the Vanguard paper: “[Let] me assure Indians living in Nigeria that
will take away 10 [Indians] out of the sun if they mess up again with Nigerians over there.” “Nigeria stand up and protect the Nigerian interest. Never again will any other nation look down on Nigerians. It is high time we pride ourselves as Nigerians. All Indians must go. It is an eye for an eye.” “They [Indians] molest, insult and kill Nigerians with reckless abandon and we pamper them here as if they are gods -- when are we going to learn?”
http://www.ibtimes.com/murder-nigerian-goa-uncovers-ugly-racialist-attitudes-indians-against-black-africans-1458578
Topic: India's new problem - Black Nigerians (Read 3519 times)