Official Report - 24th May 2024

This is the official report of the meeting held on 22nd of May 2024 at Kimberly. The meeting was attended by the President General NICASA Hon Frank Onyekwelu in the company of Ambassador Alex Ajayi, the charge D’Affairs Nigerian High Commission Pretoria and Hon Buhari, the Consular Officer. We had the first meeting with the bereaved family. We met with the wife of the deceased; Mrs Joyce Malibo who is a South African born in Vereeniging Johannesburg and brothers of the late Ebuka and community leaders from Danielskuil.

The Acting Ambassador consoled and sympathized with them and requested to hear their own side of the story regarding what happened on that Friday afternoon that led to the death of Mr Ebuka. After narrating the whole incident, other community members also throw in their imputes, giving the ambassador and the team that came from Johannesburg enough preview to understand what happen and how to engage the South African police commissioner as the meeting was scheduled same day.

The meeting took place at the Provisional headquarter office and briefings were done before the meeting officially started. The general insisted that she would not allow the wife of late Mr Ebuka to be part of the meeting and 3 other community members as they are witnesses to the case and that would not be in the fairness of justice for them to start interrogating or hearing their side of the story as the matter is now with IPID (Independent police investigation department) the department that investigates police conduct and behavior having explained that we proceeded with the meeting after the wife of the late and the other community members were asked to excuse us.

We requested to hear the side of the story from The Police which they narrated, the matter is now in the hands of IPID who are busy with investigations and the commander of IPID present in the meeting will give further updates to this event. We as the Nigerian community also spoke on the displeasure of Nigerian community, Hon Frank Onyekwelu spoke extensively to the general that we the Nigerian community are not happy regarding the killings of our people, barely one month ago we came to Kimberly to discuss regarding the brutality and harassment of our people. Now it has escalated to the death of one of our citizens that our legal team and our Nigerian community are furious and ready to take on the case. We want justice to be served and we want the police group or team that are involved in this gruesome murder to be brought to the book and charged according to the law. Hon Frank further explained that Nigerians back home and our government are expecting to hear a swift response and action carried out by South African government in view of this ugly incident which could have been avoided should the police department had listened to the cry and concerns we discussed barely weeks ago before this ugly incident happened.

However, the General responded to the delegates that they are not there to defend any police but they will allow IPID to do their investigation and whoever that is found guilty should be brought to book. They also expressed their concerns that they received note that during the search the was resistance from the late Mr Ebuka that lead to them trying to get evidence of the substance they claimed they found in his place. However eyewitness confirmed that such is not true.

Furthermore, the IPID leader/commander did assure us that they do not work for the South African police government, they are an independent panel and they are busy with autopsy and once the autopsy is concluded they will gather the reports and from there they will proceed with their investigation.

He assured us that no stone will be left unturned; that they are going to dig deep to understand what lead to his death and how he died and what could have been the possible cause of the death and after that they will update and inform our high commission and the Nigerian community on the findings and results. Whereas if we are not satisfied, we can now approach them for them to give us the guidelines of what next to do but they assured us that they will work on this matter and ensure that justice is served.

Before the end of the meeting we queried informations about the eight Nigerians that were still in custody in the Kimberly magistrate court and we were told that they were denied bail and are still in custody on the ground that some of them do not have legal papers to stay in the Republic and on that note they were considered a flight risk and the court denied them bail. The matter was adjoined to the 18th of July for another hearing. We deliberated that we would have to do something as the Nigerian community to see that we secure bail for them before attending further into the case.

At this point the meeting was brought to a close Wherein both parties have given their own experiences on the situation and the Ambassador pledged that he will be waiting to hear from the South African police on the steps taken to address the concern as brought to the attention and emphasized the need to maintain the diplomatic ties between both nations hence the government back home in Nigeria are expecting answers from his Excellency Ambassador Ajayi. At this point we concluded the meeting and proceeded back to the hotel where the ambassador addressed the few Nigerians that gathered there and emphasized on the importance of unity among the Nigerian community to be more law abiding and to do their businesses and work within the provisions of the law.