Despite xenophopic attacks, Nigerians told me they’d rather die in South Africa than return home – Obi

Former Anambra State Governor and prominent political figure Peter Obi has lamented the severe hardships faced by Nigerian diaspora communities, revealing that many citizens suffering from xenophobic hostilities in South Africa explicitly rejected evacuation offers because they consider domestic economic realities to be far worse.

The presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has expressed deep concern over the deteriorating living conditions and safety of Nigerian citizens living abroad, disclosing that many individuals currently facing xenophobic hostilities in South Africa have chosen to endure foreign persecution rather than return to their homeland. Obi, the former governor of Anambra State, raised these concerns during a high-profile dinner organized for NDC aspirants in Abuja on Monday, May 25, 2026. In an official communique released on Tuesday morning by the NDC media team, the opposition leader detailed his first-hand observations from a diplomatic tour, painting a stark, sobering picture of how deep-seated domestic economic despair has completely eroded the appeal of state-sponsored repatriation efforts.

Obi revealed that despite various institutional efforts to coordinate and provide evacuation facilities for distressed Nigerians stranded in South Africa and other highly volatile African corridors, a vast majority of the affected nationals flatly declined the offers. According to the politician, the desperate migrants argued that the severe hyper-inflation, rampant insecurity, and complete collapse of basic social infrastructure currently plaguing Nigeria present a far more immediate threat to their survival than the xenophobic violence they navigate daily in the diaspora. Beyond his direct interactions with the migrant community, Obi disclosed that he held strategic closed-door deliberations with several South African cabinet ministers and former South African President Thabo Mbeki, aggressively advocating for immediate pan-African intervention, policy shifts, and systemic protections to safeguard foreign nationals and defuse brewing regional prejudices.

Reflecting on the painful conversations that defined his foreign mission, Obi maintained that the current administration’s inability to fix the local economy is the direct driver of the mass irregular migration waves colloquially referred to as the “Japa” phenomenon. Addressing the gathered political aspirants, he stressed that a total systemic overhaul remains the only antidote to national embarrassment on the global stage. “I just came back last night from South Africa. You know what Nigerians are going through in South Africa and so many other African countries,” Obi said. “I finally addressed Nigerians. I told them that if we had things working in our country the way they should be, most of you wouldn’t be here. If you don’t know, we provided facilities for them to come back. But most of them told me they would rather die there than come back. They said things are even worse at home,” he concluded, challenging the emerging political class to prioritize functional governance over partisan luxury.

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