By Adedapo Adesanya
Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has said over 5000 people have reportedly lost their jobs due to the reprisal attack in Lagos which occurred as a result of xenophobic attacks in South Africa.
The Governor made this declaration during his visit to the shopping malls attacked in Lagos on Saturday, where he said Nigerians were the most affected because the businesses attacked in Lagos were employers of Nigerians.
He said, “In both malls, over 5,000 people are out of jobs. These are jobs where Nigerians are the ones that have been affected.”
The Shopping malls looted in the process of the reprisal attacks some days ago led to the closure of Shoprite, Pep and MTN Nigeria offices and stores across Nigeria.
He warned that such action shouldn’t repeat itself because while the Xenophobic attack occurred in South Africa, the jobs that were affected in the process were Nigerian-connected and not otherwise.
“So, we need to be able to take the lessons out of this, be stronger together and be able to take corrective measures to ensure that things like these should certainly not repeat itself in our community,” he said.
He added that, “We have seen the amount of enormous destruction in both plazas and the first thing is to condemn in strong terms whatever could have led to this. It is an extensive destruction of people’s property.
“As a government, we have come out to condemn this and to assure the business community that ease of doing business is paramount to us and security of lives and property is part of the to-do list for us.
“We are charging our security operatives to stop at nothing, to ensure that they keep all of these facilities safe and secure.”
