LAGOS, Nigeria—Asita Awovie left Nigeria last year on a scholarship to study Civil Engineering at the Chang’an University in the Shaanxi province of China. After less than a year in the country, Asita says he wants to return home and never go back to China.
Asita’s parents mounted pressure on him to return home ever since videos of maltreatment of Nigerians and other Africans in Guangzhou and other parts of China surfaced on social media last week, fuelling safety concerns.
“My parents are worried because they think it is not safe living here anymore,” Asita told The Epoch Times on the phone. “They asked me to come back home.”
“The situation in my region is fair and the university tried to keep us safe but as for me, I don’t actually trust China again,” Asita says.
Last week, after some African immigrants in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou tested positive for COVID-19, African students and businessmen were left homeless after being evicted from their homes and hotels by Chinese landlords and officials, sparking uproar and apprehension in Nigeria. The evictions have been termed racial targeting of blacks in China as the country continues its fight against the coronavirus outbreak.
In the videos and pictures, some Nigerians could be seen walking on the streets with their luggage while some were seen lying on street corners. There were also reports of seizures of their passports as well as forceful quarantines.
The claims of discrimination have prompted a public backlash in Nigeria as the videos trended online. Many Nigerians took to their social media accounts to call out the Chinese regime, using different hashtags.
“Do you know how much Nigeria contributes to China’s economy every year? Almost 90 percent of commodities in Nigeria are imported from China and look at how they (Nigerians) are paid back,” Ikechukwu Nwakezie wrote in the comments section of one of the trending videos on Facebook. In the video, some Nigerians were protesting the eviction from their hotel rooms.
Nigerian activists have called on their government to intervene, noting that the fallout of the crisis would undermine China’s diplomatic relations in Nigeria. Some of them recalled that China had criticized the United States of racially profiling as Chinese citizens in the United States and other countries.
Leading the outcry against the discrimination, the Consul-General of the Nigerian High Commission in China, Anozie Maduabuchi Cyril, accused Chinese officials of racially targeting Nigerians, adding that it was unfair since many Chinese in Nigeria were not treated that way after Nigeria witnessed its first COVID-19 case in February.
According to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, there have been 318 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 10 deaths in Nigeria, while 70 people in the country have recovered. Most Nigerian cities are on lockdown.
Challenging a Chinese official on the discrimination against Nigerians, Cyril said, “In Nigeria, we have a lot of Chinese. I don’t think you have ever received any information that the government of Nigeria go to their various houses and pick them for quarantine, so why are Africans and indeed Nigerians being targeted? We have European people here, people from America, Spain, and Italy and other countries, so why are you harassing them?”
The backlash coincides with a protest by the Nigerian Medical Association against the Nigerian government’s decision to enlist the support of Chinese doctors to help curb the scourge of coronavirus in Nigeria. The arrival of 15 Chinese medical professionals in Nigeria last week has further heightened the criticism.
David Adams