No data shows that 800,000 Nigerians live in SA

Source: EWN, 22/02/2017

Xenophobic unrest has flared up in parts of South Africa once again,
with incidents of looting and violence reported in Johannesburg and
Pretoria.


The Nigerian government is said to have asked the African Union to
intervene in the violence targeted at its own nationals. News reports
documenting this repeatedly quote a figure of “around 800,000
Nigerians living in South Africa.


The figure has previously been attributed to the spokesman for the
Nigerian Union South Africa (NUSA).


Is it validated by current data?
NIGERIAN UNION USES APPROXIMATED FIGURE
NUSA spokesman, Eneka Ezinteje, told Africa Check that the 800,000
figure is an approximated figure based on projections from current
data.


The union issues each member with an ID card and collects data on the
number of Nigerians from its 76 wards scattered across the
country.

The NUSA ID card is only issued to Nigerian passport
holders.


But Ezinteje could not confirm the exact number of ID cards issued by
NUSA and whether every Nigerian living in South Africa (including
naturalised South Africans) have the ID card.


2016 DATA SHOWS JUST OVER 30,000 NIGERIANS IN SA
The most recent data on how many Nigerians (and other foreign-born
migrants) are living in South Africa is to be found in Statistics
South Africas 2016 Community Survey.


It estimated that 30,314 people â€" or roughly 2% of foreign-born people
living in South Africa â€" are from Nigeria. South Africas 2011 census
found this figure to be 26,341. The United Nation’s estimate for 2015
was even lower, at 17,753. (Note: In a blog post, University of Cape
Town demography professor Tom Moultrie explains how these estimates
were calculated and why they differ.)
There is absolutely no way that this claim is true, Loren Landau, a
research professor based at the African Centre for Migration and
Society, told Africa Check.


If you look at Statistics South Africa data, there are only about 1.5
to 2 million international migrants in total in the country. Although
these figures are undoubtedly imperfect, they are better than any
other data out there.


CONCLUSION: NO DATA SUPPORTS CLAIM THAT 800,000 NIGERIANS LIVE IN SA
The Nigerian Union South Africa did not provide data to back up their
claim that 800,000 Nigerians are living in South Africa.


Available estimates from Statistics South Africa and the United
Nations show just over 30,000 Nigerians in South Africa. Although
these figures are imperfect, they come nowhere close 800,000.