Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has held a Nigerian diplomat at fault for meddling with and threatening a state police official during an investigation in the killing of a Nigerian national.
Parrikar has accused the diplomat of sending 'offensive SMSes' to a senior police official over the controversy that erupted after a Nigerian woman was murdered and sparked state wide protests.
"He (the diplomat) was wrongly briefed who went to the extent of sending offensive SMSes to our Superintendent of Police," Parrikar told PTI at Vasco town, without naming the diplomat.
According to the Goa CM, the Nigerian diplomat was recently in the state and had reportedly warned the SP of serious 'repercussions' against Indians living in the African country if his countrymen were harassed in Goa. It was Nigerian consular official Jacob Nwadadia who had threatened that thousands of Indians will be 'thrown out on the streets' in Nigeria, if Goa police did not stop evicting Nigerians from their homes in the state.
"As a foreign diplomat, he should have come through the Ministry of External Affairs. I never got any communication that anyone is coming," Parrikar added.
He also blamed the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for not clearing the air between the two countries when the controversy of Goa CM detaining only Nigerians spread in the media. "The row between India and Nigeria was created by the mistakes of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)," he said.
The minister also accused the media of misinterpreting his statements over the murder of the Nigerian woman. "I never said that Nigerians would be deported, but what I had said was that illegally staying foreigners including Nigerians would be deported," Parrikar said.
India-Nigeria relations have never touched such a low since the African country got independence in 1999. With a bilateral trade amounting to more than $10 billion, India meets 20-25 percent of its domestic oil demand through imports from Nigeria.
