Nigerian sues South African lawyer over alleged hate speech, discrimination

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A Nigerian man, Lucy Okeke, has dragged a South African advocate to court for allegedly saying that foreigners marry South African women only to get permanent residency.
Okeke, who was briefly married to a KwaZulu-Natal woman, has lodged a formal complaint against the lawyer, Nomusa Khuzwayo, in the Durban Equality Court, accusing her of hate speech and unfair discrimination, South Africa’s Daily News reports.
He wants her disciplined for her alleged comments.
Okeke told the court on Friday that he had met Khuzwayo through the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Law Clinic, when he needed help with visitation rights for his child from the marriage, which had been dissolved by then.
He said it was during a consultation with Khuzwayo in February that the comments were allegedly made.
“In her chambers, she asked me to tell her the history of my marriage to my ex-wife. After I had told her, she told me that my marriage was a fraud and that we Nigerians come to South Africa to marry women for legal papers,” the report said.
Okeke said Khuzwayo also told him that his ex-wife was “stupid” for not pushing him to perform the required traditional Zulu marital processes.
“She (Khuzwayo) said girls from rural areas come to the city and they don’t know what goes on and they get paid to get married to foreigners,” he said.
Okeke told the court that he was shocked and hurt to hear this statement from someone he presumed knew South Africa’s constitution well.
“I’ve always taken my stand against any traditional performances, even in my country of origin, because I practise Christianity,” he said. “I am a radical biblical Christian.”
He said that if his marriage had been a fraud, then the court that dissolved it was also fraudulent.
Okeke also said that during the 2008 xenophobic attacks, he was forced to flee Isipingo because locals had been accusing foreigners of stealing “their women and jobs.”
He said that when Khuzwayo made the statement he felt the same pain he had felt back then.
Khuzwayo disputed Okeke’s version of t