The United Kingdom (UK) has penciled in no fewer than 10 Nigerians for visa ban.
The British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Ben Llewellyn-Jones who stated this in an interview with Nigeria Info FM in Lagos yesterday explained that the affected persons were place on the watch list for alleged ethnic profiling and undermining democracy during the elections which ended recently.
“We watched very closely. We have a list, we are working through our list but we don’t publish those names. I know people say we should, but we have laws, and the law prevents us from doing that. We said we will do this and we will do this. And we are gathering the kind of information that will enable us do this, on specific individuals. At the moment the list is between 5 and 10 and it is growing.”
Although the envoy did not mention names, he particularly made reservations about the comments made by a stalwart of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and member of the party’s presidential council, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode.
Let’s be specific, there were some people, like Femi Fani-Kayode, what is he saying and why is he saying it? I don’t understand.
“It is wrong from my perspective that he will speak on behalf of a party and that party does not distance itself from him and say stop doing that. It is wrong to say that.
“To me it is really important, people who have said I am part of a party’s press and media campaign, well, the party itself should say no you are not, and you should stop and we do not agree. I know that some leaders very clearly said we are about unity, and that is good, I encourage that.
“The problem is if you get the other people over here, who are very clearly associated with the party and giving you another message, and there isn’t any kind of calling out of that, what would you take from that as a voter?” he said.
The envoy stated that many mega cities around the world have recorded huge strides because of their diversity of human capital and that attacking and preventing non-indigenes from actively participating in the political process would only impede the growth of Lagos State.
“If you live in London, you are a Londoner, a British-Pakistan, is a Londoner. The British Prime Minister lives in London. My boss, the British foreign Secretary is clearly British-Sierra Leone and lives in London, they are Londoners. Why is it that people who pay taxes, who work, who provide teachers, who built businesses, who create jobs, who live in Lagos, who happen to be from a different ethnicity to some other people are not Lagosians? Of course, they are. The strength of Lagos is its diversity, and if Lagos can’t be that kind of cosmopolitan melting pot of culture and language and all the things it should be, then really how is Lagos going to succeed?
“People chanting anti-Igbo messages and walking on the streets by polling units on elections day is totally unacceptable. Not just in Lagos, but also in Enugu and Rivers were we had our teams as well and many other places. It was a very much tougher day for voters which shouldn’t be. But we saw people vote in spite of that, which is truly impressive about the elections.
“I think the right question to people who have been driving these ethnic kind of languages would be, when you go to cities around the world like London, what do you see when you see the success of those places? Because the success of those places are not built upon division but upon unity.
“I think that people who are still using that kind of language should stop, and the party they represent should be saying to them ‘stop now, this is not in our name and you are wrong’.”
Recall that Fani-Kayode, had, in newspaper articles and series of tweets, used words that could inflame violence.
In one of his recent articles entitled ‘Respect us or leave!, the APC chieftain wrote: “The truth is that the Ibo in Lagos is no longer welcome by the people of Lagos. And unless they change their attitude quickly and drastically it may well be better for them to go home.
“As a consequence of recent events and the outrageous and insulting “Lagos is a no man’s land” battle cry and mantra which many Ibos in Lagos espouse and constantly bellow and mouth, many of our people believe that Alaba International Market, Computer Village, Trade Fair and other places that they have occupied and taken over should be evacuated and vacated and converted to schools, deep sea ports, housing estates and amusement parks.”
In one of the tweets, he said: “The single greatest lesson that the 2023 presidential election has taught us is that God will NEVER allow a practising sodomite and his repugnant retinue of perverts, pimps, fraudsters, court jesters, degenerates, monkeys, slaves and malefactors to lead Nigeria,” the former minister had tweeted.
In another, he said: “What @PeterObi, @atiku & their thugs did to the CJN is despicable. They lied on him, defamed him, rubbished his reputation & sought to humiliate, blackmail, undermine, destroy & disgrace him out of office. These savages & barbarians seek to destroy all our revered institutions.”
“As a consequence of the events of the last few days I am constrained to say that, like a rabid and mad dog that is foaming at the mouth, the Nigerian opposition, represented by the followers of Atiku Abubakar (Atikulators) and the followers of…,” he wrote in another tweet.