ABUJA – THE United Kingdom has condemned the controversial comments made by Femi Fani-Kayode, a former minister of aviation and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In an interview with Nigeria Info FM on Sunday, Ben Llewellyn-Jones, British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, faulted the APC chieftain for his statements and said a number of high profile Nigerians are currently on visa ban list.
Fani-Kayode is also the APC presidential campaign council’s director of new media.
The United Kingdom, lastweek, said it had embarked on an exercise of collating information with the aim to impose visa bans and other sanctions against politicians that engaged in electoral fraud and anti-democratic exercises.
According to the UK, the individuals to be punished were those who engaged in violence and voter suppression in the governorship and state assembly elections in Nigeria.
In a statement by the British High Commission in Abuja, the UK said there were positives to take away from the elections but noted that violence and voter suppression were observed in many states including Lagos, Enugu and Rivers.
The British High Commission said, “These are positive markers to build on for future elections. However, there were notable points of concern. Members of our observation mission personally observed violence, and voter suppression in numerous voting locations.
“We witnessed and received credible reports from other observer missions and civil society organisations of vote buying and voter intimidation the destruction and hijacking of election materials and the general disruption of the process in numerous states including Lagos, Enugu and Rivers.
“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.
“At the moment the list is between 5 and 10 and it is growing,” he added.
“In addition, we observed incidents of harassment of journalists. Freedom of speech and a free press are crucial for a healthy democracy, and journalists must be able to go about their work without being threatened.
“The UK is concerned by the use of inflammatory ethnoreligious language by some public and political figures. We call on all leaders not just to distance themselves from this kind of language, but to prevent those who speak on their behalf from doing so in this way.
“It is a testament to their commitment to democracy that many Nigerians were prepared to vote despite being faced with intimidation and hostility.
Some of the former minister’s tweets in reference to the opposition have contained words and phrases deemed derogatory, divisive and inciting.
The government of the United Kingdom has condemned ethnic profiling and disenfranchisement of Igbos in Lagos during the just concluded governorship election held on March 18.
“People chanting anti-Igbo messages and walking on the streets by polling units on election day is totally unacceptable. Not just in Lagos, but also in Enugu and Rivers where we had our teams as well and many other places,” Ben Llewellyn-Jones, British deputy high commissioner to Nigeria, said.
He said the strength of Lagos is its diversity as Nigeria’s cosmopolitan city.
“Why is it that people who pay taxes, who work, who provide teachers, who build 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?
“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,” Mr Llewellyn-Jones said.
Ethnic tension rocked Lagos in the days running up to the governorship election as operatives of the All Progressives Congress parroted ethnic-laced rhetoric to scare opposition voters away from the election. On the voting day, March 18, APC thugs roamed the streets unfettered, warning those who will not vote for their party to stay indoors.
Before the election, Musiliu ‘MC Oluomo, a notorious All Progressives Congress thug in Lagos, threatened Igbos who would not vote for the APC to stay indoors. However, Nigerian Police dismissed his threat as a joke.
After the election, Bayo Onanuga, spokesman for President-elect Bola Tinubu took to Twitter to push a toxic anti-Igbo message, calling for total exclusion of Igbos from politics of Lagos, Nigeria’ commercial and cosmopolitan city.
Condemned for his divisive statement, Mr Onanuga doubled down on his position, calling Igbos “existential threats to Yorubas”. Contrary to Mr Onanuga’s stance, the Igbos and Yorubas have coexisted peacefully for decades in Lagos and other parts of the country. (Adapted from NewsPoint Nigeria & Journalist 101 reports)
