Former minister of aviation Femi Fani-Kayode has clashed with the British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria Ben Llewellyn-Jones over the latter’s veiled visa ban threat.
The UK envoy had while speaking in an interview with Nigeria Info FM on Sunday revealed that 10 people were on his country’s visa ban watchlist.
He said that those on the list were people who allegedly undermined democracy in Nigeria. He also faulted Fani-Kayode, who is the All Progressives Congress presidential campaign council’s director of new media, on some comments he made recently.
However, Mr Fani-Kayode reacted via Twitter saying he would not accept being told how he would talk or address issues pertaining to Nigeria in Nigeria by a “British civil servant”.
The ex-minister said, “Nigeria stopped being a British colony 63 years ago, and we need no lessons from him on how to run our affairs or conduct our politics.
“I wonder who the hell he thinks he is. I am not one of those Nigerians that bows, shakes, shivers, and trembles before the British or indeed any other foreigner. And unlike most, I do not need any validation or endorsement from him or his ilk and neither can I be intimidated by his veiled threat of a visa ban. Frankly, I could not care less.”
He added, “Neither will we accept lessons in decency, etiquette, what to say or how to speak from a fading British civil servant and a man that represents a nation that has committed more atrocities than perhaps any other in the history of humanity.
“I advise this little Englander to respect himself and remain a silent observer when it comes to the politics of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
Fani-Kayode noted that the envoy should be more concerned about “the shrinking fortunes of a once ‘Great Britain’ and the systemic racism, inherent injustice and insufferable arrogance that is entrenched in the British establishment and society than in the intra party politics of Nigeria.”
