2023 Polls: British Envoy Faults Fani-Kayode Over Inciting Remarks

The United Kingdom has expressed displeasure over controversial comments made by a former Minister of Aviation and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Femi Fani-Kayode. Speaking in an interview with Nigeria Info FM yesterday, British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Ben Llewellyn-Jones, faulted the APC chieftain for his statements. Recall that Fani- Kayode is also the APC Presidential Campaign Council’s Director of New Media. In recent times, some of the former minister’s tweets in reference to the opposition have contained words and phrases deemed derogatory, divisive and inciting.

Last month, the former Minister of Aviation said the Department of State Services (DSS) invited him for making claims that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), met with army general’s prior to the elections. When asked if there were triggers of violence leading up from the campaign to the election, the UK envoy said he was puzzled as to why Fani-Kayode would make such statements, adding that the APC should have distanced itself from the former minister’s utterances. Llewellyn-Jones said: “Yes, 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 give you another message, and there isn’t any kind of calling out of that. What would you take from that as a voter?” The Deputy High Commissioner also re-echoed the UK visa ban threat to those undermining democracy, adding that about 10 persons were on the growing watchlist. He said: “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 to do this, on specific individuals. At the moment the list is between 5 and 10 and it is growing.”

The length of the ban, according to him, is at the discretion of the UK government. The US had also imposed visa bans on certain individuals in Nigeria who were deemed to be undermining democracy. Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has praised the British envoy for confirming that Femi Fani-Kayode was among those making inciting comments. In a statement yesterday, the Special Assistant on Public Communication to Waziri Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Phrank Shaibu, said the DSS ought to invite Fani-Kayode as his rhetoric could set the country on fire. Shaibu maintained that Fani-Kayode’s claim that he would make Nigeria ungovernable if Tinubu is not inaugurated as President on May 29, 2023, was infuriating and is deserving of the attention of the DSS. Atiku’s aide, however, noted that the UK Deputy High Commissioner deserves special commendation for pointing out that Fani-Kayode had been making inciting comments and ought to have been cautioned by Tinubu, his boss