Femi Fani-Kayode, controversial former Minister of Aviation and Director of New Media of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, may have drawn the ire of the United Kingdom with his combustible utterances.
During an interview programme on Nigeria Info FM, on Sunday, Ben Llewellyn-Jones, British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, upbraided him for his controversial statements.
Since he was named as a member of the APC Presidential Campaign APC-PCC and given the pot-folio of Director, New Media, Ile-Ife-born Fani-Kayode had gone full blast, hitting whoever dares to cross his path or that of his principal, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Fani-Kayode simply throws rotten tomato to the opposition’s face (metaphorically speaking), using derogatory and highly emotive words.
In February, the DSS invited and interrogated controversial politician for making an unsubstantiated claim that then PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, had met some Generals prior to the election, insinuating that maybe a coup was in the offing.
He was later released from detention after making clarifications but was told to be reporting to the service every day.
The Deputy High Commissioner also revealed that some 10 people had been added to its watch-list of persons placed under the UK visa ban for conducts capable of undermining democracy Nigeria’s democracy.
Interviewers on the radio programme had asked Fani-Kayode if there were violence triggers observed in the period leading to the general elections.
The British top diplomat had replied that he was worried about some emotive statements by Fani-Kayode insisting that the APC ought to have kept the politician at arms-length.
“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,” Llewellyn-Jones said.
“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?”
“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,” he said.
“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.”
