A Nigerian-born lecturer Uju Anya has been at the eye of the storm for wishing late Queen Elizabeth II an ‘excruciating’ death before the longest-serving monarch in British history died on Thursday.
Buckingham Palace at lunchtime on Thursday disclosed that Her Majesty had been under medical supervision at Balmoral after her doctors had become ‘concerned’ about her health.
Soon after the announcement, news of her death broke with shock, surprise, and sadness to many all over the world. But not Anya, who wished the monarch will die in the pain of the concerns about her health.
“I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying,” Anya, a lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States tweeted Thursday afternoon. “May her pain be excruciating.”
Many people did not allow this tweet from Anya to lay-low, including Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos who opposed the comment by the Nigerian-born US lecturer.
“This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow,” Bezos tweeted in response.
Referencing the Nigerian Civil War between 1967 and 1970 where over a million people, mostly from the southeast region were killed, Anya doubled down on her stance to wish the late monarch an excruciating death.
“If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star,” Anya tweeted.
Her initial statement has been deleted by Twitter because the “tweet violated the Twitter rules”.
Amid knocks and cheers from Nigerians on Twitter, Carnegie University where Anya works said it does believe in freedom of expression but opposes such an ‘offensive’ message.
“We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uju Anya today on her personal social media account,” Carnegie University tweeted.
“Free expression is core to the mission of higher education, however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster.”
Anya remained insistent on her stance, saying the “effects of colonization are shocking” on many Nigerians defending the British monarchy.
