The United Kingdom’s mission in Nigeria has said it is working on the list of Nigerians it will slam with visa ban.
It already has between five and 10 names on the list already, while more would still be added.
The Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ben Llewellyn-Jones, made the disclosures while speaking on a current affairs programme on Nigerian Info, a radio station, on Sunday.
He said the names of defaulters would not be published as expected in some quarters.
The British High Commission had last week said the UK Minister of State for Development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell MP, was prepared to take action against those who engaged in or incited electoral violence during the just-concluded general elections.
The high commission said the UK was already collating names of perpetrators and would impose sanctions “including preventing people from obtaining UK visas or imposing sanctions under our human rights sanctions regime.”
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Speaking on Sunday, Llewellyn-Jones said, “We’re working through a list and we don’t publish those names. I know people say we should but you know we have laws that protect. But we do have a list. We said that we would do this and we will do this. And, you know, we’re gathering the kind of information that would enable us to do this around specific individuals.
“You know, we watched very closely. I was in Lagos the whole time. We had people on the ground in key places. We won’t publish the names. We don’t do that. We can’t do that. We have between five and 10 names on its list already, it is a growing list. “
Responding to a question on if there were triggers for violence leading up from the campaign to the election, Llewellyn-Jones decried the controversial statement attributed to a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Femi Fani-Kayode.
He also lamented that the ruling APC had yet to distance itself from some comments made by Fani-Kayode.
He said, “There were some people in the news, like Fani-Kayode. What is he saying? Why is he saying it? I don’t understand. I mean, I do understand but it’s wrong. And it’s wrong from my perspective that he would speak on behalf of a party and that party doesn’t just distance themselves but says stop doing that.”
Llewellyn-Jones also condemned the divisive politics that played out during the election in Lagos, adding,”And if Lagos can’t be that kind of cosmopolitan melting pot of culture and language and all the things that should be, really how’s Lagos going to succeed?”
Reacting on his Twitter handle at @realFFK, Fani-Kayode urged the British envoy to steer clear Nigeria’s issue.
He said, “I would advise this Ben, who I am told is the Deputy High Commissioner of the UK to Nigeria, to keep his dirty nose out of our internal affairs.
“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.”
He also accused the envoy of supporting an undisclosed candidate in the just concluded presidential election.
“I know that his preferred candidate did not win the presidential election but that does not mean he should cross the line and take liberties with us here. I wonder who the hell he thinks he is?
“I am not one of those Nigerians that bow, shake, shiver and tremble before the British or indeed any other foreigner.”
