The United Kingdom says the mission is compiling the list of Nigerians to be slammed with visa ban just as it decried a controversial statement credited to a spokesman of the ruling All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Mr Femi Fani-Kayode.
The mission said it has at least between five and 10 names on its list already with more names to be added.
The Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Ben Llewellyn-Jones, disclosed this on Sunday while featuring on a current affairs programme of Nigerian Info.
He condemned statements that triggered violence in the build up to the elections by some politicians, noting that the ruling APC had yet to distance itself from some comments made by Fani-Kayode.
“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 is 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,” he said.
Llewellyn-Jones, however, said the names of defaulters would not be published as expected in some quarters.
“We are 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,” Persecondnews quotes the UK Deputy High Commissioner as saying.
Llewellyn-Jones also condemned the divisive politics that played out during the election in Lagos, saying “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 to the UK’s visa ban on his Twitter handle at @realFFK, Fani-Kayode advised the British envoy to “steer clear Nigeria’s internal affairs”.
“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,” the ex-Minister of Aviation in the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration said.
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,” Fani-Kayode stated.
