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Again, Nigerian Prof., Anya, Throws Another ‘Bomb’ On Queen Elizabeth

Published

3 years ago

September 11, 2022

Nigeria-born American professor, Uju Anya, has made more comments on late Queen Elizabeth II of England, saying she was unapologetic and would stand by her words.

Anya, whose comments on Queen Elizabeth had sparked reactions across the world, further defended her comments, questioning how the Queen’s crown was gotten in the first place. She alleged that the crown was not her own but “plundered from the lands they exploited and extracted.”

She said this in an interview with foreign-based news platform, The CUT.

Anya said, “Queen Elizabeth was representative of the cult of white womanhood. There’s this notion that she was this little-old-lady grandma type with her little hats and her purses and little dogs and everything — as if she inhabited this place or this space in the imaginary, this public image, as someone who didn’t have a hand in the bloodshed of her Crown. How did she have that Crown? Even the crowns she wears are looted, and plundered from the lands they exploited and extracted from. The entire treasury is a legacy of thievery that was achieved by murder, by enslavement, and it didn’t stop after independence.”

Speaking on what the Twitter reactions she got after her comment was like for her, she said she had even been locked out of Twitter.

“I’m trying to do okay. I haven’t been on Twitter because I’m locked out, but the hate is coming into my email inbox. People are saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know what you’re on about because the queen oversaw the independence of Nigeria and Trinidad.’ That’s meaningless. They were still Commonwealth nations. They have independence in a figurehead way, while Britain installed puppet leaders that bowed to the queen.

“Even the name Nigeria is from the British. They created this fiction of a country by just arbitrarily drawing lines around territories and saying, ‘Okay, this belongs to the British; this is what we’re going to call it,” and joining independent nations who had nothing to do with each other, didn’t speak each other’s language. And also electing certain groups they favored to be the rulers. This is the history of the monarchy, and the queen was the head of the monarchy. Whether she was involved in day-to-day decisions or not, she existed because of those decisions. She never once opened her mouth to say sorry for the role of her government in the slaughter of three million civilians,” she told The Cut.

Her position has generated mixed reactions, with many hailing her while others said she went too far.

The unapologetic American professor, however, maintained that slavery and colonialism was not abstract to her, but caused direct pain to her.

“Coloniser is not an abstract term for me. It’s not just something I read about in history books or a word I throw around. It’s something that has directly affected my life and continues to through this day. It is deeply offensive for anyone to presume to tell me that I have to cry over the death of somebody who killed my people, or I have to be respectful in their passing. For what? Who are they to me except a violent oppressor?” She said.

She also said she did not wish the queen death but only wanted her to feel what others felt.

“In my tweet, I did not wish her death. I did not tell anyone to kill her. I said nothing except wishing her the pain in death that she caused for millions of people. There’s not going to be any apology from me. I stand by what I said. As a direct recipient of her governance and as the child of colonial subjects, I reserve the right to say what this woman’s life and monarchy and the history of the British monarchy as a whole means to me.

“Speak no ill of the dead’ is a weapon that’s levelled against the oppressed to silence them, to lionise oppressors, and to sanitise their history. What respect am I supposed to have for her, for her family? “Oh, well, her family is mourning her. My family is mourning as well,” Anya said.

PUNCH

Headline

FULL LIST: US To Review Green Cards From 19 ‘Countries Of Concern’ After Washington Shooting

Published

8 hours ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it will review the immigration status of all permanent residents, or “Green Card” holders, from Afghanistan and 18 other countries following the attack on National Guard troops in Washington, D.C.

U.S. officials identified the suspect in Wednesday’s shooting as a 29-year-old Afghan national who previously worked alongside American forces in Afghanistan.

The individual was granted asylum earlier this year, not permanent residency, according to AfghanEvac, an organisation that assists Afghans resettled in the United States after the Taliban takeover in 2021.

“I have directed a full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” said Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), on X.

The review follows a June executive order from President Trump classifying 19 countries as “of Identified Concern.”

The order banned entry for nearly all nationals from 12 countries, including Afghanistan. The full list of these countries is:

Afghanistan

Myanmar

Chad

Congo-Brazzaville

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Haiti

Iran

Libya

Somalia

Sudan

Yemen

A partial travel ban applies to seven additional countries, though some temporary work visas remain allowed: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Headline

Romanian Defence Minister Quits After Admitting Error In Academic Record

Published

8 hours ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

Romania’s defence minister resigned on Friday after saying he made a “mistake” on his CV about his university education, as controversy swirled over alleged lies on his resume.

Ionut Mosteanu – who has admitted to writing on his CV that he graduated from a university he never attended – said he did not want the row “to distract” the NATO member at a time when it and Europe are “under attack from Russia”.

Romania has repeatedly seen drone fragments fall on its soil since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and reported a number of drone incursions.

On Tuesday, a drone crashed in eastern Romania, which borders Ukraine.

Romania has also accused Moscow of “hybrid attacks”, including meddling in presidential elections last year that were subsequently annulled.

“Today, I resigned from my position as minister of national defence,” Mosteanu said in a Facebook post, adding he wanted the country to be focused on its “difficult mission”.

“Romania and Europe are under attack from Russia. Our national security must be defended at all costs,” he added.

Mosteanu had come under pressure after a media investigation published on Thursday revealed that he wrote in a CV that he graduated from a university which he did not actually attend.

That same day he apologised for what he called “a mistake”.

“In a CV I quickly put together in 2016 using a template I found online, there is a mistake that I admit embarrasses me. I didn’t pay much attention to these details at the time,” he said on Facebook.

Mosteanu was appointed defence minister in June of this year, when a new pro-European government was formed after months of political turmoil.

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said in a press release that he would propose economy and tourism minister Radu Miruta take over the defence portfolio in the interim.

AFP

Headline

Russia Insists Ukraine Must Cede Land Or Face Continued Military Push

Published

2 days ago

November 27, 2025

Editor

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he would end his Ukraine offensive if Kyiv withdrew from territory Moscow claims at its own — otherwise his army would take it by force.

The Russian army has been slowly but steadily grinding through eastern Ukraine in costly battles against outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces.

Washington has meanwhile renewed its push to end the nearly four-year war, putting forward a surprise plan that it hopes to finalise through upcoming talks with Moscow and Kyiv.

“If Ukrainian forces leave the territories they hold, then we will stop combat operations,” Putin said during a visit to Kyrgyzstan. “If they don’t, then we will achieve it by military means.”

Russia controls around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory. The issue of occupied land, which Kyiv has said it will never cede, is among the biggest stumbling blocks in the peace process.

Another important issue in the talks are Western security guarantees for Ukraine, which Kyiv says are needed to prevent Moscow from invading again in the future.

Washington’s original plan — drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies — would have seen Kyiv withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region and the United States de facto recognise the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as Russian.

The US pared back the original plan over the weekend following criticism from Kyiv and Europe, but has not yet released the new version.

Putin, who has seen the new plan, said it could be a negotiation starter.

“Overall, we agree that it could form the basis for future agreements,” he said of the latest draft, which the US is thought to have shortened to about 20 points.

US negotiator Steve Witkoff was expected in Moscow next week to discuss the revised document, Putin said.

US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is meanwhile due to visit Kyiv later this week, Ukraine’s top presidential aide Andriy Yermak said.

– ‘Little can be done’ –

In his remarks Thursday, Putin repeated the claim that Russia had encircled the Ukrainian army in Pokrovsk and Myrnograd in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region — the most fiercely embattled area and a key target for Moscow’s forces.

“Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov are completely surrounded,” he said, using the Russian names for the cities.

Moscow was also advancing in Vovchansk and Siversk, as well as approaching the important logistic hub of Guliaipole, he added.

The Russian offensive “is practically impossible to hold back, so there is little that can be done about it”, Putin said.

Ukraine has denied Pokrovsk and Myrnograd are encircled, insisting its forces continue to hold the enemy along the front line.

Putin also questioned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s legitimacy and said signing any agreement with him would be legally “almost impossible” at the moment, a suggestion that has drawn groans from Kyiv and its allies.

According to data analysed by AFP from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces have conquered an average of 467 square kilometres (180 square miles) each month in 2025 — a step up from 2024.

Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the worst armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes.