Nigerian-born professor of applied linguistics, critical sociolinguistics and critical discourse studies at Carnegie Mellon University has justified her shocking tweet against the late Queen of England on her death bed.
The academic had written on her Twitter page: “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving ra*ping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.”
The tweet attracted wide condemnation across the world, even though the sentiments she expressed were endorsed on some quarters.
A United States of America reporter, Marcie Cipriani reached out to Professor Anya for her justification for the controversial tweet. She responded as follows:
“I am the child and sibling of survivors of genocide. From 1967-1970, more than 3 million civilians were massacred when the Igbo people of Nigeria tried to form the independent nation of Biafra. Those slaughtered included members of my family. I was born in the immediate aftermath of this genocide, which was directly supported and facilitated by the British government then headed by the monarch Queen Elizabeth II. This support came through political cover, weapons, bombs, planes, military vehicles, and supplies the British government sent to kill us and protect their interests in the oil reserves on our land.
“My people endured a holocaust, which has shadowed our entire lives and continues to affect it, because we’re still mourning incalculable losses and still rebuilding everything that was destroyed.
“Conversations among us today still include who was lost, who was displaced, where people ran, where bodies are buried. They do not include kind, respectful, or temperate sentiments about the people who murdered our relatives and destroyed our lives.” – Dr. Uju Anya #WTAE”
