My Life Under Threat Over Queen Elizabeth’s Tweet, Says Prof Uju Anya

Nigerian-born American professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Uju Anya, has said her life has been under threat since her Thursday tweet on the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Anya, who is a Professor of Second Language Acquisition, Department of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University, United States of America, spoke exclusively to The Punch on Sunday afternoon.

Anya, on Thursday, at the news of the Queen’s ill health wrote, “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.”

Although the tweet had since been deleted for violating ‘Twitter rules’, Anya confirmed to The Punch that her account had also been ‘logged off’ of the micro-blogging site for the same reason.

She accused Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, of inciting the public against her and putting her in harm’s way.

Bezos, rumoured to be a huge donator to the school Anya teaches, had quoted her post, saying, “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow.”

Anya had replied Bezos, “May everyone you and your merciless greed have harmed in this world remember you as fondly as I remember my colonizers.”

In an interview with our correspondent on Sunday, Anya noted that some persons were impersonating her and had linked her to the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, which, according to her, is false.

She said, “I feel like my life is in danger. I don’t feel safe anymore because of these lies being peddled around against me. I left Facebook four years ago. I don’t have a Facebook account. People are putting out fake statements, saying I am a member and financier of IPOB or Independent Biafra or any political candidate like that, and they are using a fake Facebook account that bears my name. It is a lie. There is nothing like that.

Related: Jeff Bezos Slams Uju Anya Over Tweets on Queen Elizabeth

“Some online blogs have been peddling fake rumours about me. I have not issued any statement since Thursday. The Punch is the first and (will be) the only Nigerian medium I have spoken to.

“It is urgent that the world knows that these people are trying to put me in harm’s way. Nothing that anybody sees with my name on Facebook is true. I am not a member of IPOB.

“They are using me for political movements and messages that I do not align with, and they are seriously damaging me and my safety.

“This is going to be a huge problem for me. What if the Nigerian government considers me a terrorist and wants to arrest me? They are putting my life in danger.”