The latest claim is that Boris Johnson is a racist because he talks of a “Nigerian interest in money”. Which is about the point that we’ve got to tell these people to go get a life. For the quote comes from 1999. About when we were all being bombarded with the Nigerian 419 scam which is what the reference is to.
So, you know, sod off:
Boris Johnson has been accused of pushing racial stereotypes over a newly-unearthed column written during his time as editor of the Spectator in which he said young people had “an almost Nigerian interest in money”.
….
The Conservative party leader wrote in a diary piece for the Independent on Sunday in October 1999 that Tony Blair had made people feel good about getting rich.
He added: “All the young people I know – ie those under 30 – are just as avaricious as we flinty Thatcherite yuppies of the 1980s in fact, they have an almost Nigerian interest in money and gadgets of all kinds.”
Weyman Bennett, the co-convenor of Stand Up to Racism, described Johnson’s words as “deeply racist and offensive”. He told the Guardian: “This can be added to the ‘piccaninnies’ and ‘watermelon smiles’, the abject refusal to properly apologise and change his behaviour around racism.
“Boris Johnson is unfit to be a prime minister that represents the entire United Kingdom. He had demonstrated this by lying and falsely representing black, Asian and different communities inside this country.
“This is deeply offensive and unforgivable and should not be ignored and he should be held to account.”
Even the BBC refers to it as a Nigerian specialty, the 419 scam. That’s this year by the way, and the name comes from the section of the Nigerian penal code. There are entire websites devoted to it. Governments call it the “Nigerian” scam. The FBI does.
So, yes, therefore Weymann Bennett can and should be told to go boil his head.
(a) Boris has already made himself look a total tw*t on other issues in the best Theresa May fashion and deserves zero sympathy. (b) Nigerian = a certain ethnicity is just as offensive as saying “You can’t be British because you have a dark skin.”