The Killing Of A British Soldier
By Oghogho Obayuwana, Foreign Affairs Editor News – The Guardian
The recent savage murder of a British soldier- 25-year-old Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby in London by two fellow Britons is still generating ripples in the international political arena.
Suspects Michael Mujahid Adebolajo (blood on his hands) and Michael Oluwatobi Adebowale are products of the British society but in reporting the heinous crime, the western media and British establishment made sure they reminded everyone that the fellow were of “Nigerian extraction”
The Bizarre happening has thrown up questions relating to Nationality. Now, what does the British law say about how to be a British citizen?
Determining British citizenship in a very cosmopolitan world can be a bit complicated if you are not English-English, Scottish-Scottish, Welsh-Welsh or Northern-Irish, Northern-Irish. By the time you begin to be Nigerian-Briton or Ethiopian-Briton or Jamaican-Briton, there may be trumpeting and vexatious trouble lurking if you find yourself not nicely contained by the law. Your infamy would be celebrated with colouration and that is precisely what has happened in the case of these two Britons of “Nigerian extraction”.
The United Kingdom (UK) Border Agency relying on the British Nationality Act 1981 has defined British nationality as stemming from being of British Citizenship, British overseas citizenship, British overseas territories citizenship, British national (overseas), British protected person and British subject.
For instance, citizenship deriving from British overseas citizenship has to do with persons coming from areas formerly known as the British dependent territories. The territories are: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands and Dependencies, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, St Helena and Dependencies, the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Virgin Islands. (The sovereign bases of Akrotiri and Dhekelia do not count as qualifying territories for nationality purposes.)
Related to this is the fact that South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands were the dependencies of the Falkland Islands, but were not British overseas territories between 3 October 1985 and 3 December 2001. St Christopher and Nevis was a British overseas territory until 18 September 1983, when it became an independent Commonwealth country, while Hong Kong stopped being a British overseas territory on 30 June 1997 when sovereignty returned to China.
Broadly, and ruminating through this maze, a British citizen is one who possess a British passport. In the case of Adebolajo and Adebowale, they hold the British passport, were born and bred in Great Britain and do not know their Nigerian roots. They had their education and training in Britain, have always eaten British Food and despite their dark skins, have British blood!
It is unfortunate that this is happening after the infamous attempted charismas-day 2009 bombing of a Detroit bound airplane (Northwest Airlines Flight 253) by Umar Farouk Mutalab, sinisterly referred to as the “Underwear Bomber” as well as the on-going security challenge brought into bear by the Boko Haram insurgency.
But the politics of dropping that phrase: Nigerian extraction rankles. That phrase is never used when reference is made to achievers and sporting stars like Gabriel Agbonlahor who plays his football for Aston Villa and the English National team, The Three Lions, or Andrew Osagie, UK’s reigning 800m champion, or Lawrence Okoye, British Discus Record Holder (68.24m), or Abiodun Oyepitan, British Olympic Silver and Gold Medalist, or Christine Ohuruogu, Beijing Olympic British Gold Medalist, or Eniola Aluko, British Olympic Female Football star, or Temi Fagbenle, British Olympic Basketball queen and several other thousands of British citizens with Nigerian connection.
Holding a knife and meat cleaver in bloodied hands, 28-year-old Londoner Adebolajo, a British-born convert to Islam, connived with Adebowale to write their names in dust just a month after the Boston Marathon bombing and the first Islamist killing in Britain since local suicide bombers killed 52 people in London in 2005. Their condemnable action has now revived fears of “lone wolves” who may have had no direct contact with al Qaeda but are all over Britain lurking to commit other crimes.
The guy Adebolajo had always drawn some attention to himself. Adebolajo’s friend Abu Nusaybah told BBC that Adebolajo was asked by the MI5 domestic intelligence agency if he wanted to work for them. He said Adebolajo had snubbed their approach.
He also revealed Adebolajo was once picked up by Kenyan forces and physically assaulted in detention there. Abu Nusaybah said after Adebolajo returned from Kenya, MI5 agents repeatedly called at his home. “His wording was: ‘They are bugging me — they won’t leave me alone.’ “But after him saying that he didn’t know these individuals and so forth, what he said is they asked him whether he would be interested in working for them.
How jobless therefore was Adebolajo? Would he be found on that murder scenne if he had been working for the British authorities?
Relatives of Michael Adebolajo have since released a statement sending their “heartfelt condolence” to Lee Rigby’s family, and saying there is no place for violence in the name of religion.
The Adebolajo family said: “Nothing we say can undo the events of last week. However, as a family, we wish to share with others our horror at the senseless killing of Lee Rigby and express our profound … distress that this has brought on our family. We send our heartfelt condolence to Lee Rigby’s family and loved ones.
“We wish to state openly that we believe that there is no place for violence in the name of religion or politics. We believe all right-thinking members of society share this view wherever they were born and whatever their religion and political beliefs. We wholeheartedly condemn all those who engage in acts of terror and fully reject any suggestion by them that religion or politics can justify this kind of violence. We unreservedly put out faith in the rule of law and with others fully expect that all the perpetrators will be brought to justice under the law of the land…And we pray for Lee Rigby’s soul to rest in peace, for the Lord to comfort his parents and loved ones and provide all of us affected the strength and fortitude to cope with this tragedy. In all the circumstances and in respect to ongoing police investigations, this is the only statement we wish to give. We ask that we are not contacted for further comments.”
But Britain’s security agencies appeared headed for a period of deeply uncomfortable scrutiny after the government said that it had been aware for more than two years that one of the two men suspected of hacking an off-duty British soldier to death had ties to Al Qaeda
This is especially so now that a Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that the ministry had provided “consular assistance” in Kenya in 2010 to Adebolajo. He had been arrested by the Kenyan police on suspicion of planning to join Al Shabab, an extremist group in Somalia that Britain has classified as a terrorist organization. .
Security officials have also confirmed that. Adebolajo, and to a more limited extent Mr. Adebowale, had been known to British security officials for several years because they took part in protests in Britain that were organized by extremist groups, some of which involved violent clashes with the police. Newspapers in Britain have also carried accounts saying that Mr. Adebolajo had been heard in mosques and community centers in south London calling for jihadist attacks in Britain.
Promptly, Muslim community groups have condemned the killing of Mr. Rigby in unequivocal terms, and say that many British Muslims are deeply apprehensive over a number of incidents of hostile graffiti and invective since his death, despite appeals for calm from Prime Minister David Cameron, the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, and other prominent figures.
Condemnations have also come from Nigeria. Apart from Muslim groups and the voices of prominent persons from the western part of Nigeria that Adebolajo and Adebowale are supposed to have their roots from.
Nigeria’s minister of foreign affairs ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru had also issued a statement denouncing “the London evil act”. He was only re-echoing the position of the federal government on the issue.
It is instructive to locate the facts in this matter, in trying to connect Nigeria with Adebolajo and Adebowale. Encounters had thrown up his (Adebolajo’s) involvement in Islamic protests in Britain, his shave with the law in Kenya as well as being on some kind of watch list of the M15 and Scotland Yard. There has not been unravelled, a single tie with Nigeria. Yet Nigeria has been made the subject in the kind of international media and establishment politics that we must contend with today.
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