By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. My write-up pointing out the outright mendacity in the claims of Kate Omeregbe,the Nigerian asylum seeker...
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
My write-up pointing out the outright mendacity in the claims of Kate Omeregbe,the Nigerian asylum seeker in Italy who lied that she had been condemned to death by stoning by a Nigerian Sharia court for refusing to convert to Islam, somehow made it to the Italian national media. Several local and national newspapers and TV stations in Italy liberally quoted the article, which inspired a renewed scrutiny on Omoregbe and her sponsors.
Among the Italian news media that quoted my article extensively are CN 24TV, a local TV station in the region where Omoregbe served her four-year prison term for drug trafficking; Calabria Ora, a local newspaper in the same area; Lamezia Oggi, another regional newspaper; Metro News, one of Italy’s most widely circulated newspapers; and Il Domani, an equally notable newspaper.
My Italian Internet acquaintance whose email message I published here last week told me that my article has “had tremendous impact” and has caused Franco Corbelli, leader of Italy’s Civil Rights Movement that championed Omoregbe’s cause, to be subjected to intense questioning by the Italian news media.
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| Franco Corbelli |
He shared with me the link to a story on the website of an Italian TV station where Corbelli launched laughably petty personal attacks on me when he was asked to respond to the issues I raised in my article. He called my article “shameful,” “scandalous,” “lies,” a "low blow," and described me as “an unknown self-styled intellectual.”
When he was pushed harder by journalists to respond to the substance of my article, he changed Omoregbe’s story. It is no longer that a Sharia court in Benin City sentenced her to death by stoning for refusing to convert to Islam; it is now that although Omoregbe was born in Benin City, she moved to Sokoto in northwest Nigeria where she was forced to convert to Islam and marry an old man.
In response to my observation that Islam does not have any kind of punishment for people who refuse to convert to the religion, he retorted that the death sentence on Omoregbe was based not on Islamic jurisprudence but on “local customs” in Sokoto—another blatant lie.
Northern Nigerian local customs, which are codified in the Penal Code, have no punishment for refusal to convert to Islam—or to any other religion. What’s more, as my Italian acquaintance aptly observed, the governor of Kate Omoregbe’s native Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, was born a Muslim but converted to Catholicism and he is still alive. Interestingly, for most of his adult life,Oshiomhole lived in Kaduna, a “Sharia state” like Sokoto. If Omoregbe’s story had any credibility, Oshiomhole should have been stoned to death, too, according to "local customs."
The astonishingly unnerving stupidity and gullibility of “activists” like Corbelli is contributing to making Italy an irresistible magnet for all manner Nigerian economic refugees and criminals who fabricate all kinds of wacky, infantile lies to play on the heartstrings of people in authority in Italy. I briefly wrote about a Tina Richard last week who is appealing against the denial of her petition for an asylum in Italy.
To make her case as compelling as Kate Omoregbe’s, she is now telling Italian authorities that her entire Catholic family was wiped out by a powerful Muslim man in Kano (which she misspelled as “Kanu”) because she refused to marry the man. Had she not mysteriously escaped to Italy, she says, she would have been dead, too. Of course, she doesn’t look anything like a Kano woman and, in fact, couldn’t even spell Kano correctly.
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| Tina Richard |
But Richard’s story has already won a high-profile Italian sucker. On September 22, President of the (Italian) Province of Florence, Andrea Barducci, threw his full weight behind her petition for asylum, saying deporting her to Nigeria "would amount to a death sentence."
Another Nigerian from Edo State identified as Joshua John Paul (obviously a made-up name to appeal to the Catholic sensibilities of Italians) has won a three-year temporary Permit of Stay in Italy after claiming that he is a Catholic homosexual who has been declared wanted by Nigerian sharia courts because he had homosexual relations with a Muslim man in Edo State! He presented a forged, error-ridden police announcement, which purportedly appeared in the Observer, Edo State’s government newspaper, that reads as follows:
"Joshua John Paul comes from the state of Edo in Nigeria, from the Bini tribe, and is coloured. He is involved in cases of sexual molestation (homosexual) with Almed Suleman, whose family belongs to a Muslim tribe. John Paul has perpetrated this behaviour (homosexual) for a long time, causing disorders between the Christian and the Muslim in Nigeria. The police is looking for him. Anyone who has urgent information about him is asked to get in touch with the nearest police station in exchange for a rich reward.
Signed.
Bashiru Mohammed Soleman.”
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| "Joshua John Paul" also presented this obviously fake newspaper story to Italian authorities |
Doesn’t this take the cake in rib-tickling hilarity? Who would have thought that any thinking, intelligent person would believe this juvenile, unintelligent fabrication? To start with, Muslims are not a tribe; they are, like Christians, a community of believers who cut across the primordial fault-lines of race and ethnicity.
Second, how can the private homosexual relations between two people (supposing this is true) in just one of Nigeria’s 36 states (which is, in fact, predominantly Christian) have the capacity to “cause disorder between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria”? And which Nigerian Muslim spells Suleiman as “Soleman” and Ahmed as “Almed”? Too many red flags.
Well, “Joshua John Paul” knew only too well that his information didn’t have to be factual or accurate or even sensible. In Italy, it would seem, all you need to do to get an asylum is to claim victimhood of a non-existent Islamic scourge, then assert the irrevocability of your Catholic faith and, viola, you have an Italian asylum! Joshua John Paul, in fact, went beyond that: he also claimed to be gay. So he was able to galvanize the support both of religious organizations and gay rights groups. Some smart criminal!
Since Italians seem love our criminals so much, the Nigerian government should probably make an arrangement to transfer many of the criminals overflowing in our prisons to Italy. Since even President Jonathan was sufficiently frightenedby the threat of Boko Haram to cancel Nigeria’s 51st IndependenceDay celebration, Boko Haram can be invoked as the reason for transferring our criminals to Italy!
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We shall soon transfer all our criminals to Itily
ReplyDeleteThanks for your write-up
ReplyDeleteI would like to make a little comment, not meant to attack or defend Kate. Firstly, you mentioned Adams Oshiomole as a Muslim who converted to Christianity, even though I’m reading about it for the first time, you have to realise he is the present governor of Edo State. Bear in mind, that there are two classes of Nigerians; the Kates of Nigeria and the Adams of Nigeria. For the later class, no religious or secular law apply to them. Are you not aware that poor people who can barely eat nor house themselves are being taken to sharia courts in Nigeria and their hands chopped off for stealing something to feed themselves? Whereas, those who steal billions of money, take huge bribes, and rig elections drive around in their fancy cars in front of sharia courts everyday
Let me emphasise that when it has to do with the ordinary Nigerian, the Nigerian law does not protect them; unimaginable things happen to them. Let me conclude with two events that took place in recent years in Nigeria. I will be happy if you respond to my comment and not delete them
1. Mr Gideon Akaluka, a Christian was rumoured to have cleaned his arse with Koran, some said he did it, others said his wife cleaned her baby’s arse with a paper with Arabic inscriptions. Some muslims chanted to his house, he escaped through the back door to a police station, and the police handed him to the mob, who beheaded him, put his head on a spear, and went round the city singing. No one was questioned; his window was ejected and sent back to her home town in Southern Nigeria
2. Mrs Oluwatoyin Oluwaseesin was a Christian teacher invigilating an exam. For each candidates/pupils that went into the exam hall, she collected their bags and put in front of the hall. She collected one of such bags and put on the floor with the others, and the student immediately said that particular bag contained a Koran, the Christian teacher was immediately lynched and set ablaze and her car was set ablaze too. Her widower is currently in Southern Nigeria taking care of her two infants
I can go on and on. Such are the things that happen to ordinary Nigerians like Kate that would never happen to governors like Adams Oshiomole. I don’t think it is right to judge her by what should be obtainable in Nigeria, because what should be, is most of the time not what is
Thanks
Chukwuemeka
This case reminds me of an Italian friend who told me that his family had contributed for years to a charity that provides toilets for villages in Nigeria.
ReplyDeleteI am not aware of any house in Nigeria, talk less of village, that does not have at least a toilet. But when ones views are racially jaundiced, one tends to project and believe anything that matches that world view.
I did not have the heart to tell him that his family is being scammed.
@ Adeleke
ReplyDeleteIn as much as I can not tell whether the Italian family is being scammed or not. I bet you that most Italians are more knowledgeable about Nigeria than you are.
You possibly grew up in a gated compound in Abuja, Lagos or Ibadan, that why you can say there's no house that does not have a toilet. You will also say most primary and secondary schools in Nigeria have toilets, judging by the type of schools you attended.
I can tell you that from my primary to secondary school there was never a toilet. Even in my university, there was no functioning toilet. Have you heard of 'flying', 'hunting' or 'shot put'; those were the techniques we used in university, as there were no toilets. After graduation, at the NYSC orientation camp, there was no toilet for 1500 corp members. Perhaps if you served in Abuja or Lagos, you'd say all the NYSC camps have toilets. As a Nigerian you should try and volunteer in a village once in a while. Italian, American and British children go all over the villages volunteering and using villages without toilets for TV programmes. We only get annoyed, asking why they couldn't show us Victoria Island and Asokoro and Maitama. We need to make efforts to realise and admit that we have problems, to enable us tackle our own problems. No shame in it!