A Nigerian-born lecturer Uju Anya sparked global outrage following her tweets on her verified Twitter handle mocking late Queen Elizabeth II‘s health condition hours before her death.
In a series of now-deleted tweets, Professor Anya lambasted the British empire and the influential role played by the late Queen Elizabeth II, wishing her painfully “excruciating” death.
The professor alleged that Queen Elizabeth II sponsored the “genocide” that led to her family being displaced.
She also accused the British empire of supplying the Nigerian government with arms and ammunition during the nation’s civil war which spanned 1967 – 1970.
Her post attracted a flurry of reactions including criticisms and backlash from many people across the glob.
One of the criticisms came from Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder.
Bezos slammed Professor Anya saying: “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better?”
“I don’t think so,” Bezos added. “Wow"
Responding to Bezos' criticism, Uju tweeted: "May everyone you and your merciless greed have harmed in this world remember you as fondly as I remember my colonizers."
Who is Professor Uju Anya?
Dr Uju Anya is a Nigerian-born US university professor. She is a professor at the Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Modern Languages, currently teaches and researches in applied linguistics, critical sociolinguistics, and critical discourse studies primarily examining race, gender, sexual, and social class identities in new language learning through the experiences of African American students.
She was born by Nigerian/Trinidadian parents. Her parents met at the University in England. They got married and relocated to Enugu Nigeria — her father's hometown.
Her father later married another wife. This forced her mother to take her young children and went back to America.
Anya had worked in other prestigious institutions like Penn State University, University of Southern California and Dartmouth College, before transferring her service to Carnegie Mellon University.
She graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Roman languages. Uju Anya earned her Masters degree in Brazilian studies from Brown University and did her Ph.D in applied linguistics from UCLA.
In 2021, Uju who had legally separated from her husband in 2017, announced on Twitter that she had just finalised her divorce with her husband, and publicly declared that she is lesbian. In the tweet, the Nigerian Professor explained that her ex-husband knew of her sexual orientation before they got married, but she thought at the time she was bisexual.