Boris Johnson suggested Nigerian people are obsessed with money in ‘racist’ resurfaced column
Boris Johnson suggested Nigerian people are obsessed with money in ‘racist’ resurfaced column
‘This is deeply offensive and unforgivable,’ says anti-racism campaigner
Boris Johnson has been accused of making “racist and offensive” comments by implying Nigerians are obsessed with money in an article which has resurfaced.
The prime minister wrote that young people “have an almost Nigerian interest in money and gadgets of all kinds” in October 1999, while editor of The Spectator magazine.
He said the under-30s he knew “are just as avaricious as we flinty Thacherite yuppies of the 1980s” before comparing them to people from the west African country in a diary entry for The Independent on Sunday.
Weyman Bennett, the co-convenor of Stand Up to Racism, called the remarks “deeply racist and offensive”.
“This can be added to the ‘piccaninnies’ and ‘watermelon smiles’; the abject refusal to properly apologise and change his behaviour around racism,” he told The Guardian, which uncovered the old column.
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Mr Johnson’s article discussed the impact of the former prime minister Tony Blair, who he wrote “had found a way of making people feel good about getting rich”.
He also wrote it was “outrageous that married couples should pay for single mothers’ desire to procreate independently of men”.
Mr Johnson has faced criticism for comments in past newspaper columns as he ramps up his election campaign.
Last week, it emerged that he wrote he thought he was more likely to be attacked by black youths than white ones in an old Guardian article, saying “if that is racial prejudice, then I am guilty”.
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