US Attorney Fired over Racist Comment Against Nigerian Immigrant

Another case of prejudice against Nigerians in the US and everywhere has been established against a top official of the US government, Roger Adams, a US government Attorney who prepares presidential pardons for US President George W. Bush, for describing Nigerians as “not very honest,” Empowered Newswire, a US-based Nigerian news agency reports on Wednesday.

But in a swift response, the US government has reportedly fired the official after internal US government investigations revealed that Adams comments were racist.

Among the Nigerians community in the US, the development is seen as typical, but nonetheless unfortunate.

According to US-PRONACO Secretary, Bukola Oreofe, “We have Nigerians in positions of trust around the world doing their jobs and living their live with exemplary honesty which would rank equal or higher than that of any race or nationality.”

He also expressed concern that regular news of stolen billions from government coffers at home and the illicit activities of a few Nigerians abroad fuel this kind of ethical attack on Nigerians.

A report on Tuesday by New York Daily News, a popular city tabloid said Roger Adams was considering an application for presidential clemency brought in favour of a Nigerian based in New York city, Chibueeze Okorie, who was jailed and had served 18 months in prison for being the driver for a Heroin ring in New York in 1989.

Okorie needed the clemency to avoid deportation, after he had completed serving time for a drug-related offence, as the US 1996 immigration law had stipulated.

Top US politicians including former President Bill Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, members of the New York City Council, and other community leaders and groups supported Okorie’s clemency request.

After he finished his term, Okorie turned his life around and became a devoted Christian minister in a New York Presbyterian church where he is in charge of evangelism, reaching out to ex-convicts and prisoners, many of whom are now members of the church in Park Slope, New York.

However, when the clemency application got to Roger Adams, the US lawyer in the Justice Department, where the application is to be processed before being sent to the President with a recommendation, Adams urged the President to deny the clemency on grounds that Nigerians are generally dishonest people.

A yearly review of the US Justice Department activities conducted by the Inspector-General of the department, however, found Adams’ comments racist and the report noted that the US, government lawyer “appeared to have improperly considered one applicant’s Nigerian origin when deciding not to recommend clemency for that applicant.” In the US such a consideration based on one’s nationality is generally regarded as discrimination on national origin and is deemed illegal and racist.

The US government then forced Adams out of office early this year after the report condemned his comments as racist.

In his own comments published by the local media here, Adams had said while recommending that Okorie’s clemency be denied that “this might sound racist, but the applicant is about as honest as you could expect for a Nigerian. Unfortunately that’s not very honest.

“In his comment, Oreofe said,”It is very unfortunate that a high level government official would advise President Bush to take a decision one way or the other not based on the facts of the case or the new life style of Minister Chibueze Okorie in a request for pardon but rather propelled by unabashed prejudice and stereotype. The views of this official concluding that all Nigerians are dishonest is flatly wrong. His choice of words in defending his recommendations to the President of the United States further exposes his deeply rooted disdain for Nigerians. By his logic a Nigerian child born today has the tendency to commit more crimes than other people! How does anyone justifies such a baseless assertion that lacks any empirical rationalisation.”

[Punchng.com]