Nigerian man receives 4 and half years jail sentence in UK for inciting violence against the igbos

A 45year old Nigerian man based in West London, Adeyinka Shoyemi,, of Powis Terrace in Notting Hill, has received a 4 and a half years jail term for encouraging racial hatred with inflammatory messages encouraging violence in Nigeria.

He first caught the attention of counter-terror police in the UK in March 2019 after members of the public tipped them off about the posts targeting particular ethnic groups in Nigeria.

UK-based Evening Standard reported on Friday that the messages, posted by accounts under the name ‘Adeyinka Grandson’, were assessed by a specialist group of officers in the Met’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit.

They found the posts, which had commentary encouraging attacks against certain ethnic groups, especially the Igbo, were in potential breach of the law and launched a probe..

Shoyemi was first arrested in 2019 at his home address and was initially charged with six counts of inciting racial hatred but was released on bail with a condition not to post any more social media posts which were threatening, abusive or insulting to any ethnic groups.

He was rearrested again upon failures to obey the conditions of his bail, consequently two more inciting racial hatred charges were added, and upon trial was sentenced to four-and-a-half years’ behind bars on Thursday.

He was found guilty on November 30 of eight counts of inciting racial hatred after a trial at Southwark Crown Court.

Commander Richard Smith, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said, “Our Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit – the first of its kind to be established anywhere in the world – was instrumental in identifying Shoyemi and his activity.

“Over the last ten years, the CTIRU has been at the forefront of getting harmful content removed from the internet and detecting and investigating potential terrorist-related activity online.

“We continue to need the help and support of the public and I would encourage anyone who comes across material or posts that could be related to terrorism or violent extremist activity to report it to us, so that our specialist officers can take action where necessary.”