By Ghazali Ibrahim
Carnegie Mellon University has confirmed that Nigerian-born professor Uju Anya is currently on voluntary professional leave and is not teaching courses on campus during the 2026–27 academic year.
The university said it was also reviewing what it described as “hostile and threatening” social media posts by the academic.
Anya, a professor of second-language acquisition and applied linguistics, has previously been at the centre of major controversy over her social media activity.
In September 2022, following reports that Queen Elizabeth II was gravely ill, Anya posted a message saying she hoped the monarch’s final moments would be painful. The post was subsequently removed by Twitter for violating its rules.
The remarks triggered widespread criticism, including from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who questioned whether someone making such comments was “supposedly working to make the world better.” Anya responded with another strongly worded post directed at Bezos.
Anya later explained that her anger was rooted in her family’s experience during the Nigerian Civil War, arguing that Britain had supported the Nigerian government during the conflict and that members of her family were killed or displaced. She described the war as a genocide and said the legacy had shaped her family’s history.
Carnegie Mellon at the time described her remarks as “offensive and objectionable” but did not impose formal disciplinary action on her over the tweets.
The latest university statement brings renewed attention to Anya’s history of controversial online comments.
However, Carnegie Mellon has not said that she has been found guilty of wrongdoing in the current matter. It said only that the recent posts are being reviewed.
