By Nigerian popular TV talk show host Funmi Iyanda has escaped what would have been a vicious racial attack by some three white hooligans in London on Friday night.
According to her, the near mob attack occurred in an unusual posh and genteel Swiss Cottage district in Camden, London as she took a stroll in the neighbourhood. She disclosed her ordeal via her verified Twitter account.
The veteran who was visibly angry said as she walked on the lonely street unescorted, the three men, obviously drunk, linked their arms to block her path and charged at her. But she was bold enough to take to her heels.
Funmi, who is in London to hold a special edition of her panel series tagged #HowToFixNigeria at the Africa Utopia Festival holding on Wednesday, 31 August, took to Twitter early Saturday morning to narrate her experience.
“So three drunk white men tried to attack me whilst taking a walk in genteel Swiss cottage this evening. I wore Ankara printIro and Buba. I knew from a distance they would, saw them stare at my clothes, laugh and approach. They linked arms, blocked my path and started shouting,” the broadcaster tweeted.
In another tweet, she said “In the split second between thought and decision to launch at me, I ducked and ran. Later I felt less scared than deeply angry. They would probably have acted that way if I was in aBurkha. I was a lone woman, an apparently foreign one of another race. It was okay.
Narrating further, Funmi said she was pretty shaken by the experience but wasn’t scared easily because Lagos has taught her well.
“Whether it’s idiots calling girls in “spaghetti’ ashawo in Lagos or these bastards, when will it be ok to just walk without fear as a woman? I’m fine, I have my own country; however for non-white British citizens often so targeted, it must feel really horrible.”
London has witnessed series of racial and religious lone attacks in recent time.
Couple of weeks back, an heavily-pregnant Nigerian woman, Patience Chukwu was violently attacked and robbed on the street of Hackney while she was in labour. She was en route to Homerton Hospital in Hackney at around 9am when she was approached by a young man on a bike who tried to snatch the phone out of her hand.
During the struggle, the 40-year-old was dragged into the road by the thief who attempted to punch her in the stomach despite her repeated screams that she was pregnant.
The body of another woman, an American in her 60s was taken from an attack scene at Russell Square early August where a Norwegian-Somali knifeman killed her as she walked along the street and injured five other pedestrians on a knife rampage.
