A Nigerian Canada-based Professor of Literature, famous for his satirical and often critical writings about public figures and international state of affairs, is at it again. This time Prof. Pius Adesanmi has aimed his sights on ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and criticised him over the latter’s recent crowing about the pragmatism of Great Britain as a nation.

Great Britain is currently locked in a heavy debate regarding the possible secession of Scotland from the union with England. Just as in Nigeria where many people in the different regions of the country are divided over a sociopolitical and economic severance from the common union of the nation, Scottish people are torn between remaining with England as one united Britain or having a country of their own.

With a referendum scheduled for Thursday, September 18, Scotts are to vote YES or NO as regards whether they want independence.

Gordon Brown has been a prominent face of the camp that wants Scotland to remain with England as one united Britain. In a recent published article he talked up the pragmatism of Britain while praising its unity.

“Britain has never been united by ethnicity. We are four nations in one state. And, always

pragmatic, we have never shouted from the rooftops about the shared ideas that bind us

together in the manner of America (land of liberty and opportunity) or France (liberté,

égalité, fraternité),” Mr Brown said.

However, Adesanmi in a Facebook post addressed to Gordon Brown dismissed the vaunted pragmatism of Britain, contrasted the economic situation of the UK with Nigeria while taking time to satirise the Nigerian nation as a political entity.

He wrote: “That (apparent British pragmatism) is because your country is a resourceless little matchbox of an island which your political elite has no compelling reason to metaphorize as a national cake. If you were the size of one deluded former possession of yours in Africa and you had plenty of oil and your political elite had an understanding that only unity would secure their unbridled access to that oil, they would never have been as pragmatic as you are making out here. They would have been singing the praise of unity and working out sharing formulas for access to the oil. They would have declared the corporate existence of Britain non negotiable. They would have told the people about no - go areas. They would have fought a civil war with Scotland and declared no victor no vanquished after about 2 or 3 million dead. They would have foisted a deadly unity of ethnicities on the land. And forced unwilling partners to inhabit a cage that must not be redesigned or renegotiated. The pragmatism you are talking about, Mr Brown, is a luxury you can afford when you are small, have no resources, lag behind Germany and France in all sectors, and spend your days remembering the good old days when you boasted from India to Africa that the sun shall never set on.”

•Photo shows Britain’s former PM Gordon Brown.

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