Nice's Italian forward Mario
Balotelli on Wednesday attacked Toni Iwobi, a member of the
anti-migrant League party who was elected Italy's first black
Senator in Sunday's general election.
"Perhaps I'm blind or perhaps they have not told him yet that
he is black. But shame on you!!!," Balotelli said via Instagram.
Iwobi, a 62-year-old IT entrepreneur originally from Nigeria,
responded that "I prefer to ignore him".
League League Matteo Salvini did not.
"I didn't like Balotelli on the field, I like him even less
off it," Salvini said.
Balotelli, who scored 13 goals in 33 appearances for Italy,
has frequently been the target of racist abuse.
Andrew Howe, the first black man in Italian athletics, said
Iwobi's being immigration chief "is a bit of a nonsense" but the
official "has his political ideas, he has probably studied and
decided what to embrace".
Salvini has taken a hardline stance on the migrant crisis and
called for mass deportations after Nigerian nationals were
arrested in relation to the murder of an 18-year-old woman whose
dismembered body was found in two suitcases near Macerata.
Former League activist and rightwing extremist Luca Traini,
28, shot and wounded six African migrants in Macerata days
later, saying he was avenging the woman.
Several League members have been involved in racism storms in
the past.
Northern League MEP Mario Borghezio was ordered to pay
Congo-born former Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge - Italy's
first black minister - 50,000 euros in compensation for a racist
slur last year.
Borghezio reportedly said, among other things, that "Africans
are Africans and belong to an ethnic group very different from
ours".
In another remark that was not covered by that verdict,
Borghezio claimed Kyenge would impose her "tribal traditions"
from the Congo on Italy.
"This is a bonga bonga government, they want to change
birthright citizenship laws and Kyenge wants to impose her
tribal traditions from the Congo," said Borghezio.
In November 2013 Northern League Senator and former minister
Roberto Calderoli compared Kyenge to an orangutan.
New Lombardy Governor Attilio Fontana, also a League member,
apologised for saying mass migrant arrivals could threaten the
"white race" during his campaign for the regional election.
Iwobi, now a Bergamo resident, has been in Matteo Salvini's
party for more than 20 years.
He became a town councillor for the League at Spirano in
1995. Since then he has been a committed activist and has become
the party's immigration and security chief, speaking regularly
on Italian TV.
Iwobi has been in Italy for 38 years. Iwobi led the League's
campaign on Italy's immigration crisis, under the slogan "stop
the invasion".
A former centre-left MP of Congolese origins, Jean Leonard
Touadi, said: "I have always been struck by Senator Iwobi's
Stockholm Syndrome; he has acted as a loudspeaker for his
captors' anti-African proclamations".
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