Masai said he is not ready to forget Nigeria even if the US president thinks otherwise.
Masai Ujiri is the president of Toronto Raptors and has expressed dissatisfaction with a comment credited to US President, Donald Trump, which he described Africa and Haiti as shit hole countries.
Masai said 'This cannot be the message that we accept' from a world leader.
Masai further told ESPN reporter, Adrian Wojnarowski, that he has travelled to many countries before becoming Toronto Raptors’ president but he is not going to forget Nigeria where he started his life journey. He said this is his stand even if the president of the United States might not think he should be.
Masai started his life as a young boy in Zaria, a metropolitan city in Northern Nigeria.
“I don’t think it’s fair, and I don’t think it’s what inspiring leadership can be. What sense of hope are we giving people if you are calling where they live — and where they’re from — a shithole? […],” Masai said.
“I don’t know that just because someone lives in a hut, that doesn’t mean that isn’t a good person, that that person can’t do better, that person isn’t capable of being great. And just because it’s a hut — whatever that means — doesn’t mean it’s not a home. God doesn’t put anyone someplace permanently. I am a living testimony to that. If I grew up in a shithole, I am proud of my shithole.”
President Donald Trump was reported to have made a disparaging remark about immigrants from Africa, El Salvador and Haiti. “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”, Mr Trump asked during a meeting in the Oval Office.
Many personalities of African descent and some countries in the region have expressed dissatisfaction with this remark credited to the U.S president.
On Friday, January 12, 2018, the government of Botswana officially wrote the White Office requesting for clarifications on this comment.
Masai said: “As leaders, I think we have to give people in many places a chance to have success, not continue to put those people down.”
“We have to inspire people and give them a sense of hope. We need to bring people along, not ridicule and tear them down. This cannot be the message that we accept from the leader of the free world.”