Tukana Denies Racial and Bigoted Intent Behind Facebook Post

Semi Tukana, the founder of SOLE Fintech, a social financial platform, claimed a Facebook post he wrote titled ‘Constitutional Crisis vs Rebuilding Fiji’ was not racial and did not contain religious bigotry.

This is in response to a complaint lodged by the former Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum to police.

Mr Tukana made the alleged contentious comment on his Facebook on April 28, 2024.

The post reads

“The effort of the current Government to rebuild Fiji will encounter great difficulties because the very spirit of the underlying constitution it operates under is clocked in evil, darkness and satanic verses. For it was drafted and promulgated by a core group of three legal personnel headed by former High Court judge Nazhat. None of them are Fijians in ethnic origin. It is wrong, whichever way we look at it. We cannot allow a rule book made by three (3) people, all of them Muslims, and to force it on a population of 860,000 people, let alone the 530,000 Fijian owners of the land.

“It is the right time to convene a National Constitutional Review Senate Commission comprising of the vanua headed by the GCC, the military, and the lotu, and a representative each from minority ethnic origins. The ethnic representations on the commission should be based on land ownership 90 per cent to the native landowners, seven per cent to government and three per cent to freehold landowners. And as much as possible, let us limit the contributions from the legal fraternity for this commission.

We need a law made by the people and for the people. Only then will the process of Rebuilding Fiji prosper.”

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum claimed the post was racial and religious bigotry and for someone as learned as Mr Tukana was unbecoming.

“You cannot make such comments and get away with it,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.

Mr Tukana replied: “Did it incite hatred against Muslims? No. No one was victimised. Not a single incident has been reported.

“It was him, during his reign in the dictatorial regime over the past 16 years, who victimised, not only the Fijian people, but almost anyone who he disliked, even some sectors of the Muslim faith,” Mr Tukana said.

“I, as a Christian Fijian, was one who was targeted during his reign when about $2m worth of software development contracts awarded to my company in 2012 was withdrawn and some were directed to a company called Yallamanchilli. My company, which is majority owned by Fijians, was blacklisted from Fiji for 11 years from 2012 to 2022.”

Police response

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) – Operations Livai Driu confirmed the matter was referred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) earlier this month.

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