Nigerian IT Expert, Toni Iwobi, becomes the first black senator elected in Italy, and will be the only black parliamentarian in the next legislature, after he was elected in the industrial city of Brescia in northern Italy.

Iwobi whose company provides assistance on hardware and software for both private and public bodies, and was elected on Sunday for the anti-immigration Lega party, has been living in Italy since the ’70s, long after leaving the shores of Nigeria.

Iwobi is is known for championing anti-migration policies of League, his political party.

As head of the party’s national committee on immigration, he helped write the League’s anti-migration platform, in which it proposed among other things to make it easier to deport migrants, to use economic incentives to get countries to agree to repatriate their nationals from Italy, to refuse to take in migrants rescued by NGOs from the Mediterranean.

According to BBC, in a swift response to the development, popular Italian footballer, Mario Balotelli attacked the country’s NEW first black senator in an online post.

“Maybe I’m blind or perhaps they have not told him yet that he is black. But shame!!!,” the footballer posted on Instagram.

What did Balotelli’s post say?

The Italy striker, who plays for French Ligue 1 side Nice, put his post on Instagram on Tuesday.

Accompanying the text was a photo of Mr Iwobi and League leader Matteo Salvini, both raising clenched fists and wearing T-shirts saying “Stop Invasion” at an anti-immigration rally.

While there have been black members of Italy’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, the 62-year-old Toni Iwobi is the first black senator.

In a Facebook post celebrating his election, Mr Iwobi thanked Mr Salvini, who he called “a great leader”.