Kemi Badenoch fires back at Shettima, says won’t “do PR for Nigeria”, a country with a succession of bad leaders
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Vice President Kashim Shettima’s swipe at Kemi Badenoch for “denigrating her country of origin” has been rebuffed by the British Conservative Party leader, who describes herself as a happy culture warrior, even in using combative language against Nigeria where parents hailed from.
Badenoch riposted that she “doesn’t do PR for Nigeria” after Shettima blasted her over comments she made about the country where she grew up.
Shettima had remarked that the Tory leader has been “denigrating her country of origin” for saying Bola Tinubu country is corrupt and dangerous.
Most Nigerians at home also acknowledge that the country is corrupt and buffeted by insecurity (and they say so, plus worse things) but some disagree with Badenoch’s hash language and occasional exaggerations about the country.
Shettima, who was giving a speech on migration in Abuja on Monday, listed influential people whose families had migrated to other countries, praising former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as a “brilliant young man, he never denigrated his nation of ancestry [India].
“Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the British Conservative party. We are proud of her in spite of her efforts at denigrating her nation of origin.
“She is entitled to her own opinions; she has even every right to remove the Kemi from her name but that does not underscore the fact that the greatest Black nation on earth is the nation called Nigeria.”
However, Badenoch’s spokesperson scoffed at the claims, saying “Kemi is not interested in doing Nigeria’s PR, she is the Leader of the Opposition in the UK.
“She tells the truth, she tells it like it is, she isn’t going to couch her words. She stands by what she said.”
Badenoch frequently makes remarks about Nigeria being corrupt while she grew up there and criticised the impact of socialism in the country.
When running for the Tory leadership in 2022 she said: “I grew up in Nigeria and I saw first-hand what happens when politicians are in it for themselves, when they use public money as their private piggy banks, when they promise the earth and pollute not just the air but the whole political atmosphere with their failure to serve others.
“I saw what socialism is for millions. It’s poverty and broken dreams. I came to Britain to make my way in a country where hard work and honest endeavour can take you anywhere.”
Badenoch’s brief bio
Badenoch’s parents are both Nigerian, but she was born in the United Kingdom.
Born Olukemi Adegoke in 1980 in Wimbledon, south west London, Badenoch grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and in the United States where her physiology professor mother lectured. Her father was a medical doctor.
She returned to the UK at the age of 16 to live with a friend of her mother because of the worsening political and economic situation in Nigeria, and to study for her Advanced Levels (ALs) after which she studied computer systems engineering at Sussex University.
She completed a Master of Engineering (MEng) degree in 2003 and thereafter studied law part time at Birkbeck College, University of London.
The then-Miss Adegoke married Scottish banker Hamish Badenoch and took his surname.
At the Conservative Party conference this year, Badenoch contrasted the freedoms she experienced in the UK to her childhood in Lagos “where fear was everywhere”.
She vividly described the city as lawless, recalling hearing “neighbours scream as they are being burgled and beaten – and wondering if your home will be next”.
Last week during a tour of the US, she described her home city as “a place where almost everything seemed broken”.
Her experiences helped shape her conservative ideals and set her against socialism, she said.
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