Welby was pressured to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury, boosting Kemi Badenoch’s position against Nigeria’s lack of consequences for bad leadership
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
It has emerged that Justin Welby had to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury two weeks ago because “a serious crime was covered up” happened under his watch even though her was not personal involved in the child sexual abuse, a nod to accountability in the United Kingdom that Kemi Badenoch argues is missing in Nigeria and makes the country lawless and unliveable for her.
Welby, the most senior official in the Church of England, was accused of failing to reprimand a prolific child abuser, John Smyth, a British lawyer now deceased.
“Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty The King, I have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury,” Welby said in a statement.
Pressure was mounted on Welby following an independent review into “sickening abuse” committed by Smyth, considered the worst serial abuser linked to the Church of England.
The incriminating report, commissioned by the church and released November 7, tracked a “worrying pattern of deference” to Smyth, concluding that “a serious crime was covered up.”
Welby said the review “has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth.
“When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow. It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.”
Even though Welby took responsibility and expressed regret, he still had to quit his post as part of the consequences that come with bad leadership, as is the norm in the United Kingdom and other societies that strive for good governance, unlike Nigeria where bad governance deepens its root every day because public officials steal from the treasury and commit other crimes without facing punishment.
Badenoch knocks Nigeria’s lawlessness
This led Badenoch – who was born to Nigerian parents in London and now heads the UK Conservative Party and is Leader of the Opposition in Parliament – to dismiss Nigeria, where she lived in her formative years, and to say disparaging things about the country, over which Nigerians have trolled and called her unprintable names.
She began her ascent to the top of the Conservative Party by declaring her stand that
“This is my country. I love it the way it is. I don’t want it [the UK] to become like the place [Nigeria] I ran away from. I want it to get better and better, not just for me, but for the next generation.” And saying, “the UK is my country and I will die for it if necessary.”
Badenoch has exaggerated Nigeria’s social problems by claiming that her childhood in the country was filled with tales of horror, with screams of neighbours being attacked every night, leading to fears whether her own family’s apartment could be the next.
Badenoch
Reactions from Nigerians
Former Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode and other Nigerians on social media have descended heavily Badenoch over her utterances.
“A very stupid little girl and notoriously self-righteous bitch barks. Ever considered staying in the place you ‘ran away from’ and trying to fix it? he posted on X (Twitter).
“You are worse than Aunty Jemima, the female version of Uncle Tom. By all means try your luck at being elected leader of the British Conservative party but leave my country out of your pretty yet stinking mouth.”
@AmobiMunir
“What’s she going to gain from putting down Nigeria at every given opportunity. Shame on her.”
@Galacticus_Obs
“For a lady who received her basic education in Nigeria to disparage the country at every slightest opportunity is not only disappointing but disgusting.
“Recently, she shamelessly referred to migrants as people who ‘come to the UK to watch their buttocks.’ Her level of intellectual submission to the UK is both shameful and deeply disappointing.”
Badenoch has also laughed off the idea of Nigeria and other previously colonised countries demanding reparation from the UK, insisting on the need to look to the future instead of dwelling on the past.
The truth, which she did not add, is that any sum of money paid to Nigeria in such reparation is bound to end up in the private pockets of public officials, as is the usual practice, without much of it being deployed to improve general living standards.
Fani-Kayode also assailed her in a scathing post on “When the Flagship Led,” a WhatsApp group created for (mostly) former journalists at The Guardian (Nigeria) where they engage in robust debate on any issue, local or foreign.
“The demonisation of our country should not be a pre-requisite to winning a leadership contest of a political party in a foreign land and if it is one cannot expect any self-respecting Nigerian to applaud it.
“Her victory in the contest for the leadership of the UK’s Conservative party does not in any way ameliorate my disgust and repugnance for her or the foul stench that trails her wherever she goes,” Fani-Kayode wrote on the platform.
A few Nigerians have, on the other hand, defended Badenoch against the attacks, acknowledging the facts in her presentations meant to help Nigeria correct her corrupt ways.
At one point, Lade Bonuola (Ladbone), a veteran journalist and pioneer editor of The Guardian (Nigeria), wondered why some people subject Badenoch to vitriol when all she has said is the truth Nigerians themselves talk about, at home and abroad.
“Please, what has she said that is worse than what the politicians have done to us, or advertised about us? A country they have stolen blind,” Bonuola reiterated.
“Do you see how UCH, Ibadan, the premier teaching hospital in Africa, and the fourth in the Commonwealth, has been wrecked; the hospital the Saudi Arabia prince came to for medical attention, and some other prominent leaders from parts of Africa.
“Politicians who have stolen the country blind have made it impossible for the hospital to have light and to have water! In a hospital?
“Have we forgotten what was described as ‘the criminal diversion and theft of sums in excess of $2.5 billion meant for purchase of arms to prosecute the war against Boko Haram.’ What do we have as the consequence?
“Boko Haram has bred bandits and kidnappers that have caged swaths of our land, plundering and causing devastation! How many places are safe today?”
Badenoch has since concentrated more on her new job, saying little about Nigeria, and Nigerians themselves have chilled on her.
But one contributor stressed that she “ought to have called out Nigerian leaders who put the country in the state that she was describing, instead of lamenting and pointing out problems without providing solutions.”
Welby may remain in position until a successor is picked
Back on the saga that cost Welby his job in the UK, he explained that the “exact timings” of when he [Welby] officially leaves office were yet to be decided and would be established “once a review of necessary obligations has been completed.”
CNN reports that it leaves open the possibility that the archbishop will remain in position over the Christmas period, while the process of finding his successor is expected to take many months.
Welby, 68, will turn 70 on January 6, 2026, the retirement age for bishops in the Church of England, which meant he only had a little over a year left in post.
While it is custom for Archbishops of Canterbury to be elevated to the House of Lords, Britain’s upper parliamentary chamber, after they leave office, the circumstances of Welby’s resignation will likely bring opposition against such a move.
Welby, a former oil executive, took up his post in March 2013 and was chosen as a skilled manager alongside his ability to hold different groups in the church together and focus on evangelization. However, disagreements over same-sex relationships have fractured church unity and have tested his authority.
Resignation over the handling of abuse is without precedent
On abuse, he described himself as “ashamed” of the church, although insisted he sought to improve the church’s response including dramatically boosting personnel numbers for its national safeguarding personnel. Nevertheless, problems persisted, and last year the chair of the church’s safeguarding office resigned.
A resignation by the Archbishop of Canterbury is extremely rare in the church’s history, and a resignation over the handling of abuse is without precedent. Welby’s decision to stand down underlines how the scourge of sexual abuse has damaged the credibility of the church, with accountability demanded of its leaders, per CNN.
Summer camps
Smyth perpetrated “traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks” on as many as 130 boys and young men, with abuse spanning from the 1970s up until his death, in 2018 – according to the Makin Review.
He was accused of abusing his own family members, as well as attendees of evangelical Christian summer camps he helped run for students from Britain’s prestigious private colleges in the 1970s and 1980s.
From 1984 to 2001, when Smyth relocated to Zimbabwe and then South Africa, church officers “knew of the abuse and failed to take the steps necessary to prevent further abuse occurring,” the report added.
Welby worked at the summer camps that Smyth helped run. The pair exchanged Christmas cards and Welby donated small sums of money to his “missions” in Zimbabwe.
In 2017, Channel 4 News reported on Smyth’s abuse. After the publication of the independent review earlier this month, Welby told the network he “did not” ensure the allegations were pursued as “energetically” and “remorselessly” as they should have been, when he rose to the highest rank in the church, in 2013.
He was first ordained as a priest in 1993.
The church’s review found that there was a “missed opportunity” in 2012 and 2013 by the highest levels of the church to “properly” report him to law enforcement.
The review said that “it is not possible to establish whether Justin Welby knew of the severity of the abuses in the UK prior to 2013,” adding: “It is most probable that he would have had at least a level of knowledge that John Smyth was of some concern.”
The Bishop of Newcastle was the most high-ranking church official to call for Welby’s resignation. Helen-Ann Hartley told the BBC that it would be untenable for members of the clergy to “have a moral voice … when we cannot get our own house in order.”
Throughout his tenure, Welby has demanded accountability from those accused of mishandling abuse, including his predecessor, George Carey, and the former Bishop of Lincoln.
Until now, there’s been no historical precedent for an Archbishop of Canterbury resigning over child abuse.
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