By Enyichukwu Enemanna
UK’s Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, says she is not softening her past comments about her country of origin Nigeria, following criticism from the Vice President of the West African nation, who accused her of denigrating her country before a global audience.
Born in the UK but mostly raised in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, Badenoch has repeatedly said she grew up in fear and insecurity in a country plagued by corruption.
Troubled by her comments, Nigeria’s Vice President, at a public function in Abuja on Tuesday, advised Badenoch to “remove the Kemi from her name” if she was not proud of her “nation of origin”.
Asked about Shettima’s comments, a spokesperson for the British opposition leader said she “stands by what she says” and “is not the PR for Nigeria”.
“She is the leader of the opposition, and she is very proud of her leadership of the opposition in this country,” he told reporters.
“She tells the truth. She tells it like it is. She is not going to soften her words.”
While speaking on Tuesday, Shettima said the federal government was “proud” of Badenoch “in spite of her efforts at denigrating her nation of origin.”
“She is entitled to her own opinions; she even has every right to remove the Kemi from her name, but that does not change the fact that the greatest black nation on earth is the nation called Nigeria,” the former Borno State governor and Senator stated.
He compared Badenoch’s approach to that of her predecessor, Rishi Sunak, the UK’s first Prime Minister of Indian heritage, describing him as “a brilliant young man” who “never denigrated his nation of ancestry”.
Badenoch has frequently mentioned her Nigerian upbringing in speeches and interviews.
Born Olukemi Adegoke in Wimbledon in 1980, she grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and in the United States, where her mother, a physiology professor, lectured.
She returned to the UK at the age of 16 to live with a friend of her mother due to the economic situation in Nigeria at the time and started her A-level education.
After marrying Scottish banker Hamish Badenoch, she took her husband’s surname.
At the Conservative Party conference this year, Badenoch contrasted the freedoms she experienced in the UK with her childhood in Lagos “where fear was everywhere”.
She vividly described the city as lawless, recalling hearing “neighbours scream as they are being burgled, 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”.
