The Conservative Party leader in the United Kingdom, Kemi Badenoch, has reaffirmed her past remarks about Nigeria despite criticism from Vice-President Kashim Shettima, who accused her of disparaging her country of origin.
Badenoch, who was born in the UK but largely raised in Nigeria, has often spoken about the challenges of growing up in a country marked by corruption and insecurity.
On Monday, Shettima suggested that Badenoch could “remove the Kemi from her name” if she was not proud of her Nigerian heritage.
According to BBC, while responding to Shettima’s comments, Badenoch’s spokesman emphasised that the Conservative leader “stands by what she says” and reiterated her commitment to speaking truthfully. “She is not the PR for Nigeria,” he told reporters. “She tells the truth. She tells it like it is. She is not going to couch her words.”
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Shettima, while speaking during a migration summit in Abuja, remarked that the Nigerian government remained proud of Badenoch in spite of her efforts to denigrate her nation of origin.
He said, “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.”
The Vice-President compared Badenoch’s stance unfavourably to that of former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whom he described as “a brilliant young man” who “never denigrated his nation of ancestry.”
Born Olukemi Adegoke in Wimbledon in 1980, Badenoch spent her formative years in Lagos and the United States before returning to the UK at 16 to escape Nigeria’s deteriorating political and economic conditions. She later married Scottish banker Hamish Badenoch and adopted his surname.
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