Liz Truss became the leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister of the United Kingdom Monday, on September 5, defeating former finance minister Rishi Sunak to claim the top spot in British politics. She polled 57.4 percent of the votes over 47.6 percent polled votes by Sunak.
Hours after Truss, the new prime minister of the United Kingdom assumed office as Britain’s third woman prime minister and new leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party, Liz Truss appointed Kemi Badenoch as the new Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade, a British politician of Nigerian descent, as a member of her cabinet on Tuesday.
Kemi is currently Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade.
Kemi Badenoch, a British politician, was born on January 2, 1980 in London to Nigerian parents namely Femi and Feyi Adegoke. She spent her childhood in Nigeria, precisely Lagos. She Grew Up ‘With No Running Water’ In Nigeria To Become Top Contender For British Prime Minister and the United States where her mother lectured as a professor of physiology while her father worked as a GP, before she returned fully to the United Kingdom at the age of 16 due to the declining and obnoxious political and economic situation in Nigeria which had impacted heavily on her family.
After moving to the United Kingdom, Kemi began her academic journey first by obtaining A Levels from Phoenix College, a former further education college in Morden, London While working at a branch of McDonald’s.
She went further to study Computer Engineering at the University of Sussex and then obtained a Master of Engineering(M Eng) degree in 2003. Thereafter in 2006, she proceeded with a part-time study of Law at Birkbeck, University of London while working as a software engineer. She completed an LLB in 2009. At the age of 25, she had already started her political career .
Badenoch began her political career In 2005 at age 25, as a member of the Conservative party. During the 2010 general election, she contested for a position in her constituency but came third. Three years later in 2015, after losing an election to Victoria Borwick who was elected to the House of Commons but resigned, Badenoch was chosen to replace a candidate to become London assembly member and went on to retain her seat in the Assembly in the 2016 election. She got her first parliamentary seat as a representative of Saffron Welden, a safe seat in 2017.
On 19th of July of the same year after she won. She delivered her maiden speech in Parliament just a few weeks later. In it, she described herself as the ‘British dream,’ the African ‘immigrant who came to the UK aged 16 and who became a parliamentarian’ in one generation.
She also described the vote for Brexit as ‘the greatest ever vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom’ and hailed
In the same month, she was selected to join the 1922 Executive Committee. Two months after, she was also appointed to the parliamentary Justice select committee. By January 2018, she was appointed as the Conservative Party’s Vice Chair for Candidates in January.
In July 2019, Badenoch was appointed as a member of the parliament as the Secretary of State for children and Families Under the government administration of Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and by February 2020, she was appointed Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury still under Boris Johnson’s government.
In September 2021, she was promoted to Minister of State for levelling up communities and Local Government Department for International Trade in a government.
On 6 July 2022, in a joint statement with fellow Ministers, Badenoch resigned from government, citing Boris Johnson’s handling of the Chris Pincher scandal. Two days after, On July 8, 2022 she joined in the race to succeed the former prime minister alongside Rishi Sunak, former chancellor; Sajid Javid, former health secretary; Ben Wallace, defence secretary; and Jeremy Hunt, former foreign secretary, among several others to replace Johnson in the 2022 Conservative Party Leadership election as party leader but was eliminated.
On the 6th of September 2022, The newly elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss appointed Badenoch as UK Secretary of State for International Trade.
According to her official website kemibadenoch.org.uk Before her appointment as UK Secretary of State for International Trade by the new Prime Minister Liz Truss, Badenoch served in several position such as
Kemi Badenoch is known to be a culture warrior with anti-’woke’ views on issues including trans rights and critical race theory.
On the basis of economy, Badenoch posited she would tackle the economic crisis by cutting taxes, reducing corporate and personal taxes, reducing spending on international aid, university student subsidies, and ‘superfluous support staff’ including well-being officers and diversity ‘tick-box exercises’.
On areas of security, She added that she would ‘get the police to focus on neighbourhood crime’ rather than ‘waste time and resources worrying about hurt feelings online’.
She opined that her Government would be guided by the ‘Conservative principles’ of a ‘limited government doing less, but better’ and a ‘strong nation state’.
Extracted from Nigerian Tribune
Kemi Badenoch is married to Hamish Badenoch, and blessed with three children together, two girls and a son. Hamish is currently working as a banker with Deutsche Bank. Hamish served as a Conservative councilor on the Merton Borough Council from 2014 to 2018. In 2015 general election, he contested against Foyle for the Northern Ireland Conservative
In February 2022, Badenoch’s father Femi passed away.
Phone: 0207 219 1943
Email:kemi.badenoch.mp@parliament.uk
Twitter:https://twitter.com/KemiBadenoch
Source- The Parliament of United Kingdom
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