Nigeria’s vice-president launches attack on Tory leader Kemi Badenoch

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Nigeria’s vice-president launched a scathing attack on UK Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch in an apparent response to her comments on the west African country where she spent most of her childhood.

Kashim Shettima said in a speech on migration that Badenoch was free to change her Nigerian first name, in a surprising departure from the norm in a country that often champions members of its diaspora.

“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,” Shettima said on Monday in his address in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

“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.”

Government officials typically lavish praise on people of Nigerian origin who have found success abroad. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu praised Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala last month on her re-election as the head of the World Trade Organization.

A senior presidential adviser told the Financial Times: “If the vice-president has said that, then it is official. Many Nigerians don’t appreciate her [Badenoch] denigrating the country and making it sound like a leper colony. We live here and don’t have that impression of our country.”

Shettima appeared to be responding to various comments Badenoch has made about Nigeria over the years. Badenoch, who was born in London but lived mostly in Nigeria until she was 16, has described growing up in a Nigeria that was wracked by corruption, government dysfunction and fear. She also said Africa’s most populous country had shown her the ills of socialism.

During her failed attempt to replace Boris Johnson as Tory leader after his resignation in 2022, Badenoch 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.”

Contrasting Badenoch to Rishi Sunak, her predecessor as Tory leader, Shettima said: “Rishi Sunak, the former British prime minister, is originally from India. A very brilliant young man, he never denigrated his nation of ancestry nor poured venom on India.”

Shettima’s comments are the latest condemnation of Badenoch by a Nigerian government official. After her victory in the Tory party contest, the head of Nigeria’s diaspora commission said her office had unsuccessfully tried to contact Badenoch in the past.

“We’ve reached out to her once or twice without any response,” Abike Dabiri-Erewa said last month on the Channels TV station. “We don’t force people to accept being Nigerian. If you appreciate the Nigerianness in you and you want to work with us, we’re open to everybody but we cannot force you.”

A spokesman for Kemi Badenoch said: “Kemi is not interested in doing Nigeria’s PR, she is the Leader of the Opposition in the UK.”