BY OZOEMENA OSINACHI
Newly elected leader of the United Kingdom’s (UK) Conservative Party, Nigeria’s Kemi Badenoch has received a bash from the vice president Kashim Shettima, who has urged her to change her Nigerian name to prove full rejection of her country of origin
Vice-President Kashim Shettima who hit back at Kemi Badenoch, while speaking at the 10th Annual Migration Dialogue at the State House in Abuja on Monday, Shettima said “migrants are the source of lives in all societies”.
Badenoch was recently elected to lead United Kingdom’s opposition party, the Conservative Party, after it’s former leader and ex British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak was defeated in the last election by the Labour party
Born in the UK in 1980 to Nigerian Yoruba parents. Kemi Badenoch was said to have returned to Nigeria, where she grew up before finally relocating permanently to the UK when she turned 16.
Before her election as leader of the Tories, Badenoch had described Nigeria as a socialist nation brimming with thieving politicians and insecurity.
“This is my country. I don’t want it to become like the place I ran away from,” she 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 pollute the whole political atmosphere with their failure to serve others.
“I saw what socialism is for millions. I saw 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.”
Badenoch also said she “grew up in a place where fear was everywhere. You cannot understand it unless you’ve lived it. Triple checking that all the doors and windows are locked, waking up in the night at every sound, listening as you hear your neighbours scream as they are being burgled and beaten, wondering if your home would be next”.
Speaking at the 10th Annual Migration Dialogue at the State House in Abuja on Monday, Shettima reminded the Conservatives Party leader that, “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 venoms on India,” the vice-president added.
“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.
“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.
“One out of every three, four black men is a Nigerian and by 2050, Nigeria will surpass the United States, will be the third most populous nation on earth.”
Badenoch, 44, who has earlier served as shadow business and trade secretary before her election as leader of the Conservative Party maintains a hardline stance on immigration and has made excuses for Britain’s colonial past.