Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader who was born in the UK and spent much of her youth in Nigeria, has defended her remarks about the country, which she describes as plagued by corruption.
On Monday, Vice President Kashim Shettima proposed that Badenoch “remove the Kemi from her name” if she did not feel pride in her “nation of origin.”
According to a BBC report on Wednesday, in response to Shettima’s suggestion that she should “remove Kemi from her name” if she lacks pride in her Nigerian roots, a spokesperson for Badenoch said she “stands by what she says” and emphasised that “she is not Nigeria’s public relations representative.”
“She leads the opposition and takes great pride in her role in this country; she speaks the truth, and she presents things as they are and will not soften her words.” He told reporters.
He compared her position to that of Rishi Sunak, the UK’s first prime minister of Indian heritage, whom Shettima hailed as “a brilliant young man” who “never denigrated his nation of ancestry.”
Badenoch, born Olukemi Adegoke in Wimbledon in 1980, grew up in Lagos before relocating to the United States, where her mother worked as a physiology professor.
She later returned to the UK at the age of 16 to live with a friend of her mother’s owing to Nigeria’s political and economic issues, as well as to complete her A-Levels.
After marrying Scottish financier Hamish Badenoch, she took his surname.
Earlier this year, during the Conservative Party conference, Badenoch contrasted the freedoms she discovered in the UK with the dread she encountered growing up in Lagos, “where fear was everywhere.”
Last week, during a trip to the United States, she described Nigeria as “a place where almost everything seemed broken.”
Her experiences had a big impact on moulding her conservative values and positioned her against socialism, she explained.
