Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, has stated that she is unable to pass her Nigerian citizenship to her children due to her gender.
Badenoch made the remark during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, where she discussed immigration rules and the differences between Britain and countries such as Nigeria.
“It’s virtually impossible, for example, to get Nigerian citizenship.
“I have that citizenship by virtue of my parents; I can’t give it to my children because I’m a woman.”
The politician used the example to highlight what she described as the imbalance in immigration systems, noting that many Nigerians take advantage of the UK’s more lenient processes.
“Yet loads of Nigerians come to the UK and stay for a relatively free period of time, acquiring British citizenship. We need to stop being naive.
“That is why under my leadership, we now have policies to make it harder to just get British citizenship. It has been too easy,” she said.
Speaking on if she would support the idea of a Nigerian immigrant recreating a “mini-Nigeria” in the UK for cultural integration, Badenoch, who was born in the UK to Nigerian parents and spent part of her childhood in Lagos, firmly rejected the idea.
“That is not right. Nigerians would not tolerate that.
“That’s not something that many countries would accept.
“There are many people who come to our country, to the UK, who do things that would not be acceptable in their countries,” she said.
