Key Points
- Badenoch says she will not soften her words.
- Shettima questions Badenoch’s pride in her Nigerian heritage.
- Her Nigerian upbringing shaped her conservative beliefs and values.
After being criticized by Kashim Shettima, the vice president of Nigeria, for allegedly disrespecting her culture, Kemi Badenoch has defended her comments on the country.
Shettima criticizes Badenoch’s pride in Nigerian heritage
Born in the United Kingdom and having spent a large portion of her childhood in Nigeria, Badenoch, the head of the British Conservative Party, has often talked about the anxiety and instability she experiences in a corrupt nation.
Shettima recommended on Monday that Badenoch “remove the Kemi from her name” if she is not proud of her “nation of origin.”
A spokesperson for Badenoch responded by saying that she “stands by what she says” and that she is “not Nigeria’s public relations representative,” as reported by the BBC on Wednesday.
According to the spokeswoman, “she takes great pride in her role in this country and leads the opposition.” “She speaks the truth, and she presents things as they are and will not soften her words.”
Vice president compares Badenoch to UK’s Rishi Sunak
He claimed his administration is still “proud” of Badenoch in spite of her “attempts to denigrate her country of origin.” Shettima made these comments during an address on migration in Abuja.
He made a connection between Badenoch and the first Indian prime minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak. Sunak, according to Shettima, was “a brilliant young man” who “never denigrated his nation of ancestry.”
Born in Wimbledon in 1980 as Olukemi Adegoke, Badenoch was raised in Lagos before relocating to the US, where her mother taught physiology.
She cited Nigeria’s political and economic difficulties as the reason for her return to the United Kingdom at the age of sixteen to live with a family friend and study for her A-levels.
She took the last name of Hamish Badenoch, a Scottish financier, when they were married.
At the Conservative Party convention earlier this year, Badenoch discussed the difference between the freedoms she had in the United Kingdom and the horror she experienced as a child in Lagos, where “fear was everywhere.”
According to Punch, she visited the United States last week and said her homeland was “a place where almost everything seemed broken.”
Badenoch has previously stated that her conservative views and resistance to socialism were greatly influenced by her experiences in Nigeria.
