Auto Amazon Links: No products found. Blocked by captcha.
UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has been accused by Nigerian Vice-President Kashim Shettima of denigrating Nigeria, but Badenoch’s spokesman said she stands by what she says. Badenoch was mostly raised in Nigeria and repeatedly described growing up in fear in a country plagued by corruption. Shettima suggested Badenoch could “remove the Kemi from her name” if she was not proud of her “nation of origin”. During a speech on migration in Nigerian capital Abuja, Shettima said his government was “proud” of Badenoch “in spite of her efforts at denigrating her nation of origin”.
Badenoch’s spokesman explained that despite Nigerian heritage, she is the leader of the opposition in the UK and is very proud of her leadership. “She tells the truth. She tells it like it is. She is not going to couch her words,” he added. It is not clear which comments Settima was referring to, but Badenoch has frequently mentioned her Nigerian upbringing in speeches and interviews.
Born Olukemi Adegoke in Wimbledon in 1980, she grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and in the United States where her physiology professor mother lectured. She returned to the UK at the age of 16 to live with a friend of her mother because of the worsening political and economic situation in Nigeria, and to study for her A-levels. After marrying Scottish banker Hamish Badenoch, she took her husband’s surname.
At the Conservative Party conference this year, Badenoch contrasted the freedoms she experienced in the UK to her childhood in Lagos where fear was everywhere. “Neighbours scream as they are being burgled and beaten – and wondering if your home will be next,” she said. Her experiences helped shape her conservative ideals and set her against socialism. Last week during a tour of the US, she described her home city as “a place where almost everything seemed broken.
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
Auto Amazon Links: No products found. Blocked by captcha.