Between Shettima and Badenoch

BY DAPO OKUBANJO

It is a matter of public record that the British opposition leader Kemi Badenoch first lashed out at Nigeria publicly in 2022 when she was pushing to replace Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party.

She was quoted as saying, ” 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 promise the earth and pollute not just the air but the whole political atmosphere with their failure to serve others. I saw what socialism is for millions. It’s 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.”

This was a Briton born in London but lived in Nigeria until she was 16 (in 1996) in one of the highbrow parts of Lagos at a time of sustained military rule which began in 1983. So she could not have had a ‘first-hand’ knowledge of whatever she claimed politicians use public funds for in Nigeria.

As a daughter of an academic, Badenoch, who was then known as Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke lived on the serene campus of the University of Lagos, arguably one of the best federal universities in Nigeria at the time.

She was even a student at the private International School of Lagos which still operates on the university campus but she is known to have spoken about ‘taking chair to school’ which, for many, is a preposterous claim about a very prestigious school. By Nigerian standards, she lived a sheltered life, absolutely cut off from some of what she claimed to have experienced in one of her many disdainful comments about the country.

Although that comment was made about two years ago, it was ignored by officials of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration including former Vice-President Yemi Osibanjo, who is believed to be her maternal cousin.

But interestingly, Kemi Badenoch was known to have courted the Nigerian community in the United Kingdom as a fledgling politician still struggling to find her way around British politics.

Her talking point in 2010 when she was running for parliament in the 2010 UK general elections for Dulwich & West Norwood was the need to “support a Nigerian who is trying to improve our national image”.

Today, she is going to great lengths to sully that image, even to the extent of making up stories that do not tally with her middle/lower upper-class upbringing in Nigeria.

It was therefore not surprising that Vice-President Kashim Shettima who is not known to suffer fools gladly, especially in the political arena had to take her up at a recent function in Abuja. Fortunately, Shettima’s message resonated on the international stage with the influential Financial Times giving it ample space in its December 10 edition.

According to Vice-President Shettima, “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 venom on India.”

The import of that quip is not lost on many. Like Badenoch, Sunak was born in the UK but to East African-born parents of Punjabi descent and is known to always have pretty nice things to say about his Indian heritage.

Shettima added that she was also free to drop her first name in order to totally break any connection to her roots. That was the first time any senior Nigerian official would respond to various comments Badenoch had made about the country over the years and expectedly it elicited comments even in the United Kingdom.

As FT suggested, Vice-President Shettima was indeed responding to comments Badenoch had made about Nigeria over the years which had riled many people who did not take kindly to words which were believed to have been uttered with a view to winning her wider support within the ranks of the Conservative Party.

The London-born Badenoch had in a response to Shettima through one of her aides, said it was not her duty to do PR for Nigeria but she also ended up displaying a temperament that may not be suitable for the office of British Prime Minister which she covets.

More damning is her latest divisive attempt at winning the support of the Yoruba people in the aftermath of her insulting comments about Nigeria, by asserting her ‘Yorubanness’ and at the same time declaring that she has nothing in common with Northern Nigeria which according to her is a haven for Islamism and Boko Haram.

Again, this is yet another proof that she does not always think things through before speaking. It is clearly a cheap shot aimed at Shettima, who is from Maiduguri, Borno state which until recently was a hotbed of Boko Haram insurgency.

It also shows a poor knowledge of Nigeria, because northern Nigeria is a multi-cultural and multi-religious region of 19 states which cannot be defined by an insurgency that only affected a few local government areas in three states even at its most intense.

So, those words should be seen for what they are; a continuation of Kemi Badenoch’s never-ending disdain for Nigeria which all well-meaning Nigerians should stand against in unity.

Okubanjo, a journalist and public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja.