Kemi Badenoch’s disdain for Nigeria

“I find it interesting that everyone defines me as a Nigerian. I identify less with the country than with my specific ethnic group. I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country, the Boko Haram, where Islamism is. Being Yoruba is my true identity and I refuse to be lumped with the northern people of Nigeria who were our ethnic enemies, all in the name of being called a Nigerian”- @KemiBadenoch. 

Kemi Badenoch MP, the leader of the British Conservative Party and opposition in the UK Parliament, has refused to stop at just denigrating our country but has gone a step further by seeking to divide us along ethnic lines.

She claims that she never regarded herself as being a Nigerian but rather a Yoruba and that she never identified with the people from the northern part of our country who she collectively describes as being “Boko Haram Islamists” and “terrorists”.

This is dangerous rhetoric coming from a foreign leader who knows nothing about our country, who does not know her place and who insists on stirring up a storm that she cannot contain and that may eventually consume her.

It is rather like saying that she identifies more with the English than she does with the Scots and the Welsh whom she regards as nothing more than barbarians that once waged war against her ethnic English compatriots!

All this coming from a young lady of colour who is a political leader in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural country that lays claim to being the epitome of decency and civilisation! What a strange and inexplicable contradiction this is.

Her intentions, outside of ridiculing and mocking us, is to divide us and bring us to our knees. I am constrained to ask, what on earth happened to her and why does she hate Nigeria with such passion?

Did something happen to her when she lived here that she has kept secret? Was she the victim of something that has resulted in trauma?

Is this why she gets her pretty knickers in a twist whenever she hears “Nigeria”? Why does the mention of the name of our country trigger such aggressive emotions and impulses in her?

Given her feelings about Nigeria, these are legitimate questions that need to be answered.

She despises us yet in a much-publicised and widely read open letter written in 2010 during her first bid to be elected into the UK parliament, she begged the Nigerian community in her constituency to support her.

At that time, when she still needed us, she identified with Nigerians but everything changed after she was elected. At that point, in her conflicted mind, all Nigerians became demons, all Englanders became angels and her disdain and contempt for us was unmasked!

She despises us yet she still had the effrontrey to return home to watch polo at the Lagos Polo Club. This is the same country that she has described as being a lawless jungle and corrupt stinking edifice from which no good can come.

She should take Vice President Kashim Shettima’s @KashimSM counsel seriously and drop Kemi as her name. She does not want to identify with us and we do not want to identify with her. She sees us as being corrupt and evil. There can be no fellowship between us.

She should stick to the affairs of her UK, face its ruling Labour Party and its Prime Minister Keir Starmer @Keir_Starmer and LEAVE NIGERIA ALONE!

On a lighter note, it is a pity that I stopped playing polo many years ago because if it had been in my days that she attempted to visit the Lagos Polo Club, she would not have got past the gate.

How times have changed!