Brickbats over Kemi Badenoch

Nigerian-born Kemi Badenoch emerged as leader of the UK Conservative Party in November. Her election has stirred considerable debates in the United Kingdom and Nigeria.

Why? Ms Badenoch is outspoken and fiery, holds unconventional views, and is very frank in expressing those views.

Former minister Femi Fani-Kayode and Mrs Dabiri-Erewa, who complained of her inaccessibility to the Diaspora Commission, are among her critics in Nigeria.

In “Kemi Badeoch’s Living Hell”, Fani-Kayode upbraided her as “a dangerous, willing tool of colonialists”, among other slurs. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/753040-kemi-badenochs-living-hell-by-femi-fani-kayode.html

His charges:
1. She is mendacious.

2. She has an “insulting characterisation of Northern Nigerian Muslims.”

3. She dared “to describe Nigeria, her country of origin, as a “living hell,” a place where she had to “walk one mile to get running water” and a country where “lizards run out of the taps!”

4. “She constantly launches heavy salvos against the Nigerian people and our ruling elites, including politicians, legislators, members of the judiciary and those who are in the private sector, calling us thieves and labelling us as being corrupt and inept.”

5. Unlike the UK, Nigeria is not supporting the holocaust in Gaza and is not complicit in the genocide that has been unleashed on the Palestinians.

Badenoch has strong backers as well. In “Fani-Kayode’s fake outrage about Kemi Badenoch”, Dr Ousola Oni wrote from Leicester to defend Badenoch and advocate for her. He knocked the former minister. https://sundiatapost.com/re-fani-kayodes-fake-outrage-about-kemi-badenoch-by-olusola-oni/

He stated, “Kemi Badenoch, Nigerian by birth, was recently elected Leader of the UK Conservative Party and Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition. She occupies the second highest position in the UK political world. She could become the UK Prime Minister after the next election. That is how politically important she is. She follows in the footsteps of the greatest statesmen in the political history of Britain. Many misguided Nigerians, particularly Yoruba, even more particularly Fani-Kayode, rather than celebrate her success, have chosen to write offensive and vile things about her. As the Leader of the Yoruba Party in the UK, I have an obligation to respond.”

1. Fani-Kayode thinks it is ok to live in a country where Fulani barbarians and savages use cattle to destroy Yoruba farmlands, rape our female folk, murder our defenceless farmers, kill worshippers in their church pews, abduct school children to make them into sex slaves, kidnap people for ransom, and generally make life insecure and intolerable. Fani-Kayode thinks living in a country that, in 2024, cannot provide constant electricity, motorable roads, and basic amenities is okay.

2. Nothing wrong with ignoring Dabiri-Erewa. First, Dabiri-Erewa has no standing or mandate to demand an audience with the UK Leader of Opposition. That is the job of the High Commission. Dabiri-Erewa is not even in the pecking order.

3. Kemi Badenoch is not alone in not supporting reparation. Up to 90% of Black people in the UK are ambivalent about it; they think it is all in the past and that we must look to the future. Their lack of support is partly due to their perception that reparation is only about cash compensation, and politicians will misuse or steal the money anyway.
4. The 1888 Britain-Yorubaland Treaty became British domestic law on paying a contractual stipend to the Alaafin. Lord Shelbourne’s Niger Committee Report of 1890 made clear that Britain had no jurisdiction over the ‘Yoruba country’. Britain did not have legal authority to amalgamate the Yorubaland into Nigeria in 1914. This is the sort of intelligent discussion we should be having with Kemi Badenoch as the Leader of the Opposition, not the myopic spite of the likes of Fani-Kayode.

5. Fani-Kayode is a Nigerianista. Self-blinkered, wilfully ignorant, deluded, suicidally optimistic Yoruba liberal; the type that danced as the Titanic sank. Intellectually mummified into humiliating fellow Yoruba, fuelled by jealousy disguised as cynicism and patriotism.

1. Is Benue State taxing citizens to fix the ozone layer?

2. Point-counterpoint on customs revenue

3. SSA on Garden Egg & Pepper

The Igbo Etiti Local Government chairman in Enugu State continues to attract guffaws on first contact with his decision to appoint Senior Special Assistants in Agriculture, emphasising garden eggs and pepper.
Hon. Dr Eric Ogbonna Odo will need to explain the rationale for the appointments. However, the significance of Ose Nsukka (Nsukka pepper) in the local government is a context. Ose Nsukka is a treasured crop that draws traders to the area and fetches enormous revenue.

4. Judiciary in focus for no-deterrence judgement

A citizen reacted in vehement opposition to the judgement of an Abuja court over a corruption case.
Interrogation shows there is more to the story than this image and anger.
An informed reader responded: “This story is 11 years old! Two years ago, this thief was convicted by the Supreme Court and sentenced to six years in prison and asked to refund N22.9 billion to FG.”