Kemi Badenoch: It’s Time for a Rethink

Tunde Rahman

Kemi Badenoch’s ill-advised denigration of Nigeria has refused to go away. Her belittlement of the country of her ancestry is still generating passionate public discourse within and outside the media space, and it appears the matter will not go away anytime soon.

Exasperated by Kemi Badenoch’s misguided attacks on Nigeria, Vice President Kashim Shettima recently counselled her to drop the Kemi in her name and bleach her ebony skin to white to further appease her Tory party and British establishment. And perturbed and seemingly lost by all that, my daughter, Kemi Mushinat, who recently graduated in Communication Studies, asked what was wrong with the name Kemi. There is nothing wrong with the name, I explained. But a lot is wrong with Kemi Badenoch (Nee Adegoke), the Leader of the British opposition Conservative Party, who opted to behave, as the Yoruba would describe it, “bi omo ale to fi owo osi ju we ile baba e”, meaning like a bastard who would go out to denigrate her ancestry by pointing the offensive finger at her roots.

Honour and dignity are inherent in the name Oluwakemi, indeed in any name. But what confers dignity, what glorifies a name, is the character the bearer brings into it. Kemi Badenoch left much to be desired, disparaging Nigeria, our motherland. She painted a gory picture of her growing up years in Nigeria from the middle of the 80s to around 1996, highlighting stories of poverty, infrastructure decay, decadence, corruption, police excesses, and leadership failure. Perhaps some of her narratives could be true, particularly in the time that immediately followed the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) misrule and the indiscretion of the emergent military regime. However, her stories reek of generalisations and prejudices often associated with most analyses by a section of Western media and commentators. They view Nigeria with their jaundiced lenses, describing the country as made of a Muslim North and Christian South, oblivious of the various Christian minorities in the North and, the plethora of Muslims in the South and the multiplicity of ethnic groups in the two divides that make a mockery of any analysis of a monolithic North or South. They view us Africans with many unproven, unorthodox assumptions.

My problem is with Mrs. Badenoch, an African, whichever way you slice it, and the character she has chosen. When Vice President Shettima lambasted her for demeaning Nigeria, Kemi Badenoch thought she had a clincher:

“I find it interesting that everybody defines me as Nigerian,” she said. “I identify less with the country than with the specific ethnicity (Yoruba). That’s what I am. I have nothing in common with the people from the North of the country, the Boko Haram where the Islamism is; those were our ethnic enemies and yet you end up being lumped in with those people.”

In that statement, the Tory leader disavowed Nigeria and excoriated the North but exalted the Yoruba. She repudiated the whole, attacking one part of the nation but embracing another. Kemi Badenoch grossly misfired, hiding under the finger of ethnic nationalism.

Perhaps it would have been pardonable if, for instance, she opposed Nigeria’s federal system and canvassed regionalism or confederacy. To condemn one race and elevate another is like playing one part against another. That utterance is dangerous in a diverse and volatile society like ours. The North (read the Hausa-Fulani, Kanuri, Tiv, Birom, Mangu, Ibira, Nupe, and many others who cohabit the entire Northern region) is no enemy of the Yoruba as Mrs Badenoch insinuated. The North voted massively for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a Yoruba man, to emerge president in 2023, as they did for the late Bashorun MKO Abiola, the winner of the annulled June 12 election in 1993. To label them the enemies of the Yoruba is condemnable.

Badenoch’s Yoruba roots emphasise good character and promote good neighbourliness, religious harmony, peaceful co-existence, respect for elders, and respect for other people’s rights. That is why Yoruba intermarry with members of different ethnic groups. It’s also commonplace in Yorubaland to find members of the same family having adherents of Islam and Christianity cohabiting together without any hassles. Boko Haram or its last vestiges poses a security challenge, perhaps a religious and sociopolitical challenge, for Nigeria, not just for the North or the North-east  which is why the government and our armed forces have battled to a standstill and are still battling the insurgents.

Therefore, the values the UK Conservative leader espoused did not represent the Yoruba. They are not the values the Yoruba would showcase, uphold, and promote. Yoruba has a rich history of culture, tradition, leadership, and loyalty to constituted authority.

Mrs Badenoch’s formative years, which she derided with negative stories of decadence, perfidy, and corruption, were part of Nigeria’s dark periods when the military held the country and the people by the jugular.

Is Kemi Badenoch now giving the impression that nothing has changed in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos, where she grew up after birth in London? Is she giving the impression there have not been significant improvements in the standard of living and infrastructure, with the rehabilitation of existing roads and opening up of new ones; in transportation with the multi-modal system complemented by water transportation and now the rail system, among other things? Despite its challenges, there is no doubt there has been a remarkable development in Lagos from the foundation laid by then Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu (now President Tinubu) from 1999 to 2007 till the present Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to the point that Lagos has emerged as one of largest economies in Africa.  Lagos State has made significant progress across all indices of development such that if it were a country, it would have ranked the sixth largest economy on the continent.

What has emerged in the entire Kemi Badenoch’s saga is her seeming double-face or multiple-face. When she was campaigning to represent her diverse Dulwich and West Norwood Constituency in the UK Parliament in 2010, she had appealed to the Nigerian community, comprising Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani and Igbo, under the aegis of “Nigerians for Kemi Badenoch,” pleading for help in the election. A campaign document that surfaced on social media showed she had reached out to all Nigerians in that constituency while highlighting her roots. In that document, Badenoch had said to her Nigerian supporters:

“I need your help. I’m running for parliament in the 2010 UK general elections. The race is very tight. Last year, the News of the World surveyed this constituency, and the forecast was that I would win. Things are much tougher this year as the party has dropped nationally in the polls. I need your help.

“I am asking for your help now to support a Nigerian trying to improve our national image and do something great here.”

After winning the election, however, she deployed her situation in Nigeria as a talking point to rally support for her policies, for which she was accused of exploiting her roots for political gains.

Her rhetoric has drastically changed with her emergence as the Leader of the Conservative Party. In the carriage, conduct and statements, she is now out to please the White establishment, particularly the White wing of her Conservative Party, subjugating her people to make Britain look good. She doesn’t mind running down anyone, including the Nigerian people and the British blacks generally.

Will this advance her politics or status? I do not think so. The British respect culture and tradition. Running down a country’s history and culture may not attract much attention. Britain also respects her relations with other countries, particularly Nigeria, given our age-long relationship. Nigeria is a significant trade and investment partner of the UK in Africa. According to the UK Department for Business and Trade, as of December 20 2024, the total trade in goods and services (exports plus imports) between the UK and Nigeria amounted to £7.2 billion in the four quarters up to the end of Q2 2024, an increase of 1.2% or £86 million in current prices from the four quarters to the end of Q2 2023.

Britain would not want to harm that substantial trade partnership and excellent relationship between the two countries in any way.

Also, several Badenoch’s Conservative Party members do not share her attitude towards Nigeria. In Zanzibar, I recently ran into Jake Berry, a top Tory Party member and former Cabinet member in the UK. While discussing the Badenoch matter, he said most Conservative Party members disagreed with her.

Kemi Badenoch has recorded an outstanding achievement in two decades of entering British politics. She joined the Conservative Party at the age of 25. Today, she stands not just as the Leader of the biggest party in Britain’s history but also as the highest black person in the United Kingdom. Her extraordinary accomplishment should have been used to inspire young people to achieve similar feats and as a foundation to inspire positive change in her country of origin, not to denigrate Nigeria or cause division and disaffection among her people. It is not too late for Mrs Badenoch to rethink and toe the line of rectitude.

-Rahman is Senior Special Assistant on Media Matters to President Tinubu.