Now that the storm over Kemi Badenoch, the British opposition leader of Nigerian descent, is subsiding, it is time to do a critique of the entire episode.
Let me start this critique with Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the one who started the fireworks. According to the story , Abike had reached out to celebrate Kemi, as she usually does to Nigerian Diaspora achievers, on her landmark election to the leadership of the British Conservative party but that her gesture of goodwill was ignored, not reciprocated. She had disclosed this during an interview which unleashed a lynch mob on Kemi . The question arises : Why was it difficult for Abike to make this information public, with circumspect, rather than projecting Kemi as slighting and denigrating Nigeria ? I see an ego factor here. Apparently, Abike, a three-term House of Representatives member and CEO of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) felt miffed that a younger person could show what she must have considered disrespect to her and wanted to get her pound of flesh, hence the negative portrayal of the British politician. That was an error of judgement.. Had Abike demonstrated the maturity of her age, she would have tempered her seeming anger , knowing there could be other occasions of interaction and the subject of her anger might even offer an apology. But her bruised ego and a sense of self importance got in the way. So, 62-year old Abike Kafayat Dabiri-Erewa,, apparently in a vengeful fit, felt she must lit fire under her much younger ‘aburo’ ( ‘sister ‘), 44-year old Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch, who she must have disdained as an effete snob, to teach her a lesson !!
The lynch mob was unsparing and Kemi Badenoch responded in kind , leading to brick-bats. The critics denounced her for the alleged denigration of Nigeria, the country of her ancestry. An angry Kemi shot back that she was not interested in identifying with the corruption-ridden Nigerian state, hobbled by Boko haram insurgency, banditry and Islamic fanaticism, but rather with her Yoruba ethnic nativity. She would not want to be lumped with people from the northern part of the country who she said were Yoruba’s ethnic enemies. Her spokesman said she was not inclined to do public relations for Nigeria.
Her unrepentant stand incensed the critics. One of the first to jump into the fray was Femi Fani-Kayode, the ex-Aviation minister during the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, who in his characteristic vitriolic use of language poured venom on Kemi. He wrote about Kemi in The Nation of December 15, 2024 : “ 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 and we see her as being the devil incarnate and spawn of satan”. He was not done, describing her as “ a mere irritant or the inconsequential object of our contempt and ridicule”. Strong words. Fani-Kayode, we all know, thrives on inserting himself into every controversy, apparently to retain visibility in the public arena. He is, therefore, often precipitate and intemperate in his interventions to steal the limelight. He takes up an issue and becomes the sympathizer who cries more than the bereaved !. Other emergency Nigerian nationalists waded in. Prof. Ishaq Akintola, executive director of Muslim Rights Concern ( MURIC ) became a police apologist, blasting Kemi for projecting the Nigeria police as corrupt, contending that policemen stealing her brother’s shoes could not justify such generalization . Really, Prof. ? This is playing the ostrich, given documented evidence of not only police extortion and brutality, but killings from ‘accidental discharge’ and deaths of suspects under police detention. A most recent example was when rogue policemen, mid December 2024, in Kwara state, detained a debtor to a brother of one of their colleagues and the man ended up dead in police custody. Kehinde Yusuf described Kemi Badenoch ‘elenu razor’’ ( A razor-sharp-tongued person) for her outspokenness , pointing out that ‘’ with immensely astounding attributes which are undermined by equally fundamental flaws’’, she has ‘’the making of a tragic hero’’. That is morbid negativism.
Enter the big masquerade into the Kemi bashing arena – the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Kashim Shettima . The vice president, while performing an official function in connection with migration in Abuja, could not resist the temptation of digressing to join the fray. Displaying an expansive mood, as shown on TVC News, the vice president praised former British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, as a “ very brilliant young man “ who was ‘’originally from India’’, for not denigrating India. Wrong, Mr. Vice President. Rishi was born in the UK, but those words ‘’ originally from India’’ implied he was born in India and migrated to the UK. Secondly, unlike Kemi who lived in Nigeria in her formative years, Rishi never lived in India, so, there is no basis of comparison with Kemi’s experience in the country of her ancestry. In fact, Rishi Sunak’s father was born in Kenya of Indian migrants, highlighting his generational distance from India. Describing Rishi as “ very brilliant’’ was also meant as a put down on Kemi. But pray, what is “ very brilliant “ about a Prime Minister who led his party to its worst electoral defeat ?
Shettima was apparently not sure which party Mrs. Kemi Badenoch is a leader. He had stated on live TV : Mrs. Kemi Badenoch, the leader of British Labour , Conservative party … ! This is the kind of embarrassing gaffe that happens when someone jumps, precipitately, into a fray.
The clincher was Vice President Shettima telling Kemi Badenoch that she could even remove the Kemi from her name if she does not identify with Nigeria. Kemi is a Yoruba name, her ethnic group, which she revere and proudly proclaim as “ my true identify “ , so Vice President Shettima asking her to jettison the name smacked of a gratuitous and illogical advice. Kemi had distanced herself from the people from the North as having nothing in common with her Yoruba people. That was a bit of an exaggeration. But even then , we may ask : What does insecurity ravaged, poverty-stricken, illiteracy ( Almajiri ) bedeviled and religiously intolerant North have in common with the Yoruba southwest ? This is a frank reality check, not an umbrage, and should be a wake up call to the North’s leadership. Prof. Rasheed Ojikutu, in a write-up in The Guardian of Sunday, January 5, 2025 titled : Garland for Kemi Badenoch, put it very succinctly : A woman who says she is proudly Yoruba, but disregarded Nigeria as an entity may not be ‘’silly’’ after all because she certainly knows her onions. She is certainly not a fool in her attempt to ‘’ separating Paul from Barnabas’’. Prof. Ojikutu , alluding to corruption, one of Kemi’s grouses against Nigeria, asked : ‘’ Why do we want to nail Kemi Badenoch to the cross … why should someone with international repute not be ashamed about a country where an individual is alleged to have built 753 duplexes from the money taken from the purse of taxpayers ? ‘’. Kemi’s position about the North constituting enemies of the Yoruba , is taken literally by many and condemned. But were the state governments in Yoruba land not forced to raise the Amotekun security outfits to contain invading enemies ( killer herdsmen ) from the North ?
Perhaps, Vice President Shettima’s angst was Kemi’s disparaging of Boko haram which possibly touched a nerve , considering that Shettima was governor of Borno state , the epicenter of Boko haram insurgency between 2011 and 2019, when the insurgents were at their destructive peak, controlling many local government areas and unleashing a spate of bombings , including on the UN Office in Abuja. Shettima , a state commissioner , who served in five ministries between 2007 and 2011 when he was elected governor , was a protégé of Governor Ali Modu Sheriff who has been tainted with allegations of sponsoring Boko haram which emerged in Maiduguri in 2002 during Sheriff’s governorship tenure ( 1999 – 2011 ). Following lingering allegations, Ali Modu Sheriff had to address a press conference in Abuja on 3 September 2014 , three years after leaving office, to deny any link with Boko haram.
It is instructive that 15 years on, since 2009, Shettima’s Borno state remains the epicenter of Boko haram , whose ability to regroup have been confounding to the military, as admitted by Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Christopher Musa , in his interview with Al Jazeera on January 5, 2025. Boko haram is an enduring security menace and an economic albatross on the nation . According to statista.com, Boko haram attacks led to 38,255 deaths in Borno state between 2011 and 2023 of the total 66,748 deaths in the Northeast impacted in the period and the 125 IDPs , with 1.7 million people, in Borno state, constitute 82 percent of IDPs in the affected Northeast states. Budgetary wise, insecurity had forced high defence allocations with $5.13 billion (N3.85 trillion) in the 2024 budget, representing a 37.99 percent increase over the $4.00 billion ( N2.79 trillion ) allocated in 2023. These are sobering statistics that should have dawned on the vice president. Boko haram mutated into banditry in the Northwest, twin evils which Kemi Badenoch distanced the Yoruba from which apparently drew the ire of Vice President Shettima.
To underscore the fact that it was a misadventure for vice president Shettima to have joined in Kemi bashing, it was only his intervention that attracted foreign media reportage . The Independent, (UK) of Dec. . 11, 2024 had captioned its story : Nigerian government hits out at Kemi Badenoch after she criticized the country. The story’s lead reads : New Conservative leader is embroiled in a diplomatic row over comments she made about the African country where she grew up. It is projected as a diplomatic row because of Shettima’s exalted status as vice president, which apparently was lost on him. The newspaper , on December 15, 2024, carried a follow up story captioned : Nigerian VP who attacked Kemi Badenoch was accused of failures when Boko haram kidnapped 200 girls. The Independent quoted allies of Kemi as urging “people to scrutinize the record of Mr. Shettima as being illustrative of the problems in Nigeria and its failings “. The BBC on December 11, 2024 headlined its report : Badenoch stands by Nigeria comments after criticism while Voice of America (VOA) , Dec. 11, 2024 report is captioned : Nigeria’s vice president slams British Conservative party leader.
Shettima, as vice president, holds a very important office and should not have joined the lynch mob against Kemi, in the first instance. With an M.Sc degree in agricultural economics from University of Ibadan and a two-year stint ( 1991-93) as a Lecturer at University of Maiduguri before following the money to the banking sector where he rose to the position of General Manager at Zenith bank, Shettima’s pedigree dictates a more calculative intervention in the public arena. Many Nigerians, home and in the Diaspora, as well as those others of Nigerian ancestry abroad, are frustrated with the insecurity and high level of corruption plaguing the country, in spite of Shettima’s bragging about Nigeria as the greatest black nation on earth. Kemi Badenoch’s knocks on Nigeria should be seen in the context of someone disappointed that the great Black Hope , the country of her ancestry, is not living up to its billing. I give the last words to Prof. Ojikutu : “ Instead of being sheepishly dogmatic and unnecessarily self-opinionated, we should call on Mrs. ( Kemi ) Badenoch to bend head for a garland because she is able to prick our memory to systemic failures in our nation building”.
Dr. Bisi Olawunmi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Mass Communication, Adeleke University, Ede and former Washington Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN) is a Fellow, Nigerian Guild of Editors (FNGE) Email : olawunmibisi@yahoo.com Phone (SMS ONLY) 0803 364 7571.
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