Vice President Kashim Shettima has lashed out at the leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, for denigrating Nigeria.

Badenoch, who was born in the UK in 1980 to Nigerian Yoruba parents, recently became the leader of the Conservative Party.

Badenoch, who grew up in Nigeria before departing the country for the UK at the age of 16, before she was elected Conservative Party’s leader, described Nigeria as a nation brimming with thieving politicians and insecurity.

She said: “This is my country. I don’t want it to become like the place I ran away from.

“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 pollute the whole political atmosphere with their failure to serve others.

“I saw what socialism is for millions. I saw 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.

“I grew up in a place where fear was everywhere. You cannot understand it unless you’ve lived it.

Kemi Badenoch becomes first Black woman to lead UK’s Conservative Party

“Triple checking that all the doors and windows are locked, waking up in the night at every sound, listening as you hear your neighbours scream as they are being burgled and beaten, wondering if your home would be next.”

However, Shettima, while speaking at the 10th Annual Migration Dialogue at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Monday, December 9, 2024, berated Badenoch over her comments about Nigeria.

Shettima said: “Migrants are the source of lives in all societies.

“Rishi Sunak, the former British prime minister, originally from India, a very brilliant young man, he never denigrated his nation of ancestry nor poured venoms on India.

“Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the British Labour or Conservative Party. We are proud of her in spite of her efforts at denigrating her nation of origin.

“She is entitled to her own opinions. She has even every right to remove the Kemi from her name but that does not underscore the fact that the greatest black nation on earth is the nation called Nigeria.

“One out of every three, four black men is a Nigerian and by 2050, Nigeria will surpass the United States, will be the third most populous nation on earth.”

The Star