By Abimbola Adelakun
Nigerians who feel slighted by UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch’s disparaging comments about their country are free to respond to her in whatever manner suits them. When someone like Badenoch makes denigrating comments about Nigeria, it is its people who suffer the indignity of such talk.
A country might be an abstract entity, but it is also occupied by real-life people who deserve some courtesy. So, yes, I do understand the Nigerians taking her comments badly. What I vehemently disagree with is Vice President Kashim Shettima joining them. He is just as opportunistic and should have no mouth to talk.
Since he seems to have forgotten his priors, let me remind him—again—that just 10 years ago, he and some northern governors pulled a similar stunt against President Goodluck Jonathan in Washington, DC, USA. Media reports tell us that then Nigerian Ambassador, Prof. Ade Adefuye, restrained them as they backstabbed the country before Western observers.
Now, the same Shettima is wailing because someone else is doing it. If denigrating Nigeria for gain worked well enough to make him the vice president, who is he to tell anyone else not to use the same tactic? What has Badenoch said that is substantially different from what All Peoples Congress had said about Nigeria when they were in the “opposition”?
Whether “Yoruba” or “Nigerian”, Badenoch can identify as she pleases. Even though it does not make sense to me that one can be one without the other, burning emotional fuel over someone else’s choices is not worth it. Who knows the sacrifices they have had to make to be who they are? What I do know for sure is that however Badenoch chooses to identify, she has something in common with Nigerians who speak indecorously of Nigeria when they are seeking the benevolence of white power. Some of those excoriating Badenoch (like Shettima) have either done so themselves or will do so if the prize is right.
Some years ago, I was a judge on a committee that awarded a prize for fiction to young writers, and I ended up traumatised by the entries from Nigerians. From the violence of Boko Haram to child marriage, sexual assaults, and other horrors, Nigeria came across as an entirely joyless place in its writings. None of the aspiring writers envisioned a world where dysfunctionality was not the Nigerian norm. In my report, I had to urge the prize organisers to reconsider the themes they put out so that entrants would be forced to think differently. Still, they are no different from the Nigerians seeking asylum in North America/Europe, who claim they are escaping from whatever horror is trending. At a time, it was genital mutilation. Nowadays, they are either fleeing homosexual persecution or Boko Haram/maniacal herdsmen. Whatever story touches the hearts of white Western powers, they will trade their country for it.
In January, humanist Leo Igwe wrote an article lamenting how Nigerians predate on stories of persecuted humanists like Mubarak Bala to seek asylum abroad. Recently too, a Nigerian couple in the UK escaped deportation by claiming to the court that they needed to stay because the wife would be unable to access IVF facilities in Nigeria. Saying a country lacks IVF clinics in 2024 is tantamount to claiming it is behind in time, but yes, people will say anything that gets them ahead. Perhaps some of such people also genuinely think Badenoch is “throwing Nigeria under the bus”.
By virtue of my job, I have been solicited to testify in court on behalf of some Nigerians seeking asylum in the USA. When you hear the stories about Nigeria these applicants have told the oyinbo lawyers fighting on their behalf, you will be embarrassed. While I will not lie under oath on behalf of anyone, I also do not go around puncturing their claims. While their stories might not be factually true, they might also not be substantially false. Who knows what battles they fought to get where they are?
Whatever one thinks of Badenoch’s politics, we should also accept that it is part of the tactics that brought her so far. For instance, in the interview where she related her experience with the Nigerian police, the question was about the British police. She dragged in the Nigerian police to make them a foil of their British counterparts. She tactically deflected issues since an uncomplimentary comment about the police could be ideological suicide for a right-wing politician like her. To praise the British police, she had to justify it by bringing the inept Nigerian police. It could not have been that hard for her to find a story to tell.
Anyone who trawled the internet during EndSARS will be spoilt for choice of which distressing police encounter to narrate. We can console ourselves by pulling up statistics of violence in the UK to relativise issues, but in our quiet moments, can we also acknowledge to ourselves that no situation has arisen in the UK that their nationals are selling their worldly goods to escape to Nigeria?
Whatever we might think of Badenoch’s rhetorical manoeuvres, we cannot deny it works. It has brought her far; why should she change now? Politicians generally say what their constituents want to hear and until that kind of talk stops exciting her audience, no amount of glowering by Shettima will change anything. No reasonable person alters a method that works.
Shettima and his fellow travellers need to think beyond an individual. Between June 2022 and 2023, about 141,000 Nigerians migrated to the UK alone. Within that same period, another 22,000 Nigerians also settled in Canada. Most of them are young. Add other countries, and you will see a large pool of who will breed children of hyphenated nationalities you will be hearing about in the next 30 years. The probability that one of them might become the leader of a first-world nation rises as the number of migrants increases. Is Nigeria going to wait until one of them attains a political height before sending Abike Dabiri-Erewa to stick their “Nigerianness” on them? They had better start cultivating relationships with them while still young.
Years ago, I learned from a friend (who is French) that France has schools for its citizens in the USA where they learn French culture, history, and politics. They are taught in French, so they speak it fluently. It got me thinking about how forward-looking Western governments can be. They know that some of those kids will one day rise to strategic places in the USA, and they are already looking out for France’s interest by inculcating “Frenchness” in them. The USA, Israel, and other powerful countries all do the same. When Shettima compared Badenoch to former British PM of Indian heritage Rishi Sunak, what he did not factor in is the relationship India must have built with him before he got that far.
Someone of Badenoch’s profile badmouthing Nigeria should be a wake-up call for leaders to move conversations beyond whether Nigerians should japa or not. They should have realised by now that it cannot be taken for granted that children of Nigerian heritage will be sentimental towards their parents’ country. As more children are being born abroad, you should start an outreach to get them on your side as they grow. You cannot guarantee that every single one will be your ambassador, but when that day comes someone says something disparaging, you will have a solid structure that will overwhelm that individual defector. Even better, you will not need to disgrace yourself in the international media by asking that person to change their name. Imagine someone with a “non-Nigerian” name like “Kashim Shettima” asking a Yoruba woman to change her name because he disagrees with her politics. Yeye!
