Kemi Badenoch will soon learn her lessons, says ex-minister Akinyemi

A former Minister of External Affairs, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, has berated the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, over her latest denigration of Nigeria.

The former Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs said Badenoch was wrong for denigrating Nigeria on the global stage to advance her political career.

Speaking during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Monday, Akinyemi said Badenoch will soon learn her lessons, addding that her stories about Nigeria are for political gains.

He said, “How the daughter of a Professor of UNILAG, her father who was a medical doctor, a girl who went to the international school at UNILAG would make it sound like she was selling groundnut and selling water in Lagos to advance her political career.

“She would soon learn that you don’t throw your people and your culture under the bus to advance your career. She is making a mistake but she would soon learn.”

The octogenarian asked the UK Conservative party leader to leave Nigeria alone and focus on strengthening her party in Britain.

He added, “After all, right now, there is even Right Wing political party in the United Kingdom that is even to the right of the Conservative Party. So, what she should be focusing on is how to regain that rightwing profile of the Conservative Party and leave Nigeria alone.”

PUNCH Online reports that Badenoch, at an event organised by a British think-tank producing research on economic and social issues, Onward, last Thursday, stated that she doesn’t want the UK to suffer the fate of “terrible governments” like Nigeria.

She had said, “And why does this matter so much to me? It’s because I know what it is like to have something and then to lose it. I don’t want Britain to lose what it has.

“I grew up in a poor country and watched my relatively wealthy family become poorer and poorer, despite working harder and harder as their money disappeared with inflation.

“I came back to the UK aged 16 with my father’s last £100 in the hope of a better life. So, I have lived with the consequences of terrible governments that destroy lives, and I never, ever want it to happen here.”