The Presidency criticized the recent comments made by Kemi Badenoch, the new UK Conservative Party leader, about Nigeria as a fabricated story.
President Bola Tinubu’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, strongly refuted Badenoch’s claims about her Nigerian upbringing, stating that she was not being truthful.
Kemi Badenoch had accused Nigerian politicians of misusing public funds for personal use and described her childhood in Nigeria as fraught with fear and insecurity due to widespread corruption.
Despite attempts by the Nigerian government, through the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), to reach out to Badenoch after her election in November 2024, she reportedly declined the invitation.
Reacting, Ajayi posted on X: “You are Kemi Badenoch, an opposition leader and a future Prime Minister of the UK. A journalist asked you about the state of the police in the country you hope to govern.
“Instead of answering the question with how you would make the police more efficient and accountable in protecting the people of the UK, you resorted to an inane cock and bull story of how policemen stole your brother’s shoe in Nigeria
“For someone who has obviously lied about everything she said about her upbringing in Nigeria just for the feel-good effect of keeping her new job, how can we be sure her brother’s so-called police experience in Nigeria was not another made-up story?
“Her story of carrying a desk and chair to sit in class at ISL didn’t add up. Her claim that she had no clean water to drink was complete baloney for a girl who grew up in an upper-middle-class family—her mother a university professor and her father a successful medical doctor who ran a well-known private hospital with a rich clientele.”
