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Kemi Badenoch and the Elevation of Hypocrisy
The Leader of British Conservative Party and Opposition in the United Kingdom Parliament, Kemi Badenoch, has continued to stir the hornet’s nest with her controversial statements about Nigeria since assuming office recently. She has made what many consider denigrating statements against Nigeria, her country of origin, while exalting the UK, her adopted country.
Nigerians from all walks of life, including the Vice President, Kashim Shettima, have reacted to Badenoch’s scathing remarks that painted Nigeria as a highly corrupt, economically poor, insecure, destructive and unsafe entity almost not fit for human habitation.
While her remarks about the country cannot entirely be dismissed, because a good number of Nigerians including yours sincerely, have been victims of the brokenness of the country, her flawed and effusive glorification of the United Kingdom, prove that she is either grossly ignorant of Nigeria’s foundational deficiencies or she deliberately chooses to ignore the facts and spew heavily skewed narratives against Nigeria to the advantage of the UK while feathering her own political nest.
It will seem Badenoch is ready and ever willing to play the role of Judas Iscariot: trade Nigeria at whatever cost for the sustenance of her own political ascendancy. That is the angst of many Nigerians that got peeved by her rants.
Everything Nigeria suffers today is arguably a direct result of the brutish legacies of the British in colonial Africa. From Nembe Kingdom to the Oyo Empire; from the Owa Kingdom to the Benin Kingdom; from today’s Chibok to Calabar; from Zaria to Opobo; from Onitsha to Ife; the nation reeks of British infamous heritage of blood, sorrow, fraud, corruption, outright stealing among other unspeakable vices.
While we agree that our police, and by extension, our political leaders, need to do far better, Badenoch should have focused on her new role as leader of the opposition in the UK to help clean up the heinous history of that country. History shows that our police and political leaders inherited several vices from the British. Such vices include but not limited to Kemi Badenoch’s Britain holding tightly on to their monumental loot from Africa.
History has it that at a point in Owa Kingdom, highly regarded chiefs of the people were publicly flogged by the then District Commissioner of Agbor, Offley Stuart Crew-Read, for not providing him with enough eggs, fowls, yam, water. It was as bad as that. Such a legacy!
In 1897, the British forcefully seized 500 ivory tusks worth over Two Million British Pounds from the Benin Empire after the forced ousting of the then Oba, Ovonramwen Nogbaisi. As of today, the British Museum alone holds around 73,0000 valuable cultural objects looted from Africa by the British colonial usurpers. And all efforts to get them to return these looted artefacts back to their original owners in Africa have met with a brick wall. Even though former colonial usurpers like France and Germany have enacted new laws to facilitate the return of these looted artefacts back to Africa, Britain has stubbornly held on to them and refused to follow in the footsteps of France and Germany as they have refused to amend the criminal British Museum Act of 1963 and the National Heritage Act of 1983 which prevent British institutions illegally holding these artefacts from returning them.
Is Kemi Badenoch not ashamed of these facts concerning Britain? Does she not feel embarrassed that the world’s largest diamond known as the Star of Africa which weighs a whopping 530 carats and set in the British royal scepter with which King Charles III was coronated in May 2023, and still holds to date, was stolen from Africa in 1905 by the colonial British usurpers? Does she not cringe or get flummoxed knowing full well that a similar piece of diamond also stolen from Africa by British colonial masters, even though smaller, is also set in the Imperial State Crown worn by British monarchs on ceremonial occasions? How does she feel knowing that the highly revered British monarchs are coronated with a scepter and a crown emblazoned with stolen jewels from Africa? How does she feel seeing her king/queen flaunting stolen pieces of diamond with shameless relish before the entire world in the name of royalty?
It was the same crown and sceptre emblazoned with looted diamonds from Africa that the British crowned the late Queen Elizabeth with 70 years ago. How come Britain still hold on to stolen property from Africa for so long with such impunity and still crown their monarchs with the items right in the full glare of the whole world while a certain Kemi Badenoch continues to play the ostrich?
Can there be anything more shameless than that? Can there be any other message so poignant yet so pungent than that? One can only imagine what would have happened if the tables turned and an African Head of State is crowned with jewels stolen from the West!
That act alone is a loud and clear indisputable indication that the West does not really care about Africa but only about itself. They still hold on to other stolen artefacts looted from Africa by their forefathers and brazenly display them in their museums for tourists or for whatever other purposes.
They could not have unjustly killed our fathers, enslaved our brothers, degraded our mothers, shackled our children, looted our resources and artefacts, and still try to lecture us on societal values while also attempting to impose upon us their depraved ways of life!
Kemi recently said that, “Somebody once told me when I was young that my surname was a name for people who were warriors. They protected the crown, and that’s what I see myself doing.” She wants to protect stolen diamonds because they are to the criminal advantage of the British but talks down on those who steal shoes and wristwatches?
Rather than hypocritically pontificate about Nigeria and the UK, Kemi should use her privileged position as leader of the country’s Conservative Party to clean up Britain’s criminal record of mindless looting of our artefacts and precious jewels and ensure their return to their original owners in Africa. She can go beyond mere rhetoric by following in the footsteps of a former Foreign Secretary Charles James Fox who initiated the anti-slavery Bill that eventually saw to the abolition of slavery in Britain.
They steal our resources through subterfuge; they become so rich and powerful through them, and then turn around to lecture us on morality.
That nonsense must stop forthwith!
