The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has described as false the claim by the Leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, that she cannot pass her Nigerian citizenship to her children because she is a woman.
Onanuga, in a post on his X handle today, said Badenoch owed her fatherland an apology for the misleading statement.
The President’s Special Adviser urged Britain to send the Conservative Party leader, whom he described as “our lost daughter”, back to Nigeria for a proper re-education.
Britain should send our lost daughter Kemi Badenoch home for a proper re-education. Thanks to Shola Shogbamimu for enlightening the Tory politician. Section 25 of our constitution defines who has the right to Nigerian citizenship.
“25. (1) The following persons are citizens of Nigeria by birth, namely- (a) every person born in Nigeria before the date of independence, either of whose parents or any of whose grandparents belongs or belonged to a community indigenous to Nigeria; Provided that a person shall not become a citizen of Nigeria by virtue of this section if neither of his parents nor any of his grandparents was born in Nigeria.
“(b) every person born in Nigeria after the date of independence either of whose parents or any of whose grandparents is a citizen of Nigeria; and (c) every person born outside Nigeria either of whose parents is a citizen of Nigeria. (2) In this section, “the date of independence” means the 1st day of October 1960,” he wrote.
Badenoch, who was born in the United Kingdom in 1980 to Nigerian parents, made the claim during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday while contrasting the immigration policies of Nigeria and Britain.
“It’s virtually impossible, for example, to get Nigerian citizenship. I have that citizenship by virtue of my parents, I can’t give it to my children because I’m a woman,” she said.
She argued that immigrants often exploit Britain’s system, adding that Nigerians easily become UK citizens whereas her children cannot obtain Nigerian citizenship.
Badenoch spent much of her childhood in Nigeria before returning to the UK at age 16. She has three children with her a Scottish banker husband, Hamish Badenoch and adopted his surname after marriage.