Kemi Badenoch
My Yoruba heritage defines me – Kemi Badenoch
The leader of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, Kemi Badenoch, has explained that she identifies more closely with her Yoruba heritage than with Nigeria as an entire entity.
Badenoch was reacting in an interview with The Spectator, a British political and cultural magazine, after ongoing controversies about her connections to Nigeria after she criticized the governance and societal issues in the country.
Indeed, Badenoch was born in the UK to Nigerian Yoruba parents and spent her early years in Nigeria before moving back to the UK at 16. She changed her Yoruba surname when she married a Scottish banker.
Badenoch’s remarks about Nigeria facing issues of corruption and insecurity previously triggered considerable backlash.
Consequently, Vice President Kashim Shettima, in his reply to the British politician, suggested that she might changed her Kemi name if she no longer wished to be connected with her homeland.
However, Badenoch in the interview highlighted her Yoruba heritage and distinguished herself from northern Nigeria, Shettima’s region of origin. She remarked:
“I find it intriguing that most people label me as a Nigerian. However, I feel a stronger connection to my specific ethnicity, Yoruba, which truly defines who I am.
“I don’t share much in common with people from the northern part of the country, where Boko Haram is active and Islamism prevails. Historically, they have been considered our ethnic adversaries, but somehow we still get grouped together with them.
“When I was very young, someone told me that my surname belonged to a lineage of warriors.”