The Presidency has said the constant negative comments by UK Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch against Nigeria won’t have any effect on the country.
Badenoch recently renewed her onslaught against Nigeria.
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While delivering her first speech of the year at an event organised by Onward, a British think tank producing research on economic and social issues, the Nigerian-born politician said she did not want Britain to be like Nigeria where she claimed the government had failed.
However, a Presidential spokesman, Daniel Bwala during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, said the UK Conservative Party leader’s comment was to gain the favour of her party.
Bwala said, “I don’t think it would have an effect because she’s not the government in power.
“Usually, these international relationships or collaborations are dealings between governments. Because she’s not the government in power, it will not have any effect.
“Secondly, because she’s a Nigerian, investors will be smart enough to assess what she’s saying, and see whether it is borne out of rhetoric.”
Bwala, in the interview, acknowledged Badenoch’s achievements in the UK, but argued that she is capitalising on populism that thrives on public discontent.
The Presidential spokesman said, “The only problem we have with Kemi, I think, is the rhetoric because Kemi belongs to the right base in the United Kingdom, which is what you see in this populism around the world; that you can deepen on your support system if you can feed off of the anger of the people.
“And so she’s building a rhetoric of denigrating Nigeria, demarketing Nigeria, so she can probably win the acceptance of the rights in her party. And that to me, is counterproductive because if you look at Rishi Sunak, he is also of Indian origin.
“There has been this issue of gang rape in India. He has never used that as a weapon to promote what he believed to be a departure from what is likely to be believed as hereditary or history of the Indian people, but she has always denigrated Nigeria.”
