The Presidency on Monday described the remarks about Nigeria made by the newly elected United Kingdom Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, as a “cock and bull story.”
President Bola Tinubu’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, insisted that Badenoch lied about her upbringing in Nigeria.
In 2022, Badenoch accused Nigerian politicians of using public funds for their private matters.
She claimed that her upbringing in Nigeria was overshadowed by fear and insecurity because the country was plagued by corruption.
After she was elected as UK Conservative Party leader in November 2024, the Nigerian government, through the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), reportedly tried to reach out to Badenoch, but she declined.
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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.”
