Presidency replies ‘ignorant Kemi Badenoch’, tells UK to send her home for proper education

The Presidency has fired back at British Conservative Party Leader, Kemi Badenoch, over her claim that she cannot pass Nigerian citizenship to her children because she is a woman, calling the assertion false and urging the UK to send her “home for a proper re-education.”

Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, took to his X handle on Monday to challenge Badenoch’s statement, made during a CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria.

He said her remarks misrepresented Nigerian law and demanded an apology.

“Kemi Badenoch lied. She owes her fatherland some apology,” Onanuga wrote. “Britain should send our lost daughter Kemi Badenoch home for a proper re-education.”

The presidential aide cited Section 25 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended), which clearly states that anyone born outside Nigeria is a citizen by birth if either parent is a Nigerian citizen, regardless of gender.

“Section 25 of our constitution defines who has the right to Nigerian citizenship… Every person born outside Nigeria, either of whose parents is a citizen of Nigeria,” Onanuga stated, quoting directly from the law.

Badenoch, born in the UK to Nigerian parents, had argued in the CNN interview that her children could not obtain Nigerian citizenship through her because of her gender.

“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 claimed.

Onanuga praised Nigerian-British lawyer and political activist Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu for correcting Badenoch publicly and called her intervention “enlightening.”

Badenoch, who spent part of her childhood in Nigeria before returning to the UK at 16, is married to a Scottish banker and has three children.