The Nigerian-British opposition Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has described Nigeria as a “very poor country” where people do anything including the police stealing from the helpless people.
Badenoch, who had sparked a recent controversy with her comments on her Nigerian identity, said she trusts the British police more than the Nigerian police.
Badenoch in an interview with The Free Press, which is making the rounds on social media said she had several negative experiences with the Nigerian police, including when the police stole her brother’s shoes and wristwatch, but her experiences with the British police had been positive.
During the interview, Badenoch, who was asked if she trusted the British police, said, “I do. My experience with the police in Nigeria was very negative, and coming to the UK, my first experience with the police was very positive.
“The police in Nigeria would rob us. I remember the police stealing my brother’s shoes and his watch. It’s a very poor country, so people do all sorts of things and giving people a gun is just a license to intimidate but that is not the ball we should use for the British police.
“My experience was very positive, like when I was burgled for example, the police were there, they were very helpful and they eventually got the person in 2004.”
In an interview with The Spectator, Badenoch had expressed that she feels little connection to northern Nigeria, which she described as a “haven for Islamism and Boko Haram.”
“I find it interesting that everybody defines me as being Nigerian. I identify less with the country than with the specific ethnicity (Yoruba),” she had remarked.