Kemi Badenoch is a young and enterprising woman who has done so much for herself within so short a time as a British politician.
That the Nigerian-born lady emerged as the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain recently, is no mean feat that has put her in contention for the office of the British Prime Minister. The British model being a parliamentary system, Kemi could be seen as an alternative or potential prime minister.
However, Nigeria is lost in the wave of emotion against the young woman. She was accused of making uncomplimentary remarks about Nigeria so much so that the Vice President, Shettima, left pressing state matters to tackle her, advising her to shred her name, Kemi, and her Nigerianness.
In Kemi’s caustic reply, she bared it all, positioning herself as an ethnic champion, a Yoruba, who does not care about the North of the country with whom she said she has no connection.
I don’t quite agree with Kemi. She was tactless in her response but then, that is her. It is her choice and, like the American President-elect, Donald Trump, she has shown that she likes shooting from the hip, her bazooka in full public glare.
Those of us who accuse her of being impolitic can testify that it is the glib tongue of politicians that brought Nigeria to its present deplorable state. So, perhaps, it is better to say it as one sees, feels, and knows. Truth is bitter.
Kemi is a Briton even though she has Nigerian ancestry, which she is at liberty to deny but has not. Her primary role is to protect her country, not Nigeria or her selfish leaders. Kemi was very correct when she said she was not cut out to be Nigeria’s public relations consultant.
A lot of people want Trump’s head on the chopping block because of his immigration policy. I am also not comfortable with it, especially with his recent talks of uprooting entire families, including legal migrants, to avoid disrupting family cohesion. Be that as it may, Trump is an American whose role is primarily to protect America and Americans, unlike our so-called leaders whose interest is to protect their interests and their loot.
Only sure-footed Trump can bring back the glory of God’s Own Country that has been bastardised by overly libertine Satanists, masquerading as ‘Demoncrats’.
Trump critics are sensationally sentimental they neglect to ask why people, more closely, Nigerians, ‘japa’ to America, and even obscure lands that one cannot easily pick from the world map. If the country is well run, why would anybody want to embark on suicidal trips to America or Europe, criss-crossing hazardous deserts?
So, before we kill Kemi (or Trump), we need to situate what the issues are. Is there any truth in what they said?
According to Kemi: “I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country, the Boko Haram where Islamism is.
“I am here to protect, and I will die protecting this country because I know what’s out there”, she said in an interview with The Spectator.
I deliberately ignored the Yoruba ethnic slant of what she said to focus on the key thing. If Nigeria is what it should be, she would not have said that. She said what everyone else felt. More so, as a leader, she knows what it means to protect her country.
The truth is that there is no Nigeria. We are all ethnic warriors, managing to cling to a mirage. Most of the anger expressed against President Bola Tinubu’s beautiful Tax Reform Bills is that “it is anti-North; it is not favourable to the North.” But must Nigeria be grounded because of the North?
This ‘North’ has stagnated the country through selfish policies imposed by assumed leaders, meant to favour her but they backfired. They balkanised the country in favour of the North via condemnable policies such as doctored census figures, cut-off marks, etc. Unfortunately, it has backfired.
The terrorism that now threatens to consume the North, who are behind it? When this was in its infancy, was it not the North that stopped action against the insurgents? Did we not hear ‘leaders’ describe the bloodsuckers as their ‘brothers’? Did they not confront the then Governor of Oyo State, the late Lam Adesina, over the mistreatment of their ‘brothers’, who were killer herdsmen?
By the way, who frustrated ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s move against the insurgents? How was it possible to ferry hundreds of Chibok and Dapchi schoolgirls away from their schools across communities without a whimper? That is exactly what Kemi was referring to; let the truth be told.
I am happy though that there are some reasonable northern brothers. I listened to Yakubu Dogara on the Channelss Television-organised town hall on the proposed tax reforms and I must confess that I saw a bright light coming out of the North, if they don’t extinguish it by their retrogressive mindset. Dogara won my respect. Emir Sanusi has also consistently hit hard on what is dragging the region backward, especially their harem and filling the space with children they cannot train.
Senator Shehu Sani is another star up North. Recently, I read what was credited to him, calling on the North to probe itself.
Some of his laudable observations: “For ethnic, religious, and sectional reasons, we protected, defended, praised, and refused to hold to account all our kinsmen who led the country at every wasted opportunity for over five decades.
“The bandits and terrorists that kill and kidnap our people deny our farmers from going to their farms and deny our children from going to school are not from any country or the south of the country; they came from our homes and our families up North.
“We don’t vote for people who will serve us; we vote for those who will give us spaghetti and grains.
“We concoct and spread all sorts of religiously inclined conspiracies to deny our children free health immunisation against diseases and we end up with hundreds of thousands of blind, lame, crippled, and deaf children, who grow up as impaired victims of polio, glaucoma or leprosy, begging in the streets of northern and southern cities.
“Most of our industries and factories in Kano, Kaduna, and Jos have since closed down when our kinsmen were in power.
“Our farmers in rural areas have been farming with hoes for the whole period our kinsmen have been in power. The groundnut and cotton pyramids and fields disappeared long when our kinsmen were at the helm.
“When our Kinsmen were in power, we attributed our poverty and insecurity to God and our sins; when our Kinsmen were out of power, we attributed our sufferings to the king.
“The FCT is in the North. Can anyone explain why the people from the region couldn’t dominate the private businesses in the FCT, Suleja, and Marraraba? Who should be blamed for this?
“God gave us the largest land mass, the largest number of people, the most of the Rivers, and the resources and livestock and gave us power for most of our history; which of the favours of our Lord can we deny?
“The North; Eighty percent of our problem is ourselves and not anyone ‘outside of ourselves,” he rightly summed it up. God be with him.
These are what anger Kemi. I believe that she hates neither Nigeria nor the North but such palpable impishness that has manacled the country to poverty. She is angered by the rudderless leadership that has run the country aground. Let us leave Kemi alone and probe not just the North but Nigeria’s leadership apparatchik.
It is not yet certain if, and when Nigeria could get off the one-chance bus ferrying us to avoidable doom. Over the years, Nigeria has been afflicted by contused leadership, which prefers self-glorification of mendacity instead of striving to be among make the country great. Leadership deficit is our bane and it’s all traceable to the North.
Those who join in condemning the duo have missed their way or are beneficiaries of the perfidious leadership. We should express outrage at the vacuous leadership model that has crippled the country instead of antagonising statesmen, who have the interests of their country at heart.
Trump and Kemi have thrown challenges to our roguery leaders. It is left for them to take up the challenge or toe the opposite path.