UK Conservative Party Leader, Kemi Badenoch, has criticised what she described as Britain’s overly lenient immigration system, contrasting it with Nigeria’s stricter policies, even when it comes to her own children.
Speaking during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, Badenoch argued that many immigrants exploit the UK’s openness in ways that would not be accepted in their home countries.
“There are many people who come to our country, to the UK, who do things that would not be acceptable in their countries,” she said.
When Zakaria asked whether she would permit a Nigerian immigrant to recreate a “mini-Nigeria” in the UK under the guise of cultural integration, Badenoch was firm, saying, “That is not right. Nigerians would not tolerate that. That’s not something that many countries would accept.”
To drive her point home, she cited the difficulty she faces in passing Nigerian citizenship to her children.
“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 said.
“Yet loads of Nigerians come to the UK and stay for a relatively free period of time, acquire British citizenship. We need to stop being naive.”
Badenoch, a mother of three with husband Hamish Badenoch, didn’t hold back on her intentions either—stating that if elected Prime Minister, she would make obtaining British citizenship “a lot harder.”
Born in the UK to Yoruba parents in 1980, Badenoch spent part of her early life in Nigeria before returning to Britain at 16. She previously held cabinet roles under former Prime Ministers Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak between 2022 and 2024.
