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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Nels Abbey

It’s easier than you think to get the measure of Kemi Badenoch – just ask around in Nigeria

Kemi Badenoch at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, 2 October 2024.
Kemi Badenoch at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, 2 October 2024. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP

The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, recently went viral over her comments on the perfidy of sandwiches and “moist bread” in an interview with the Spectator. The comment was met with glee, quips and comedic clapbacks from political rivals. Yet a few lines down in the exact same interview, Badenoch made comments, less noticed, more inflammatory, that should be eye-wateringly beneath the holder of the office of Leader of His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition.

“I find it interesting that everybody defines me as being Nigerian,” she said. “I identify less with the country than with the specific ethnicity [Yoruba]. That’s what I really am. I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country, the Boko Haram where the Islamism is, those were our ethnic enemies and yet you end up being lumped in with those people.”

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