By Kolawole Ojebisi
Daniel Bwala, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Communication has said the leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, is hurling denigrating remarks at Nigeria to curry favour with influential members of her political party in her bid to become British Prime Minister.
Bwala, however, noted that her approach to securing power may turn out to be “counterproductive” advising Badenoch to emulate former British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who is of Indian descent.
The presidential aide stressed that Sunak never for once cast aspersions on Indian despite many challenges confronting his native country.
Bwala spoke while featuring on Channels Television’s programme, “Sunrise Daily” on Monday.
He said, “She’s building a rhetoric of denigrating Nigeria, demarketing Nigeria, so she can probably win the acceptance or acceptation of the rights in her party.”
Speaking further, Bwala noted that Sunak had never used the “issue of gang rape” to condemn India, saying, “And that to me is counterproductive because if you look at Rishi Sunak, he is also of Indian origin. There has been this issue of gang rape in India. He has never used that as a weapon to promote what he believed to be a departure from what is likely to be believed as hereditary or history of the Indian people, but she has always denigrated Nigeria.”
The presidential aide, however, dismissed Badenoch’s persistent attack on Nigeria stressing that “demarketing” the country is ineffective as her party is not in power.
He remarked that relationships among countries are between governments, not individuals, pointing out that Badenoch’s comments do not affect Nigeria.
“The only problem we have with Kemi, I think, is the rhetoric because Kemi belongs to the right base in the United Kingdom which is what you see in this populism around the world that you can deepen on your support system if you can feed off of the anger of the people.
“I don’t think it would have an effect because she’s not the government in power. Usually, these international relationships or collaborations are dealings between governments. Because she’s not the government in power, it will not have any effect.
“Secondly, because she’s a Nigerian, investors will be smart enough to access what she’s saying, whether it is born out of rhetoric,” Bwala said.
Recall that in 2022, Badenoch, a British MP of Nigerian descent, accused Nigerian politicians of mismanaging public funds.
Speaking on Thursday at an event organised by a British think-tank producing research on economic and social issues, Onward, Badenoch noted that she doesn’t want the UK to suffer the fate of “terrible governments” like Nigeria, saying, “And why does this matter so much to me? It’s because I know what it is like to have something and then to lose it. I don’t want Britain to lose what it has.
“I grew up in a poor country and watched my relatively wealthy family become poorer and poorer, despite working harder and harder as their money disappeared with inflation.
“I came back to the UK aged 16 with my father’s last £100 in the hope of a better life. So, I have lived with the consequences of terrible governments that destroy lives, and I never, ever want it to happen here.”
