- Safiu Kehinde
The United Kingdom’s Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has again come under fire following claims that Nigerian immigration policy cannot permit her to confer her Nigerian citizenship to her children.
Badenoch made the claim at a recent interview shared on X on Sunday.
The Nigerian-born British politician who is renowned for her criticism against Nigeria had in the course of the interview cited the country as an example of countries that will not tolerate the exploitation of its immigration policies unlike the United Kingdom.
She disclosed how Nigerian immigrants easily process British citizenship after spending couple of months in the country.
“Nigerians will not tolerate that. That is not something that many countries would accept. There are many people who come to our country in the UK to do things that will not be acceptable in their countries.
“It is virtually impossible to get Nigerian citizenship. I had that citizenship by virtue of my parents; I can’t give it to my children because I’m a woman.
“Yet a lot of Nigerians come to the UK to stay for a relatively brief period of time and acquire birth citizenship.” She said.
Badenoch further accused immigrants of abusing and the UK’s immigration system as recounted how some immigrants hide under the guise of asylum seekers by undergoing fake religion conversion to get asylum
“We have people who are pretending so they can claim asylum and they don’t want to get married after children. They are abusing the laws that we have.
“There are people who go through false conversions. You know the parish priests are very excited. All these Muslims, they convert so they can claim asylum and say if I went back to my country, I will be persecuted. These are exploitation of a system that was not designed for these sort of things.” She said.
The UK Conservative leader disclosed her ongoing policy changes which will make citizenship acquisition more stricter under her leadership.
Badenoch maintained that the UK needs immigrants who will contribute to the country and those dependent on welfare and social housing.
“We need to stop being naive. And that’s why under my leadership, we now have policies to make it a lot harder to just get British citizenship. It’s been too easy. We want people who want to come to our country to be net contributors not people who will immigrate and then need welfare, need social housing.
“That’s not right because they haven’t paid into the system. So, there’s a lot of policies I’m changing that is suitable for the times we are leaving.
“We can get away with this things before the era of mass travel, before mobile phones, before small boat crossing and global mass migration which is very destabilising.
“They didn’t have that in the 70s, in the 80s and 90s. We need rules to work for today.” She added.
However, Badenoch’s jab against Nigeria, especially her of being unable to confer her citizenship to her children, had triggered mixed reactions from netizens who dismissed the claims.
Some however agreed with her stance on Nigerian citizenship policy.
This was however dismissed by most netizens.
“If you’re Nigerian why can’t u give the citizenship to your children ? Or did u renounce your citizenship?”@Unlcedips
“I absolutely agree with her.”@Teeji
“Kemi!!!!!!!! Your children could easily get a certificate of local origin and an NIN number by the virtue of your own birth certificate and local government certificate of origin.”@diipodipe
“It is false that her kids can’t be citizens of Nigeria. If a child is born outside Nigeria to a Nigerian mother, they are still eligible for Nigerian citizenship by birth. They can apply for registration as a Nigerian citizen if they meet certain requirements, such as one of the parents being a Nigerian citizen. Nigeria primarily follows the principle of jus sanguinis, meaning citizenship is acquired through parentage, specifically by birth to Nigerian parents and this applies whether the child is born in Nigeria or abroad.”@DbPragmatic
“Same Nigerian citizenship wey most of these Lebanese wey dey Nigeria get? How dem take get am?! 🙄”@toofighting
“Historically, Nigerian law has allegedly faced criticism for being discriminatory, particularly in cases where women are unable to confer citizenship to their children in the same way that men can. As of now,I think Nigerian women can pass their citizenship to their children if the father is not a Nigerian citizen,while her statement reflects some of the challenges women face in the context of citizenship, it may not be entirely accurate given the current legal framework in Nigeria.”@SimoncoleB
“Chapter 3, section 25 & subsection C clearly states that she is lying 🤥. It says every person born outside of Nigeria “Either” of whose parents is a citizen of Nigeria can automatically inherit the Citizenship of Nigeria.”@UsmanDanfodio77
“Someone should give her children citizenship abeg. Omo this constant wailing don dey tire me. But she has denigrated, antagonize the country every opportunity she sees. I don’t know Why she is hell bent on her children having Nigeria citizenship.”@PSkyxx
“Kemi is damn Right. Nigeria’s citizenship laws treat foreign spouses differently based on gender. While a foreign woman married to a Nigerian man can acquire citizenship through registration, a foreign man married to a Nigerian woman is not granted the same right—instead, he must undergo a lengthy naturalization process. This disparity, outlined in Section 26(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, has been criticized as discriminatory.”@Frankiee44
“A lot of her public statements carry a sharp tone almost like they’re aimed to provoke or distance herself from anything tied to her background. It’s one thing to be firm or principled, but when it starts sounding bitter or targeted, it’s hard to see it as leadership and not just resentment with a mic.”@RealDamola