"Not a PR representative for Nigeria’, Badenoch defends Nigeria comments

After being criticised by Kashim Shettima, the vice president of Nigeria, for allegedly disrespecting her culture, Kemi Badenoch has defended her comments on the country.

The leader of the Conservative Party, who was born in the UK but spent a large portion of her childhood in Nigeria, has frequently talked about the dread and instability she experiences in a corrupt nation.

Vice President Kashim Shettima of Nigeria suggested on Monday that Badenoch may "remove the Kemi from her name" if she didn't take pride in her "nation of origin."

According to the BBC on Wednesday, a representative for Badenoch stated that she “stands by what she says” and stressed that “she is not Nigeria’s public relations representative” in response to Shettima’s proposal that she should “remove Kemi from her name” if she doesn’t take pleasure in her Nigerian heritage.

"She is the leader of the opposition and is proud of her position in this nation; she refuses to sugarcoat her words and speaks the truth." He informed reporters.

Shettima made the comments during a migration address in Abuja, saying that his government is still "proud" of Badenoch in spite of her "attempts to denigrate her country of origin."

The UK's first Indian prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who Shettima said "a brilliant young man" who "never denigrated his nation of ancestry," was compared to her position by him.

Born in Wimbledon in 1980 as Olukemi Adegoke, Badenoch grew up in Lagos before relocating to the US, where her mother taught physiology.

Due to Nigeria's political and economic difficulties, she later moved back to the UK at the age of 16 to live with a friend of her mother and finish her A-levels.

She took on her husband's last name after she married Scottish financier Hamish Badenoch.

Badenoch made a stark comparison between the freedoms she experienced in the UK and the horror she experienced as a child growing up in Lagos, "where fear was everywhere," earlier this year at the Conservative Party conference.

She called her hometown "a place where almost everything seemed broken" while visiting the US last week.

She stated that her conservative views and opposition to socialism were greatly influenced by her experiences.