From a moral perspective, it’s clear that Badenoch’s stance lacks both duty and honour. She openly criticizes the faults of Nigeria, but wouldn’t integrity demand that she tries to address those issues instead of sneering from afar? Nigeria is her homeland, where she took her first steps and formed her identity. To abandon one’s roots for personal gain speaks less of courage and more of self-interest, perhaps even cowardice.
Can her contempt be a model for others? Should we all abandon our heritage for ambition in a foreign land? If so, the ties that bind communities would weaken. It seems her heart has drifted from her origins, embracing a shallow form of English respectability. Real respectability, however, is based on principle and seeks the greater good – not the approval of a privileged few.
I would ask her, as one might ask a rebellious youth, to fairly judge the “hell” she sees. Does she view England as a land of saints? Is she unaware of the injustices hidden within its “seemingly” polished society? To praise England as a haven of justice while condemning Nigeria is as misguided as it is ironic. What she sees as righteous may simply be what is familiar, and what she condemns, unfamiliar.
Oh, Kemi, if only you could return and lend your talents to Nigeria’s progress! To criticize without offering solutions, to scorn without serving – that is the way of a flatterer, not a leader. True leaders extend a hand to uplift, rather than mock.
If she persists in her distant disdain, Kemi not only betrays her homeland but also the essence of justice. Our origins aren’t clothes to be donned or discarded but the core of our being. I urge her to question her homeland, but not to abandon it.
Is her “living hell” simply a construct of a mind torn between two worlds? Her situation brings to mind a shadowy cave, where she pulls the strings to cast Nigeria in darkness, hoping to shed light on her adopted land. Does she realize that condemning Nigeria as a “hell” says more about her need to align with British conservatism than about Nigeria itself?
Does she seek acceptance among Britain’s elite, even at the cost of her own heritage? True loyalty lies in embracing and improving one’s roots, not casting them aside. She becomes, not a compatriot, but a jester courting English approval by ridiculing her own.
Indulge me, dear readers, in a bit of irony – a fond irony for this wanderer so eager to erase traces of the “living hell” she once knew. She tells of dusty miles walked for a sip of water, blaming Nigeria for hardship, while Britain, too, has faced its own struggles. That water’s flow is not as ancient as she might think.
Her stance against reparations shows the same arrogance, a queen dismissing peasants. She overlooks the reality that Europe’s wealth was built on the backs of the very people she scorns. In her pursuit of ambition, her clarity on history dims.
In her attempt to fit among the Tories, she sees her heritage as something to hide. Ironically, she plays the tragic role that English satire has often mocked: the outsider who mocks their own to win favour in a foreign land.
Perhaps I’m too critical. Maybe her words are simply the overzealousness of someone enamoured with British identity, forgetting her own. Still, it saddens me that she missed the chance to bridge two worlds. Instead, she becomes a figure of satire: one who tries to wash away her past.
Let us forgive her so that we may possess what she has lost: pride without pretence, and dignity without disdain.
Mr Mundadu writes from Kaduna
