Daniel Bwala, the president’s special adviser on policy communication, says Kemi Badenoch’s criticism about Nigeria is aimed at gaining acceptance from her party.
Last week, Badenoch, leader of UK’s Conservative Party, said she does not want the consequences of “terrible governments like Nigeria” to play out in Britain.
The politician, who spoke on the importance of building trust and touting the Conservative Party as the right group to fix Britain, likened a possibility of the UK becoming like Nigeria if the system is not reformed.
Speaking on Monday when he appeared on Sunrise Daily, a programme on Channels Television, Bwala refuted claims that Badenoch’s remarks about Nigeria will affect the country’s international relations or efforts to attract investors.
“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,” Bwala said.
“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 acknowledged Badenoch’s achievements in the UK, but added that she is capitalising on populism that thrives on public discontent and feeds on people’s anger.
“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,” he said.
“So she’s building a rhetoric of denigrating Nigeria, demarketing in Nigeria, so she can probably win the acceptance or acceptation of the rights in her party.
“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.”
