BY Prof Mike Ozekhome, SAN OFR, Ph.D
\nOpinion<\/p>\n
INTRODUCTION<\/p>\n
In a candid interview with CNN\u2019s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, Senior British Conservative politician of Nigerian descent Kemi Badenoch, offered a striking and controversial insight into the limitations of Nigerian citizenship law in an interview with CNN\u2019s Fareed Zakaria. As a woman of Nigerian heritage serving as the UK\u2019s Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Badenoch (formerly known as OlukemiAdegoke and who grew up in Lagos before going to stay in the UK at the age of 16) is no stranger to questions of identity, belonging and migration. But it was her deeply personal revelation and its legal implications that ignited a wave of public conversationnot only among Nigerians in diaspora and those resident in Nigeria, but among leading scholars and constitutional analysts, particularly regarding gender equality in Nigeria\u2019s citizenship.<\/p>\n
THE INTERVIEW<\/p>\n
With clarity and conviction, Badenoch remarked:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s virtually impossible, for example, to get Nigerian citizenship. I have that citizenship by virtue of my parents. I can\u2019t give it to my children because I\u2019m a woman. Yet loads of Nigerians come to the UK and stay for a relatively free period of time, acquire British citizenship. We need to stop being naive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her words, layered both with frustration and insight,and perhaps with political undertones, raise a poignant question: Can a Nigerian woman really not transmit her citizenship to her child as she said? Is Badenoch\u2019sclaim supported by the laws of Nigeria, or does it expose a longstanding misreading or worse, a structural gender bias within Nigeria\u2019s legal framework itself?<\/p>\n
BROADER CONTEXT: BADENOCH\u2019S \u2019S BACKGROUND AND POSSIBLE POLITICAL MOTIVES<\/p>\n
Kemi Badenoch (45) married with 3 children to Hamish Badenoch (46), (a Scottish banker born in Wimbledon, London), was born in the UK in 1980 to Nigerian Yoruba parents and spent part of her childhood in Nigeria. This automatically makes her a Nigerian citizen by birth under section 25 of the 1999 Constitution. Her wild claim about Nigerian citizenship may have perhaps been driven by a rhetorical device to support her hardline stance on immigration in the UK. By contrasting Nigeria\u2019s supposedly restrictive laws with the UK\u2019s \u201clenient\u201d policies, she aims to appeal to the sentiments of British voters who are concerned about immigration matters. However, her misrepresentation of Nigerian laws to advance her political career clearly undermines the credibility of her argument and risks perpetuating wrong stereotypes about Nigeria\u2019s legal system and constitutional order.<\/p>\n