Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke ‘Kemi’ Badenoch, the new leader of Britain’s Conservative party, has said she identifies as a Yoruba tribeswoman rather than a Nigerian, going so far as to describe some in the north of her parents’ homeland as her “ethnic enemies.” Despite being born in London, the Member of Parliament (MP) and former government minister was taken to Nigeria shortly afterward and raised there. She describes herself as a “first-generation immigrant.”
“I find it interesting that everybody defines me as being Nigerian,” she said in a recent interview. “I identify less with the country than with the specific ethnicity [Yoruba]. That’s what I really am. I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country, the Boko Haram where the Islamism is, those were our ethnic enemies, and yet you end up being lumped in with those people,” she said.
Badenoch said being Yoruba grants a “very strong identity about who you are, where you come from, traditions and so on”—sentiments that are strongly discouraged among the White British population.
The interview was peppered with other, more bizarre comments. The Conservative leader said she “strongly associated” with Danaerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones—who is eventually assassinated by her lover-nephew after massacring the population of her country’s capital. Badenoch also declared that “lunch is for wimps” and that she has an aversion to sandwiches, explaining: “I will not touch bread if it’s moist.”
She is best known in British politics for posing as an enemy of Critical Race Theory and mass migration. However, in government, she said elected officials should not try to stop civil servants from pushing woke ideology, and she lobbied for looser immigration controls.
show less
