An aide to President Bola Tinubu has rebuked Kemi Badenoch, leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, over her recent comments about Nigerian citizenship laws.
Dada Olusegun, Tinubu’s social media aide, accused Badenoch of deliberately misrepresenting Nigeria’s legal framework in what he described as a persistent effort to discredit the country.
“You do not need to apply for registration or naturalisation for your children to be recognised as citizens,” Olusegun wrote in a post on X.
Badenoch, speaking in a Sunday interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, claimed that her gender prevents her from passing Nigerian citizenship to her children.
“It’s virtually impossible to get Nigerian citizenship. I have it through my parents, but I can’t pass it to my children because I’m a woman,” she said.
She also argued that it is far easier for Nigerians to acquire British citizenship than for foreigners to become Nigerian citizens.
“Yet loads of Nigerians come to the UK, stay for a relatively short period, and acquire British citizenship. We need to stop being naive,” she added.
In response, Olusegun on Monday strongly refuted Badenoch’s statements, calling them a blatant distortion of Nigeria’s constitutional provisions.
“Why do you keep lying about your country of origin? Why this relentless and harmful campaign to tarnish Nigeria’s image?” he asked.
Citing Chapter 3, Section 25 (1)(c) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, he explained: “If a Nigerian woman is a citizen by birth, her children—whether born in Nigeria or abroad—automatically qualify as citizens by descent, regardless of the father’s nationality.”
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