UK's new Conservative leader Badenoch leaves British-Nigerians divided

By Catarina Demony and Ben Makori

For some Nigerians and their descendants who call Britain their home, Kemi Badenoch becoming the first Black woman to lead a major British political party is a source of hope and pride.

But not everyone is celebrating. Some fear Badenoch, who was born in London to Nigerian parents but lived in Lagos until she was 16, will undermine progress towards racial equality.

The 44-year-old former software engineer represents the right wing of the opposition Conservative Party and was elected its leader on Nov. 2, after it lost power in a July election.

A defender of meritocracy, she said she prefers not to focus on her race, arguing she would like the colour of her skin to be no more significant than the colour of her hair or eyes.

For Nigerian-born Abel Fayemi, who has lived for more than two decades in Peckham, a south London neighbourhood that is home to one of the largest Nigerian communities in Britain, Badenoch's election by Britain's most successful political party was a "remarkable achievement".

"It has given us hope," said Fayemi, one of the nearly 300,000 Nigerians in Britain.

Nigerian Ajofoyinbo Oluwajuwon, 24, has lived in London for six years and sees Badenoch as someone to look up to. "A Black woman doing something like that (is) definitely an inspiration."

Yahed Lawal, a 64-year-old from Nigeria, also agreed with Badenoch's approach, saying: "Colour don't really matter."

'USED TO GASLIGHT US'

However, some of Badenoch's remarks have caused alarm among some within the Black community and anti-racism activists in Britain.

At the Conservative Party conference in October 2023, she said she tells her children that Britain is the "best country in the world to be Black because it's a country that sees people, not labels".

She has described calls for reparations for slavery, which advocates say are crucial to overcome racial discrimination today, as a "scam", and has opposed the teaching in schools of critical race theory - an academic concept that rests on the premise that racial bias is baked into Western institutions.

Badenoch has previously argued that critics were trying to "silence people like me" as they believed all Black people should have the same views.

"There is a left-wing view of racial politics that's assumed to be the Black view of politics," she told the Spectator magazine in 2020.

The Conservative Party did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Badenoch, who has said she has a hard-nosed view on immigration, supported a plan to deport asylum-seekers arriving in Britain without permission to Rwanda, which has since been scrapped by the new Labour government.

She said in a newspaper article in September it should not be assumed that "all cultures are equally valid" when it comes to deciding who should be allowed into the country, and said those moving to Britain should accept its values.

She later told the BBC she was referring to "cultures that believe in child marriage, or that women don't have equal rights".

Janett Walker, CEO and founder of Anti Racist Cumbria, said in a statement that Badenoch's approach would be "used outside of politics to gaslight us and our concerns", adding: "The denial is coming from someone who looks like me."

According to Britain's Equality and Human Rights Commission, unemployment rates are higher among Black people, they earn less, are more likely to live in substandard and overcrowded accommodation and face tougher rates of prosecution and sentencing.

British-Nigerian writer Nels Abbey, one of many who criticised Badenoch on social media following her appointment, said some would feel they could "convey racism without having to deal with the baggage of actually being labelled a racist" as the rhetoric would be "outsourced" to a Black person.

Annabel Sowemimo, of British-Nigerian heritage and founder of Reproductive Justice Initiative, which aims to address health and racial inequalities, said Badenoch pointed to her own success as something she achieved on merit, but did not acknowledge obstacles such as racism that others might face to accomplish the same.

"It would be a much more formidable thing if she... had challenged sexism and racism to get to this position... but she has not done that," Sowemimo said. "And that is actually what attracted a lot of people to her as a candidate."