UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has said that Nigeria’s status as an oil-producing nation has failed to guarantee stable electricity supply for its citizens, blaming poor policy choices for the country’s energy struggles.
Badenoch, who spent part of her childhood in Nigeria before moving to the United Kingdom as a teenager, reflected on her upbringing during an interview with The Spectator, saying it has strongly influenced her political beliefs.
She argued that having natural resources is not enough if governance is weak, pointing to Nigeria as an example.
“My belief that we need to drill our oil and gas comes from growing up in a country… Nigeria is an oil-producing country, never had electricity,” she said.
“It is very easy to have resources under the ground, but stupid public policy means that you can’t use it.”
She also drew comparisons between UK energy policy and past governance systems in Nigeria, criticising proposals she linked to Ed Miliband, the UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.
“And I see quite a lot of what Ed Miliband is doing as being very much like what the Nigerian military dictatorships were doing in the 80s and 90s — ‘the government is going to take control, we know what’s best, we’re going to redistribute’. Stupid ideas which eventually just bankrupt the country,” she said.
Badenoch added that her experiences growing up in a developing country shaped her desire to avoid similar outcomes in the UK.
“Fundamentally, my views about how we should run our country come from growing up in a place that was very poor. You grow up in a third-world country and you look at why it is termed ‘third world,’ and I don’t want that to happen here,” she said.
She further called for a renewed focus on British values and culture, warning against what she described as the gradual decline of national identity and economic discipline.
