UK-based pastor, Tobi Adegboyega, has pushed back against recent comments made by British Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch about Nigeria, highlighting similar societal problems in the United Kingdom.
Pastor Adegboyega spoke during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today, stating that crime and other issues are not unique to Nigeria.
Badenoch, who had criticized Nigeria’s police force, shared her personal experience of growing up in Nigeria. During an interview, she claimed that Nigerian police officers had once robbed her brother, taking his shoe and watch.
She contrasted this with her positive experience with British police, saying, “I do. My experience with the Nigeria Police was very negative. Coming to the UK, my experience with the British Police was very positive.
“The police in Nigeria will rob us (laughter). When people say I have this bad experience with the police because I’m black, I say well, I remember the police stole my brother’s shoe and his watch.”
Interviewer exclaimed in shock: “They took his shoe and his watch?”
Kemi continued: “It’s a very poor country. People do all sorts of things.
“So, giving people a gun is just a licence to intimidate. But that’s not just the problem. That is not the bar we should use for the British Police.
“When I was burgled, for example, the police were there. They were helpful before they eventually caught the person. This was in 2004, that was 20 years ago.”
Responding to this, Pastor Adegboyega strongly disagreed with Badenoch’s narrative, arguing that the UK has its share of challenges as well.
He said: “I completely disagree with that statement. Between 2023 and 2024, about 78,000 bags and phones were snatched in the UK alone.
“There’s a very strong Nigerian black community in this nation.
“For people like the leader of the opposition (party) you just mentioned to get to that position, they’ve been fighting on the street.
“There were funerals where kids were killed in the UK. They buried three kids from the same parents.
“And we ask the question when the Nigerian community control these things in the UK, where are these voices? They have been fighting.
“The Windrush, which has to do with Jamaicans; people have been fighting before a black person or black immigrant can ascend to those seats.
‘Our country has issues, but…’
“So we cannot disassociate from where we are coming from.
“We are not denying the fact that our country has issues and we are also not as old as the advanced economies like Britain. But we cannot say things are all dark because it’s not true,” Adegboyega countered Badenoch.
“We live on the street and know what is going on here. We know that prisons and mostly mental hospitals have more young black people than schools in the UK.
“When SPAC Nation began, we started sending people to Harvard, Cambridge and also have the highest number in Imperial College,” he added.
