Tobi Adegboyega dismisses Kemi Badenoch’s claims on Nigeria

A United Kingdom-based pastor, Tobi Adegboyega, has condemned the claims made by UK Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, that Nigeria is a country that drives its citizens to engage in questionable behaviours.

Badenoch has been vocal about her opinion of Nigeria. She accused Nigerian leaders of being corrupt and responsible for the ills in the country.

Adegboyega, whose SPAC Nation church was recently shut down by the UK government due to allegations of mismanaging £1.87 million in church funds, responded to Badenoch’s claims by stating that nowhere is safe in the world.

“I completely disagree with that statement. Between 2023 and 2024, about 78,000 bags and phones were snatched in London and the UK alone. There’s a very strong Nigerian black community in this nation,” Adegboyega said during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday.

“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 controls 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.”

Adegboyega stated that while things may be difficult for his people back home in Nigeria, this does not permit anyone to disparage the country in the way Badenoch is doing.

He added, “So we cannot dissociate 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.

“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.”