Professor Rasheed Ojikutu, in a write-up in The Guardian of Sunday, January 5, 2025 titled: Garland for Kemi Badenoch, put it very succinctly: A woman who says she is proudly Yoruba, but disregarded Nigeria as an entity may not be ‘‘silly’’ after all because she certainly knows her onions. She is certainly not a fool in her attempt to ‘‘separating Paul from Barnabas.’’
Ojikutu, alluding to corruption, one of Kemi’s grouses against Nigeria, asked: ‘‘Why do we want to nail Kemi Badenoch to the cross …why should someone with international repute not be ashamed about a country where an individual is alleged to have built 753 duplexes from the money taken from the purse of taxpayers ?’’ Kemi’s position about the North constituting enemies of the Yoruba, is taken literally by many and condemned. But were the state governments in Yoruba land not forced to raise the Amotekun security outfits to contain invading enemies (killer herdsmen) from the North?
Perhaps, Vice President Shettima’s angst was Kemi’s disparaging of Boko Haram which possibly touched a nerve, considering that Shettima was governor of Borno State, the epicenter of Boko Haram insurgency between 2011 and 2019, when the insurgents were at their destructive peak, controlling many local government areas and unleashing a spate of bombings, including on the UN Office in Abuja.
Shettima, a state commissioner, who served in five ministries between 2007 and 2011 when he was elected governor, was a protégé of Governor Ali Modu Sheriff, who has been tainted with allegations of sponsoring Boko Haram, which emerged in Maiduguri in 2002 during Sheriff’s governorship tenure (1999 – 2011). Following lingering allegations, Sheriff had to address a press conference in Abuja on September 3, 2014, three years after leaving office, to deny any link with Boko Haram.
It is instructive that15 years on, since 2009, Shettima’s Borno State remains the epicenter of Boko Haram, whose ability to regroup have been confounding to the military, as admitted by Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Christopher Musa, in his interview with Al Jazeera on January 5, 2025. Boko Haram is an enduring security menace and an economic albatross on the nation.
According to statista.com, Boko Haram attacks led to 38,255 deaths in Borno State between 2011 and 2023 of the total 66,748 deaths in the Northeast impacted in the period and the 125 IDPs, with 1.7 million people, in Borno State, constitute 82 per cent of IDPs in the affected Northeast states. Budgetary wise, insecurity had forced high defence allocations with $5.13 billion (N3.85 trillion) in the 2024 budget, representing a 37.99 per cent increase over the $4.00 billion (N2.79 trillion ) allocated in 2023. These are sobering statistics that should have dawned on the Vice President.
Boko Haram mutated into banditry in the Northwest, twin evils which Badenoch distanced the Yoruba from which apparently drew the ire of Shettima. To underscore the fact that it was a misadventure for Shettima to have joined in Kemi bashing, it was only his intervention that attracted foreign media reportage. The Independent, (UK) of December 1, 2024 had captioned its story: Nigerian government hits out at Kemi Badenoch after she criticised the country. The story’s lead reads: New Conservative leader is embroiled in a diplomatic row over comments she made about the African country where she grew up. It is projected as a diplomatic row because of Shettima’s exalted status as Vice President, which apparently was lost on him.
The newspaper, on December 15, 2024, carried a follow up story captioned: Nigerian VP who attacked Kemi Badenoch was accused of failures when Boko Haram kidnapped 200 girls. The Independent quoted allies of Kemi as urging “people to scrutinise the record of Mr. Shettima as being illustrative of the problems in Nigeria and its failings.’’ The BBC on December 11, 2024 headlined its report: Badenoch stands by Nigeria comments after criticism while Voice of America (VOA), December 11, 2024 report is captioned: Nigeria’s vice president slams British Conservative party leader.
Shettima, as Vice President, holds a very important office and should not have joined the lynch mob against Kemi, in the first instance. With an M.Sc degree in agricultural economics from University of Ibadan and a two-year stint (1991-93) as a lecturer at University of Maiduguri before moving to the banking sector where he rose to the position of General Manager at Zenith Bank, Shettima’s pedigree dictates a more calculative intervention in the public arena.
Many Nigerians, home and in the Diaspora, as well as those others of Nigerian ancestry abroad, are frustrated with the insecurity and high level of corruption plaguing the country, in spite of Shettima’s bragging about Nigeria as the greatest black nation on earth.
Badenoch’s knocks on Nigeria should be seen in the context of someone disappointed that the great Black Hope, the country of her ancestry, is not living up to its billing. I give the last words to Prof. Ojikutu : “Instead of being sheepishly dogmatic and unnecessarily self-opinionated, we should call on Mrs. (Kemi) Badenoch to bend head for a garland because she is able to prick our memory to systemic failures in our nation building.”
Concluded.
Dr. Olawunmi, senior lecturer, Department of Mass Communication, Adeleke University, Ede and former Washington Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN) is a fellow, Nigerian Guild of Editors (FNGE).
