A senior aide to President Bola Tinubu has criticised Kemi Badenoch, leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, over her recent remarks about Nigerian citizenship.
Dada Olusegun, Tinubu’s special assistant on social media, accused Badenoch of deliberately distorting Nigeria’s citizenship laws in a bid to “malign the country.”
“You do not need to apply for registration or naturalisation for your children to become citizens,” Olusegun wrote in a post on X.
Badenoch, in a Sunday interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, claimed she could not pass on Nigerian citizenship to her children because of her gender.
“It’s virtually impossible, for example, to get Nigerian citizenship. I have that citizenship by virtue of my parents. I can’t give it to my children because I’m a woman,” she said.
The UK Conservative leader further argued that it is far easier for Nigerians to acquire British citizenship than for foreigners to obtain Nigerian nationality.
“Yet loads of Nigerians come to the UK and stay for a relatively free period of time, acquire British citizenship. We need to stop being naive,” Badenoch added.
Olusegun swiftly rejected the claims, insisting they misrepresent Nigeria’s legal framework on citizenship.
“Why do you continue to lie against your motherland? Why this dangerous and desperate attempt to malign Nigeria?” he asked.
Citing Chapter 3, Section 25(1)(c) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, Olusegun explained:
“If a Nigerian woman is a citizen by birth, her children, whether born in Nigeria or abroad, are automatically Nigerian citizens by descent, regardless of the father’s nationality.”
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