Leave Badenoch Alone, Sunday Igboho Tells VP Shetima

Sunday Igboho, Yoruba Nation activist has described the attack on Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the British Conservative Party by vice President Kassim Shetima as unnecessary and unwarranted.

He said the British-born Nigeria has a right to form her opinion on issues concerning Nigeria.

The activist made the remark in a statement on Sunday amidst divisions among Nigerians over Badenoch’s controversial comment about the state of insecurity and corruption in the country.

She also took a swipe at northern Nigeria which she described as the problem of the Yoruba her ancestry due to terrorism and violence in the region.

Recall that Shetima had while reacting to Badenoch’s comment advised her to stop making negative comment about Nigeria, urging her to ‘change’ her name if she’s not happy with her Nigerian connections.

Igboho however advised the vice president to focus on his job as Nigeria’s number two citizen rather than dissipating his energy attacking the British politician.He advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to call his Vice to order, saying Shetima’s attack on Badenock was unwarranted, asking whether it’s “a sin for someone to express his or her opinion or say the obvious” about Nigeria, whose growth has been stunted as a result of corruption by the political class.

The activist said nobody dared criticised the Fulani when former President Muhammadu Buhari was in power, saying those who tried to do so where ‘muzzled’ through coercive state power, citing his own arrest by the Department of State Services, DSS, for attacking former President Buhari’s administration.

In July 2021, the activist’s Ibadan, Oyo state home was attacked by the secret police, in a gestapo-like operation killing two persons and arresting dozens of others. The Nigerian government had accused him of terrorism at the time.

Rather than attacking Badenoch, Igboho said the current administration should make effort to bring succour to many Nigerians who are groping under severe poverty and sufferings.

Igboho said, “It is incumbent on President Bola Tinubu, who is also from the Yoruba ethnic nationality and lineage, to direct Shettima to face his duties as vice president rather than dissipate energy or engage in verbal war against Badenoch, who merely expressed her candid but true opinion on the pervasive corruption in Nigeria’s system.

“When the immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari was in power, nobody dared launch offensive or verbal attacks against his Fulani ethnic nationality without being dealt with or muzzled through the instrumentality of the state or paying the supreme price.

“Majority of Nigerians are currently being subjected to a harrowing experience, excruciating poverty due to harsh economic policies, and are bogged down by kidnapping and other forms of insecurity, but the Federal Government is still groping in the dark, finding solutions.

“Instead of deploring measures to mitigate the suffering of the masses and frontally tackle the nation’s challenges, Vice President Kashim Shettima is busy taking on Badenoch.

“When has it become a sin for someone to express his or her opinion or say the obvious about how corruption has retarded the growth of Nigeria as a nation or proclaiming her true identity as a member of the Yoruba ethnic group?” he said.