Kemi’s cousin once removed called for climate reparations
J’accuse scoops
Kemi Badenoch’s mother is the cousin of Yemi Osinbajo. This makes Kemi Badenoch his first cousin once removed. Osinbajo served as the vice president of Nigeria between 2015 and 2023.
In March of this year, Yemi Osinbajo was appointed to lead on climate health financing initiatives for five African countries. Oinsbajo also sits as board chair of ‘Climate Action Africa’ (CAA). CAA has called for ‘climate reparations’ from the global north. This blog on their page, as an example, is titled ‘no climate justice without ‘climate reparations’.
Osinbajo has himself written for the Economist demanding that developed nations (which includes the United Kingdom) fund Africa’s energy transition.
Osinjabo’s words:
“First, developed nations should commit to funding in full Africa’s energy transition. This is both a moral imperative and an environmental necessity. We estimate that Nigeria requires $400bn of new investment above business-as-usual spending to meet its net-zero pledge. A green energy package, akin to South Africa’s, should offer at least $10bn per year over the next two decades….
…the world cannot tackle collective challenges if poor nations are treated as second class, or their aspirations are ignored. After enduring colonialism, decades of unfair economic practices and covid-19 vaccine apartheid, we cannot accept regressive climate policy as another injustice.”
Kemi Badenoch is forcing Conservative candidates for the next election to sign up to withdrawal from ECHR and rejection of Net Zero targets as a sort of Clause IV statement of principles. If she becomes Prime Minister and attempts to implement these policies which revoke Net Zero she will have a clear conflict of interest with a powerful close family member. Not only that, she may well be under pressure to enact climate reparations.
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Badenoch is not the only British politician to have this problem. Miatta Fahnbulleh’s father was foreign minister in Liberia, Tulip Siddiq was a sitting MP when an arrest warrant was issued for her in Bangladesh because of her family’s activities there (she is the niece of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina).
It is clearly an issue if first generation immigrants (a term that Kemi has used to describe herself) with extensive political connections in their home countries are standing to be politicians in Britain. There are structural reasons that this will become more problematic as time goes on and more 1st/2nd gen immigrants reach their thirties in Britain. Politics is a nepotistic business and well connected families in countries with large diasporas in the UK (Nigeria/Bangladesh) will be able to continue dynasties in other jurisdictions. There is also incentives for hostile state actors to exploit this vulnerability, and because they generally perceive nationality and ethnicity as inextricable they are well positioned to take advantage of these extra-national ties.
In 1907 the Dutch tried to turn Chinese born in the Dutch East Indies into Dutch Citizens, a move which the Qing dynasty reacted to by explicitly embracing nationality laws which assert Chinese citizenship for anyone with Chinese parents. Since then the Chinese State has consistently insisted that no matter where a Han is born that Han is a Chinese national. The east-Asian MPs who are filtering into Parliament are, in the eyes of the Chinese state, potential assets. No matter how much they take to tea, Roast Beef or Arsenal away.
It is unarguable that a condition for permitting first and second generation immigrants to stand for Parliament should be that they have more extensive checks in the same way that we implement extra safeguarding checks for first/second generation immigrants if they wish to work in the security services/Reserved posts.
These are often countries where extrajudicial political killings are common. Even with the purest of intentions a British politician who has family in a country which wishes to extract certain concessions from the UK government will be exposed to blackmail. You do not need to be a boozy headbanger to recognise that this is a disaster waiting to happen.
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Is British press lazy, or is the British press corrupt? What other rational explanation could there be for the reams of breathless coverage about Farage failing to pay the mayonnaise surcharge for a portion of chips in Brussels in 2004 whilst examination of Kemi Badenoch’s fuzzy Curriculum Vitae remains so underexamined.
Today’s story is about Kemi’s Net Zero policy, at a glance, but beneath the surface a deeper question. How is that Badenoch has been able to get away with saying that her father was buying rice in the UK to bring back to Nigeria when she spent her childhood and early adolescence jetting between Britain and America? When her mother is the cousin of a former Vice President of Nigeria?
Before Osinbajo became Vice President he served (amongst other roles) as the Attorney General of Lagos State, from 1999 to 2007. Badenoch came to the United Kingdom in 1996, a decision she has said since was due to the worsening political conditions in Nigeria, apparently not so bad that a close member of her family could be given one of the highest positions in government where she grew up within years of her exit.
For all of the Times editorials about how she is cutting through at PMQs à la Mrs Thatcher, why has there been no consideration of her father’s role in a pan-Yoruba political organisation? One which lobbies specifically against the Nigerian constitution which enshrines minority rights (including that of the Hausa)? Why did nobody connect these dots when Badenoch made her comments about how the Hausa were ‘ethnic enemies’?
It could be because these people wish to stand as Conservative Party candidates, it could be because reading Nigerian press reports is too intellectually challenging. In either case it leaves a very foul taste in the mouth.
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There is so much more to come.