Tobi Adegboyega, a UK-based pastor, stated that the societal harms cited by the UK’s Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch against Nigeria are not exclusive to only the West African country and may be found in the UK.
Recall that Adegboyega’s church, SPAC Nation, was recently shut down by the British government over claims of mismanagement of £1.87 million.
Meanwhile, Badenoch has been disparaging Nigeria, accusing the police of plundering those they pledged to protect.
A British journalist asked Badenoch if she trusted the British police.
She said, “I do.” My encounter with the Nigerian police was unpleasant. When I moved to the UK, I had a favourable encounter with the British police.
“The cops in Nigeria will rob us (laughs). When people say I have a poor experience with the police because I am black, I respond, “Well, I remember the police stole my brother’s shoe and his watch.”
The interviewer gasped in disbelief, “They took his shoe and watch?”
Kemi said, “It’s a really poor country. People do a variety of things.
“So, giving somebody a gun is simply a license to intimidate. But that’s not the only problem. That is not the bar we should set for the British police.
“When I was burgled, for example, the cops were present. They were helpful before they apprehended the person. This occurred in 2004, which was 20 years ago.”
However, in an interview with Channels TV’s ‘Politics Today’ on Monday, Pastor Adegboyega stated that such harms are not unique to Nigeria.
He responded, “I strongly disagree with that assertion. Between 2023 and 2024, almost 78,000 bags and phones were stolen in the UK alone.
“There is a large Nigerian black community in this country.
“People like the opposition leader party have fought on the streets to get to that position.
“There were funerals for children who were killed in the UK. They buried three children from the same parents.
“And we wonder, since the Nigerian community controls these things in the UK, where are these voices? They’ve been fighting.
“The Windrush, which is about Jamaicans; people have fought for those seats before a black person or black immigrant could take them.
“So we can’t separate ourselves from where we came from.
“We do not dispute that our country has problems, and we are not as old as advanced economies like Britain. But we can’t claim everything is gloomy because that’s false,” Adegboyega argued Badenoch.
“We live on the street and know what is happening here. We know that prisons and psychiatric hospitals have more young black individuals than schools in the United Kingdom.
“When SPAC Nation began, we started sending people to Harvard and Cambridge, and we also had the highest number at Imperial College,” he said.
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Watch him talk in the video below.
Video credit: ChannelsTV
