Nigeria produces oil but has never had electricity – Kemi Badenoch

UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has said that Nigeria’s abundant oil reserves have not translated into a reliable electricity supply, blaming ineffective government policies for preventing the country from fully capitalising on its natural resources.

Badenoch, who spent part of her childhood in Nigeria before moving to the United Kingdom as a teenager, made the comments during a recent interview with The Spectator, reflecting on how her upbringing shaped her political views.

She said her experiences growing up in Nigeria influenced her stance on energy policy and the role of government intervention in the economy.

“My belief that we need to drill our oil and gas comes from growing up in a country… Nigeria is an oil-producing country, never had electricity,” she said.

“It is very easy to have resources under the ground, but stupid public policy means that you can’t use it.”

Badenoch compared the policies pursued by UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband with the governance style of Nigeria’s military regimes in the 1980s and 1990s.

“And I see quite a lot of what Ed Miliband is doing as being very much like what the Nigerian military dictatorships were doing in the 80s and 90s — ‘the government is going to take control, we know what’s best, we’re going to redistribute’. Stupid ideas which eventually just bankrupt the country,” she said.

The Conservative leader also said that her time in Nigeria has shaped her views on governance and economic development in Britain, warning against policies she believes could undermine the country’s prosperity.

“Fundamentally, my views about how we should run our country come from growing up in a place that was very poor. You grow up in a third‑world country and you look at why it is termed ‘third world,’ and I don’t want that to happen here,” she said.

Badenoch further argued that many people take Britain’s wealth, institutions and history for granted, calling for efforts to preserve and strengthen what she described as British culture.

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