Nigeria has long been an oil-producing nation yet it has consistently struggled to provide a reliable power supply.

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Kemi Badenoch

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Leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has said Nigeria’s vast oil resources have failed to translate into reliable electricity supply, arguing that poor government policies have prevented the country from fully benefiting from its natural wealth.

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

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According to the British politician, her experiences growing up in Nigeria shaped her views on energy policy and government intervention in the economy.

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“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.

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

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Badenoch drew parallels between policies pursued by Ed Miliband, the UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the style of governance associated with Nigeria’s military administrations of the 1980s and 1990s.

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“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.

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

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“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.

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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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