Kemi Badenoch blames “stupid policies” for Nigeria’s power crisis despite oil resources. The leader of the UK Conservative Party, shared this in an interview with The Spectator.
Badenoch also said her time growing up in Nigeria shaped how she sees energy and government policy. She said,
“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 added,
“It is very easy to have resources under the ground, but stupid public policy means that you can’t use it.”
Badenoch also linked her views to politics in the UK. She compared some government ideas to past Nigerian military rule.
“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.
Kemi further explained that her childhood experience shaped her beliefs about development and governance.
“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.
Nigeria still struggles with electricity supply despite being an oil-producing nation. Power generation often stays between 3,500 and 5,000 megawatts for a very large population.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his Democracy Day speech, promised he would ensure that Nigeria’s power sector challenges are addressed.
