Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has criticized UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch’s claim that she cannot pass Nigerian citizenship to her children due to her gender.
During a Sunday interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Badenoch asserted, “It’s virtually impossible, for example, to get Nigerian citizenship. I have that citizenship by virtue of my parents. I can’t give it to my children because I’m a woman.”
She further suggested that it is easier for Nigerians to acquire British citizenship than for foreigners to become Nigerians, adding, “Yet loads of Nigerians come to the UK and stay for a relatively free period of time, acquire British citizenship. We need to stop being naive.”
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In a statement issued on Monday, Falana described Badenoch’s remarks as “a display of utter ignorance” and accused her of deliberately misinforming the British public for political gain.
Falana said, “In her desperate attempt to impress the British electorate, Kemi Badenoch keeps running down Nigeria.
“Contrary to her misleading claim, her children are Nigerians because she is a Nigerian. Her assertion that she cannot give Nigerian citizenship to her children because she is a woman is not in consonance with Section 25(b) and (c) of the Nigerian Constitution which provides that every person born in Nigeria after independence, either of whose parents or grandparents is a citizen of Nigeria, or any person born outside Nigeria to a Nigerian parent, is a citizen.
“Furthermore, by virtue of Section 42(2) of the Constitution, no citizen shall be subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of circumstances of birth, gender, or class. Therefore, her two children are Nigerian citizens. The fact that she may not want them to claim it is irrelevant. For now, they are dual citizens of Britain and Nigeria.”
Falana also faulted her assertion that Nigerian citizenship is impossible for foreigners to obtain, noting that “Sections 26 and 27 of the Constitution clearly state that foreigners can acquire Nigerian citizenship through naturalisation or registration once they meet the legal conditions.”
He, however, acknowledged gaps in the law, saying that “A woman married to a Nigerian man can be registered as a citizen, but the same privilege is not extended to a man married to a Nigerian woman, which reflects the patriarchal nature of the law. This should be urgently amended.”
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