By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata
Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has slammed British Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch for claiming she cannot pass Nigerian citizenship to her children due to her gender.
Badenoch, born to Nigerian parents, made the assertion during a CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria, where she lamented the difficulty of acquiring Nigerian citizenship, stating: “I can’t give it to my children because I’m a woman.”
Falana responded on Monday, calling her comment “a display of utter ignorance” and accusing her of misrepresenting Nigerian law to gain political favor in the UK.
“In her desperate attempt to impress the British electorate, Kemi Badenoch keeps running down Nigeria,” Falana said. “Contrary to her misleading claim, her children are Nigerians because she is a Nigerian.”
He cited Section 25 of the 1999 Constitution, which grants citizenship to any person born outside Nigeria to at least one Nigerian parent. He also referenced Section 42, which prohibits gender-based discrimination, confirming her children’s right to Nigerian citizenship.
“The fact that she may not want them to claim it is irrelevant. For now, they are dual citizens of Britain and Nigeria,” Falana insisted.
He further debunked Badenoch’s claim that acquiring Nigerian citizenship is “virtually impossible” for foreigners. Sections 26 and 27 of the Constitution, he noted, provide pathways to citizenship through registration or naturalization, given that applicants meet set conditions.
However, Falana acknowledged a legislative flaw: while foreign women married to Nigerian men can obtain citizenship by registration, the same does not apply to foreign men married to Nigerian women. He described this as a reflection of Nigeria’s patriarchal legal framework and called for urgent reforms to address the inequality.
