Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has criticized UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch for her claim that she cannot pass Nigerian citizenship to her children because of her gender.
Badenoch made the controversial statement during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday. In the interview, she suggested that Nigeria’s citizenship laws are discriminatory against women and contrasted them with what she described as the UK’s overly permissive immigration system.
“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 told Zakaria.
She added, “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.”
Reacting to the claim, Falana (SAN) dismissed her assertion. In a statement yesterday, Falana described Badenoch’s statement as “a display of utter ignorance” and accused her of misinforming the British public to score political points.
“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. 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.”
Citing the Nigerian Constitution, Falana stressed that gender does not prevent a Nigerian from transferring citizenship to their children. He said Badenoch’s remarks showed a “display of utter ignorance.”
“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,” he added.
Falana also addressed Badenoch’s suggestion that foreigners cannot acquire Nigerian citizenship, pointing out that the Nigerian Constitution provides legal pathways for foreigners to become citizens.
“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 explained.
However, the rights advocate acknowledged one gender-based gap in the current law and called for reform.
“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,” Falana said.
