Controversial UK-based pastor Tobi Adegboyega has dismissed recent comments by British Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch who claimed Nigeria drives its citizens to engage in questionable behaviours.
Mrs Badenoch, who has previously criticised Nigeria before ascending as the UK opposition leader, made the remarks during an interview with a British journalist, also accusing the Nigerian Police of exploiting the citizens they are meant to protect.
In response, Adegboyega, whose SPAC Nation church was recently shut down by the British government over allegations of mismanaging £1.87 million in church funds, refuted her statements. He argued that no country in the world is completely safe.
The pastor shared his views as a guest on Monday’s edition of Politics Today on Channels Television, emphasising the global nature of challenges faced by nations.
He said, “I completely disagree with that statement. Between 2023 and 2024, about 78,000 bags and phones were snatched in London and the UK alone. There’s a very strong Nigerian black community in this nation.
“For people like the leader of the opposition (party) you just mentioned to get to that position, they’ve been fighting on the street. There were funerals where kids were killed in the UK. They buried three kids from the same parents.
“And we ask the question when the Nigerian community control these things in the UK, where are these voices? They have been fighting. The Windrush, which has to do with Jamaicans. People have been fighting before a black person or black immigrant can ascend to those seats.”
Continuing, Adegboyega reiterated that though things might be tough for his people back home in Nigeria, it doesn’t give anybody leeway to disparage the country in the manner Badenoch is going about it.
To further buttress his point, the embattled preacher noted that the number of young black men in UK prisons and mental homes far outweighs those in schools.
He added, “So we cannot dissociate from where we are coming from. We are not denying the fact that our country has issues and we are also not as old as the advanced economies like Britain, but we cannot say things are all dark because it’s not true.
“We live on the street and know what is going on here. We know that prisons and mostly mental hospitals have more young black people than schools in the UK.
“When SPAC Nation began, we started sending people to Harvard, Cambridge and also have the highest number in Imperial College.”
