UK Police Had Horrible Reputation In 80s, ASP Replies Kemi Badenoch

An Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Zayd Ibn Isah, has rebuked the UK Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, following her remarks against the Nigeria police, accusing the force of corruption and harassment, including theft.

THE WHISTLER reported that in a recent interview with The Free Press, Badenoch described Nigeria as “a poor country” and alleged that the country’s police use guns to intimidate and steal from the citizens.

Badenoch said, “the police in Nigeria would rob us. The police stole my brother’s shoes and his watch. It’s a very poor country, so people do all sorts of things.”

However, Isah through his X account (@IsahZayd) said the UK police also had a horrible reputation in the 1980s before undergoing reforms and insisted that the UK Metropolitan Police is far from flaws despite improvements.

“I would recommend David Rose’s ‘In the Name of the Law’ to Kemi Badenoch. The truth is the London Metropolitan Police was a mess in the 1960s, 1970s, and even the 1980s.

“It was through various reforms and even a change of name that they became what they are today. If the questioner had asked a British citizen in the 1960s or 1970s whether they trusted the British police, I doubt they would have said yes.

“The situation was that bad. Nigeria and its police force are not perfect—we know that. But we will rise from the ashes, just like the UK and its police force. Aunty Kemi should enjoy her new pastime of denigrating her fatherland while it lasts,” said the Abuja-based police officer.

Since becoming the UK Conservative Party leader, Badenoch has continued to tell Britons about her “very tough upbringing” in Nigeria, especially how it was characterised by fear and insecurity.

She had said, “This (the UK) is my country. I don’t want it to become like the place I ran away from. I grew up in Nigeria, and I saw firsthand what happens when politicians are in it for themselves, when they use public money as their private piggy banks, when they pollute the whole political atmosphere with their failure to serve others… I saw poverty and broken dreams. I came to Britain to make my way in a country where hard work and honest endeavour can take you anywhere. I grew up in a place where fear was everywhere. You cannot understand it unless you’ve lived it. Triple-checking that all the doors and windows are locked, waking up in the night at every sound, listening as you hear your neighbours scream as they are being burgled and beaten, wondering if your home would be the next.”

Badenoch further described Nigeria as a country plagued by corruption.

But responding to her recently, Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima, in a speech on migration in Abuja was quoted to have said that the Bola Tinubu government was “proud” of Badenoch, “in spite of her efforts at denigrating her nation of origin.”

Shettima said Badenoch was “entitled to her own opinions; she has even every right to remove the ‘Kemi’ from her name but that does not underscore the fact that the greatest black nation on earth is the nation called Nigeria.”

Badenoch’s office, in response to the VP, said: ”She (Badenoch) is the leader of the opposition and she is very proud of her leadership of the opposition in this country.
“She tells the truth. She tells it like it is. She is not going to couch her words.”

UK Police Had Horrible Reputation In 80s, ASP Replies Kemi Badenoch is first published on The Whistler Newspaper