UK-based pastor Tobi Adegboyega has refuted claims made by British Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch that Nigeria drives its citizens to engage in questionable behaviours.
During a recent interview with a UK journalist, Badenoch criticised Nigeria, accusing the country’s police force of exploiting the citizens they are sworn to protect.
Adegboyega, whose SPAC Nation church was recently shut down by the British government over allegations of mismanaging £1.87 million in funds, dismissed her remarks on Monday.
Speaking on Politics Today on Channels Television, the controversial cleric argued that no country in the world is entirely free from challenges or unsafe conditions.
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.”
Adegboyega said that although Nigeria is not an advanced economy like the UK everything is not “dark” in the West African nation.
He said, “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.”
