Media figure Dele Momodu has taken to social media to comment on British politician Kemi Badenoch’s recent statements about her early life in Nigeria. In a public post, Momodu prayed that God would heal Badenoch from any emotional wounds she might have suffered during her upbringing in the country.
Momodu was responding to a video where Kemi Badenoch, who is a prominent member of the British Conservative Party, spoke about her time in boarding school in Nigeria. In the clip, Badenoch likened her experience at the Federal Government Girls College (FGGC) in Sagamu, Ogun State, to being in a prison.
According to Badenoch, she had to do manual labor as a student, including cutting grass with a machete and cleaning toilets—despite the school having no running water. She explained that this made life in the school extremely difficult.
She recalled, “I attended a federal government girls school in a place called Sagamu. The experience felt like being locked up. I used to cut grass with a machete and carry buckets of water. That was my first time away from my family, and it felt like I had no control over anything.”
Badenoch shared that the school had overcrowded dormitories, with roughly 150 girls in total, and around 20 to 30 girls per room. The dorms were divided into six rooms, and the students largely managed themselves.
She clarified that the machetes were not for violence but for cutting grass. “There was no one else to do it, so we had to maintain the school grounds ourselves,” she said.
Badenoch explained that her school was part of the federal school system, where students were assigned to institutions based on exam performance. This system often sent children far from their homes in order to mix students from different regions and backgrounds.
Although she wasn’t sent too far, she said it was still a difficult separation from her home. Comparing the atmosphere to the chaotic story in Lord of the Flies, Badenoch said the students were left to manage everything on their own, including harsh cleaning tasks.
She ended her story by saying, “We had to clean toilets with no running water. I won’t even go into the details of how bad that was.”
