The UK Minister for Business and Trade, Kemi Badenoch, has arrived in Nigeria to begin a 3-day visit to deepen the UK-Nigeria partnership.
Ndidiamaka Eze, the Senior Press & Public Affairs Officer at the UK High Commission in Nigeria, said this in a statement on Sunday.
Following the former Foreign Secretary’s visit to Nigeria in August 2023, and last week’s UK-Nigeria Security and Defence Talks, Minister Badenoch’s visit will take forward ongoing efforts by both countries to boost the UK-Nigeria trade relationship and unlock new investment opportunities.
While in Nigeria, Badenoch and the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Nigeria, Helen Grant, will have meetings with the Federal Government of Nigeria, State Governors as well as British and Nigerian business leaders and investors, according to the statement.
“Through these meetings, she will explore current and potential investment and trade activities from education to infrastructure and energy projects, with the potential to create thousands of jobs.
“Minister Badenoch will look to further strengthen the UK-Nigeria partnership, remove barriers to trade and investment, grow business between the two countries, and ensure the City of London’s enabling role for international business is more accessible to Nigeria,” the statement added.
Commenting on her visit to Nigeria, British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr Richard Montgomery said: “Nigeria is one of the UK’s most important partners in Africa. We are committed to helping Nigeria unlock new investment opportunities, supporting more UK and international investment through the City of London, and thereby creating jobs in both our countries.
“Recent big and bold reforms by the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Central Bank are boosting optimism amongst international investors that the country is on the right path and are creating the conditions for growth.”
Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke was born on 2 January 1980 in Wimbledon, London. She is one of three children born to Yoruba parents. Her father, Femi Adegoke, was a GP and her mother, Feyi Adegoke, was a professor of physiology. She has a brother and a sister.
Badenoch spent some of her childhood living in Lagos, Nigeria and in the United States, where her mother lectured. She returned to the UK at the age of 16 to live with a friend of her mother’s owing to the deteriorating political and economic situation in Nigeria which had affected her family.
Although a British citizen and born in the UK, during her parliamentary maiden speech Badenoch stated that she was “to all intents and purposes a first-generation immigrant”
