UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has said the United States’ military intervention in Venezuela that removed President Nicolas Maduro was morally justified.
Badenoch explained that her view is shaped by her personal experience of growing up under military rule during her early years in Nigeria.
Born in the United Kingdom in 1980, Badenoch spent a large part of her childhood in Nigeria before returning to Britain at the age of 16 in 1996.
During that period, Nigeria was governed by a mix of civilian and military leaders. Shehu Shagari served as a civilian president from 1980 to 1983, after which the country was ruled by military governments led by Muhammadu Buhari from 1983 to 1985, Ibrahim Babangida from 1985 to 1993, and Sani Abacha from 1993 until his death in 1998.
Prior to Abacha’s takeover, Ernest Shonekan briefly held office as a civilian president in 1993.
Maduro, often described as presiding over an authoritarian system, has governed Venezuela since 2013. He was sworn in for a third six-year term last January following elections that were widely disputed.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Badenoch described the US-led removal of Maduro as “extraordinary” but said she understood the rationale behind it, characterising Venezuela as a “gangster state”.
“Where the legal certainty is not yet clear, morally, I do think it was the right thing to do,” she said.
“I grew up under a military dictatorship, so I know what it’s like to have someone like Maduro in charge.”
Maduro and his wife are currently in New York, where they have been charged with weapons and drug-related offences and accused of profiting from a violent criminal network involved in smuggling cocaine into the United States.
Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges.