Badenoch backs Trump’s arrest of Maduro as morally right, cites Nigeria dictatorship experience

Kemi Badenoch, leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, has defended the United States’ forceful arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, saying the action was morally justified despite lingering legal questions.

Badenoch said her view was shaped by her childhood experience of authoritarian rule in Nigeria, where she spent her formative years before returning to Britain at the age of 16.

Born in the UK in 1980, she grew up in Nigeria during a turbulent political era marked by the civilian government of Shehu Shagari from 1980 to 1983 and successive military regimes under Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha. Ernest Shonekan briefly led an interim civilian administration in 1993 before Abacha seized power.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Badenoch described the US operation that led to Maduro’s arrest as “extraordinary” but said she understood why it was undertaken, portraying Venezuela under Maduro 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 has ruled Venezuela since 2013 and was sworn in last January for a third six-year term following elections widely disputed by Western governments. The United States and its allies have accused his administration of authoritarianism, electoral manipulation and entrenched corruption.

Following the US operation, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were flown to New York to face charges including drug trafficking and weapons offences. US authorities allege the couple enriched themselves through a violent criminal network involved in smuggling cocaine into the United States. Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges.