Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has announced some stringent measures her party would deploy to make it harder for Nigerians and other migrants to obtain UK citizenship.

Ms Badenoch, who obtained citizenship by birth in the 80s, insisted she wants to reduce immigration, while making it more difficult for immigrants around the world to become UK citizens in a video she circulated on her X handle on Thursday.

Ms Badenoch said, “I want to reduce immigration and make living here actually mean something. We need to change the way our immigration system works.”

The Tory leader went ahead to list some measure to reduce immigration into the UK.

She added, “So, I am announcing that the conservative party is going to do the following things differently: 1. If you want to stay in our country permanently and apply for indefinite leave to remain, the time you have to live here before you apply would increase from 5 years to 10 years. 2. You will have to be a net contributor with a high enough salary, especially if you want to bring family members with you. And if you have a criminal record, you are banned. We would increase the time you can apply for a British passport from 12 months to 5 years, meaning it will take a minimum of 15 years to start an application. If you enter this country illegally or overstay your visa, you will be banned from ever getting leave to remain or a passport.”

Ms Badenoch’s push to reduce immigration and make it harder for people to obtain UK citizenship had sparked reactions among Nigerians, many who reminded her of how she obtained citizenship by birth on a silver platter.

An X user, @OurFavonlineDoc, said “Aunty Kemi, your proposal is funny and heavily hypocritical. That is because you yourself benefitted from an easy migration pathway of birth citizenship just one year before it was abolished.

“Birth citizenship is probably the easiest pathway to citizenship because you don’t need to do anything or live one day in the UK, you only need to be born in the UK.  You got birth citizenship in 1980 and it got abolished in 1981. But here you are working hard to burn the ladder and blow the bridges that got people like you here to UK.”

Another X user, @BladeoftheS said, “Kemi Badenoch is only a UK citizen because her mother came to the UK for two weeks to give birth to her. She only came back to the UK from Nigeria as an adult due to this loophole she abused.”