‘I would definitely remember if we had admitted a Nigerian student with any financial aid’
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s honesty and integrity is being called into question, after doubts surfaced over her claim to have been offered a place at a prestigious US medical school at 16, with admissions staff unable to recall the proposal and the university not providing the course.
During a 2017 interview with the Huffington Post, Badenoch was asked what she wanted to be aged 16 to which she replied: “A doctor, like my parents.” “Going to a very bad school here stopped me. I had actually got admission into medical school in the US – I got into Stanford pre-med – and I got into medical school in Nigeria but I came here because being a citizen it was just a lot cheaper,” she added.
However, The Guardian reported that medicine is only offered to graduates at Stanford and there is no pre-med degree. Jon Reider – the Stanford admissions officer at the time of her application – told the Guardian he would have been responsible for offering Badenoch a place and had not done so.
The paper reports: “Jon Reider, the Stanford admissions officer at the time of Badenoch’s application who was responsible for international students and the allocation of bursaries, said he would have been responsible for offering Badenoch a place and had not done so. Badenoch moved to the UK from Nigeria aged 16.”
“Although 30 years have passed, I would definitely remember if we had admitted a Nigerian student with any financial aid. The answer is that we did not do so,” he said.
He went on to add: “O-levels would not have been sufficient, and we would have been very nervous admitting a 16-year-old. She would have had to have an extraordinary record.”
Reider also revealed that the prestigious university would not have offered a partial scholarship they could not afford to take up.
A Labour source told the Mirror: “Honesty and integrity aren’t optional qualities for those who serve as the Leader of His Majesty’s official opposition. The uncertainty surrounding Kemi Badenoch’s Stanford University claims raise important questions that the public deserve to know the answers to.
“Badenoch needs to come clean about what’s happened here and whether she’s been telling the truth to the British people.”
Badenoch meanwhile continues to insist that she was offered a place by Stanford.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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