Kenya’s President William Ruto has been forced to respond to the backlash over his recent remarks suggesting Nigerian-accented English was incomprehensible.

His clarification came at a mining conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, attended by Nigeria’s Minerals Minister Henry Dele Alake, who told the gathering: “President Ruto, the people of Nigeria have mandated me to inform and assure you that Nigerians speak good English.”

To much laughter, Ruto took to the stage to explain his comments to Kenyans living in Italy last week were intended to be private and had been “taken out of context.”

He said: “The fact is that I was talking about how we in Africa speak very good English, all of us. “In fact, in some countries like Nigeria, if you do not speak excellent English like the one we speak in Kenya, you may need a translator to understand the excellent English of Nigeria. So that was the comparison.

But somebody misrepresented the facts.” President Ruto reminded the audience at the mining development conference that Nigerians were his in-laws – one of his daughters, June, is married to a Nigerian.