UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has stated that she no longer considers herself Nigerian and does not possess a Nigerian passport.
Badenoch explained that while her ancestry is Nigerian and she spent part of her childhood there, she doesn’t identify with the country by identity.
“I’m Nigerian through ancestry, by birth, despite not being born there because of my parents, but by identity, I’m not really.
“I know the country very well, I have a lot of family there, and I’m very interested in what happens there,” Badenoch said on the Rosebud podcast hosted by Gyles Brandreth.
Born in Wimbledon, London, in 1980, the politician stated that she has not renewed her Nigerian passport in more than two decades.
Badenoch spent a significant portion of her childhood in Nigeria and the United States before returning to the UK at the age of 16.
She is noted as being among the last group of people to receive British birthright citizenship before the policy was abolished by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1981.
Despite her Nigerian roots, she emphasized a personal sense of detachment from the West African nation.
“I know the country very well, I have a lot of family there, and I’m very interested in what happens there,” she stated.
Reflecting on her early struggles, she recalled, “The toughest thing I had to do was to fend for myself at 18.”
She also shared her feelings of not fully belonging while living in Nigeria, saying, “Never quite feeling that I belonged there.”
Now firmly rooted in the UK, Badenoch described what “home” means to her.
She said, “But home is where my now family is, and my now family is my children, it’s my husband and my brother and his children, in-laws. The Conservative party is very much part of my family, my extended family, I call it.”
Speaking on her citizenship status, she added: “Finding out that I did have that British citizenship was a marvel to so many of my contemporaries, so many of my peers.”
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