British politician and Leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has said that she no longer sees herself as Nigerian and does not possess a Nigerian passport.
Speaking recently on the Rosebud podcast hosted by Gyles Brandreth, Badenoch explained that although her ancestry is Nigerian and she spent part of her upbringing in the country, she does not identify as Nigerian.
“I’m Nigerian through ancestry, by birth, despite not being born there because of my parents, but by identity I’m not really,” she said.
The minister, who was born in Wimbledon, London, in 1980, noted that she had not renewed her Nigerian passport in more than two decades. Despite her roots, she emphasised a personal sense of detachment.
“I know the country very well, I have a lot of family there, and I’m very interested in what happens there,” she added.
Badenoch spent a significant part of her childhood in Nigeria and the United States before returning to the UK at the age of 16. She is among the last group of people to receive British birthright citizenship before the policy was abolished in 1981 by Margaret Thatcher’s government.
Reflecting on her early struggles, she recalled, “The toughest thing I had to do was to fend for myself at 18.”
Badenoch also shared her feelings of not fully belonging while living in Nigeria, saying, “Never quite feeling that I belonged there.”
Now firmly settled in the UK, she described what “home” means to her today.
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.”
Touching on her citizenship status, she remarked, “Finding out that I did have that British citizenship was a marvel to so many of my contemporaries, so many of my peers.”
