British Conservative Party politician Kemi Badenoch has said she no longer considers herself Nigerian and does not hold a Nigerian passport.
Speaking on the Rosebud podcast with Gyles Brandreth, Badenoch disclosed that she had not renewed her Nigerian passport in over 20 years and no longer identifies as Nigerian, despite her ancestry and upbringing in the country.
“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.
The Conservative Party minister, who was born in Wimbledon, London, in 1980, spent most of her childhood in Nigeria and the United States before returning to the UK at age 16.
She is one of the last people to have received birthright citizenship in the UK before it was abolished by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1981.
“The toughest thing I had to do was to fend for myself at 18,” she noted.
She also recalled the sense of disconnection she felt during her time in Nigeria. “Never quite feeling that I belonged there,” she said.
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.”
Reflecting 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.”(punch)
