Kemi Badenoch, UK business secretary and Conservative Party leader, has declared that she no longer identifies as Nigerian and has not held a Nigerian passport for over 20 years.
Badenoch, who was born in London and raised in Lagos, made the statement while speaking on a podcast.
She said that while she knows Nigeria well and has family ties there, she no longer feels a sense of belonging to the country.
Her words: “I have not renewed my Nigerian passport, I think, not since the early 2000s,” she said. “I don’t identify with it anymore. Most of my life has been in the UK and I’ve just never felt the need to.
“The Conservative Party is very much part of my family, my extended family, I call it.
“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… but home is where my now family is.”
When her father, Femi Adegoke, passed away in 2022, Badenoch said she had to get a visa to travel to Nigeria, which she called “a big fandango.”
She also recalled that although she held dual British and Nigerian heritage while growing up in Lagos, she never quite felt she belonged there.
“My parents thought, ‘there is no future for you in this country’,” she said.
Badenoch has previously been criticised by some Nigerian politicians for her public remarks on corruption and dictatorship in Nigeria.
In December, Vice President Kashim Shettima said she was free to “remove the Kemi from her name” if she was not proud of her heritage.
Her spokesman responded that she “stands by what she says” and is “not the PR for Nigeria.”
