I no longer consider myself Nigerian – Kemi Badenoch

UK Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has said she no longer identifies as Nigerian, despite her ancestral roots.

Speaking on the Rosebud podcast, Badenoch revealed that she hasn’t held a Nigerian passport in over 20 years and considers her sense of belonging to be entirely British.

“I’m Nigerian through ancestry, by birth, despite not being born there because of my parents,” she said. “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. But home is where my now family is.”

Badenoch, who was born in London in 1980, spent part of her childhood in Nigeria and the United States. She returned to the UK at age 16 due to political and economic challenges in Nigeria and lived with a family friend to continue her education.

Recalling her parents’ decision to send her back to Britain, she said: “There is no future for you in this country,” they told her. “I think the reason that I came back here was actually a very sad one.”

Though she was born in the UK, Badenoch’s citizenship was granted just before the 1981 changes to British nationality law under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which ended automatic citizenship for children born in the country. “Finding out that I did have that British citizenship was a marvel to so many of my contemporaries,” she said.

When her father, Dr. Femi Adegoke, passed away in Nigeria in 2022, Badenoch had to apply for a visa to attend his funeral—something she described as a “big fandango.”

Now a key figure in British politics, Badenoch said her identity is firmly tied to her current life in the UK. “My family—my husband, my children, my extended family—and the Conservative Party, are what I now see as home.”