Kemi Badenoch, the UK Business Secretary and a prominent figure in the Conservative Party, has stated that she no longer considers herself Nigerian and hasn’t held a Nigerian passport in more than two decades.
Speaking during a podcast interview, Badenoch who was born in London but spent part of her childhood in Lagos explained that although she remains familiar with Nigeria and maintains family connections there, she no longer feels a personal sense of attachment 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.”
