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UK Conservative Party leader says she hasn’t renewed her Nigerian passport since early 2000s.
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She reveals deep emotional detachment from country of birth
The leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, Mrs Kemi Badenoch, has publicly declared that she no longer identifies with Nigeria, stating that the United Kingdom is now her only home.
Speaking on Friday during an interview on the Rosebud Podcast hosted by Mr Gyles Brandreth, Mrs Badenoch, who is of Nigerian descent, said she has not renewed her Nigerian passport since the early 2000s, signalling a clear departure from her ancestral heritage.
“I have not renewed my Nigerian passport; I think not since the early 2000s. I don’t identify with it [Nigeria] anymore; most of my life has been in the UK, and I’ve just never felt the need to,” she said.
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The UK minister said although she has family members in Nigeria and remains interested in the country’s political happenings, her allegiance and emotional attachment now lie solely with the United Kingdom.
“I know the country very well, I have a lot of family there, and I’m very interested in what happens there,” she added.
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“Home is where my now family is, and my now family is my children; it’s my husband and my brother and his children and in-laws. The Conservative Party is very much part of my family, my extended family, I call it.”
Mrs Badenoch, who moved back to the UK at the age of 16, reflected on the circumstances that influenced her family’s decision to leave Nigeria. She disclosed that her parents had lost faith in Nigeria’s ability to provide a secure and promising future.
“I think the reason that I came back here was actually a very sad one, and it was that my parents thought, ‘There is no future for you in this country,’” she said.
Despite her disavowal of Nigerian identity, Mrs Badenoch admitted that she had to obtain a visa to travel to Nigeria when her father passed away, underlining the legal gap created by her abandonment of dual citizenship.
“When my dad died I had to get a visa to go to Nigeria. Because 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.
