United Kingdom Conservative Party leader and cabinet minister, Kemi Badenoch, has said she no longer identifies with Nigeria her ancestral homeland disclosing that she has not held a valid Nigerian passport in over 20 years.

Speaking on the Rosebud podcast hosted by Gyles Brandreth, Badenoch reflected on her identity and upbringing, noting that although she was born in London in 1980, she spent part of her childhood in Nigeria and the United States before permanently relocating to the UK at the age of 16.

“I have not renewed my Nigerian passport not since the early 2000s. I don’t identify with it [Nigeria] anymore,” she said. “Most of my life has been in the UK, and I’ve just never felt the need to.”

Badenoch recalled that her parents made the difficult decision to send her back to the UK due to Nigeria’s political and economic instability at the time.
“My parents thought, ‘There is no future for you in this country.’ That’s the reason I came back here. It was actually a very sad one,” she added.

While distancing herself from Nigeria as a national identity, Badenoch acknowledged her emotional connection to the country through family and interest in its affairs.
“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 my husband, children, my brother, and in-laws,” she stated.

She also shared how the death of her father, Dr. Femi Adegoke, in 2022 brought new complications, including the difficulty of obtaining a Nigerian visa.
“It was a big fandango trying to go back after my dad passed away,” she said.

Badenoch emphasized that she holds British citizenship by birth, just before the UK abolished automatic citizenship for those born in the country under the 1981 British Nationality Act, a fact that she said surprised many of her peers.

Now a prominent figure in British politics, Badenoch described the Conservative Party as her “extended family,” further solidifying her shift away from her Nigerian identity.