01/08/2025
Kemi Badenoch: I no longer identify as Nigerian
Kemi Badenoch has said she no longer identifies as Nigerian and does not hold a passport for the country.
The Tory leader, who grew up in Lagos and is of Yoruba heritage, said that she had not had a Nigerian passport for two decades.
Mrs Badenoch said that while she knew the country “very well” and had an interest in what happens there, she felt that her “home is where my now family is”.
Speaking on the Rosebud podcast, she said: “I have not renewed my Nigerian passport, I think, not since the early 2000s.
“I don’t identify with it any more, most of my life has been in the UK and I’ve just never felt the need to.”
She added: “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, and I’m very interested in what happens there.
“But home is where my now family is, and my now family is my children, it’s my husband and my brother and his children, in-laws. The Conservative Party is very much part of my family, my extended family, I call it.”
Credit: UK Telegraph
