British Conservative politician and Business Secretary, Kemi Badenoch, has revealed that she no longer identifies as Nigerian and has not held a Nigerian passport for over two decades.
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Speaking on the Rosebud podcast, Badenoch who was born in the UK to Nigerian parents of Yoruba heritage and raised in Lagos said that while she knows the country well and maintains familial ties there, her sense of identity has shifted entirely to the United Kingdom.
“I have not renewed my Nigerian passport, I think, not since the early 2000s,” she said. “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… 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.”
Badenoch, who was born in Wimbledon, South-West London in 1980 and later returned to Nigeria as a child, said she had to apply for a visa when her father, Dr. Femi Adegoke, passed away in 2022.
“It was a big fandango,” she remarked.
Reflecting on her upbringing, she described life in Lagos under military rule as one marked by fear and corruption, a theme she has frequently spoken about—often drawing criticism from some Nigerian politicians.
While recounting her childhood, she noted feeling out of place despite having deep cultural roots in the country. “I remember never quite feeling that I belonged there,” she said.
She also said that her parents, disillusioned with Nigeria’s prospects at the time, sent her back to the UK at the age of 16 to pursue better opportunities.
The Tory leader stressed that her experience in the UK had been largely positive. “I did not experience prejudice in any meaningful form,” she said. “That doesn’t mean prejudice doesn’t exist, but I didn’t not seriously.”
Badenoch also weighed in on her political community, describing the Conservative Party as an “extended family with lots of drama.”
“Anybody who’s got an extended family with lots of drama will recognise that,” she joked.
The comments reignite a long-standing conversation about identity, migration, and the challenges of cultural belonging for individuals who straddle more than one heritage. Last December, Nigeria’s Vice President had responded critically to her past remarks, suggesting she “has every right to remove the Kemi from her name” if she was not proud of her Nigerian roots.
However, Badenoch’s spokesperson said she stood by her statements, adding, “She is not the PR for Nigeria.”
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