![Kemi Badenoch Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom. [PHOTO CREDIT: BBC]](https://crediblenewsng.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/1a4f2bb0-6924-11ef-b24a-c989141bfa8a-scaled.jpg)
United Kingdom Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch has stated that she no longer identifies as Nigerian, citing a prolonged detachment from the country and the realities of her personal and political life in Britain.
Speaking on the Rosebud podcast, Badenoch disclosed that while her ancestry remains Nigerian, her identity and sense of belonging have evolved over the years to align more with her British upbringing and experiences.
“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, according to The Guardian. “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 new family is.”
Badenoch, born in London in 1980, spent a significant part of her early life in Nigeria and the United States. She returned to the United Kingdom at the age of 16, during a period of political and economic instability in Nigeria. Her parents had sent her to live with a family friend in order to complete her A-levels and build a more stable future.
“There is no future for you in this country,” she recalled her parents telling her about Nigeria. That decision, she reflected, was rooted in the harsh realities they faced, a decision made out of both concern and necessity. “I think the reason that I came back here was actually a very sad one.”
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Although she was born in Britain, Badenoch noted that her British citizenship came just before the Margaret Thatcher-led government scrapped birthright citizenship in 1981. “Finding out that I did have that British citizenship was a marvel to so many of my contemporaries,” she said.
In the years that followed, Badenoch immersed herself in British society and politics, ultimately rising to lead the Conservative Party. Despite her Nigerian heritage, she emphasized that she has not held a valid Nigerian passport in over 20 years. Her disconnection from formal Nigerian citizenship was further underscored when she had to obtain a visa to visit the country after her father, Dr. Femi Adegoke, died in 2022. She described the process as a “big fandango.”
Badenoch also discussed the deeper meaning of identity in her current life, expressing that her British family — including her husband and children — represents where she truly belongs. “The Conservative Party is very much part of my family, my extended family, I call it,” she added.
