The leader of the United Kingdom Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch has denounced Nigerian identity, declaring that she is a British.
Badenoch, speaking during an interview on the Rosebud podcast, revealed she has not renewed her Nigerian passport since the early 2000s.
She declared that she is fully British and that her “home is where my now family is” in the UK.
While Badenoch denounced her Nigerian identity she declared that she is still interested in what happens in Nigeria.
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 anymore, most of my life has been in the UK, and I’ve just never felt the need to.
“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.”
The Tory leader was reportedly born in a private hospital in Wimbledon, South West London, in 1980 before her parents took her home to Nigeria.
She was one of the last people to receive birthright citizenship in Britain, before they were abolished by Margaret Thatcher.
She continued: “Finding out that I did have that British citizenship was a marvel to so many of my contemporaries, so many of my peers.
“I think the reason that I came back here was a very sad one, and it was that my parents thought, ‘there is no future for you in this country’.”
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that Badenoch denouncing her Nigerian identity comes after she had at various times lasted out at Nigeria.
She recently made the headlines after she claimed that she can’t pass Nigerian citizenship to her children due to being a woman.
However, the claim has been debunked by many legal experts as the Nigerian Constitution allows a Nigerian woman to pass citizenship to her children.
Recall also that last December, Nigeria’s vice-president said Badenoch “has every right to remove the Kemi from her name” if she was not “proud” to be from Nigeria.
