Opposition party leader in the United Kingdom, Kemi Badenoch, has revealed that she stopped identifying as a Nigerian a long time ago.
Straight-shooting Badenoch told a podcast that he had not renewed her Nigerian passport for two decades.
It would be recalled that Kemi Badenoch was born of Nigerian ancestry.
Her father, Femi Adegoke, a medical doctor, and her mother are both Nigerians. The mother travelled to the UK to deliver Kemi in 1980.
At the time, the policy of birthright citizenship was in place, which made anyone born in the country a citizen. Badenoch became a British citizen by virtue of that policy.
The late Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, abolished the policy in 1981.
She was taken back to Nigeria, where the parents lived, and she had her early education there.
When she turned 16, her parents sent her back to the UK to continue her education.
She stayed on after her education with occasional visits home. She later married a British man of Northern Ireland heritage.
In her podcast interview, Badenoch said she knew Nigeria very well and had an interest in what was happening there.
“I have a lot of family there”, she admitted. She, however, added that her home is the UK where her ‘now family’ is.
She defined her ‘now family’ as her children, husband, brother, his children and in-laws.
The politician also added the Conservative Party as part of her family. She called them her ‘extended family’.
Badenoch said she had never felt like she belonged in Nigeria, and even now, she does not identify as a Nigerian.
Talking about how she came to the UK, she said it was a sad one. According to her, her parents told her she had no future in Nigeria.
It would be recalled that Badenoch has courted trouble with Nigerians a few times because of how she talked about the country.
She constantly refers to the country as a cesspit of corruption where nothing works.
Badenoch has also complained about the insecurity, among many other ills of her country of ancestry.
The Vice President of Nigeria, Kashim Shettima, last year, called Badenoch out over her frequent bashing of the country.
He told her she was free to remove the Kemi in her name if she was not “proud” to be from Nigeria.
She responded through her spokesperson that she stood by her comments, and that she was “not the PR for Nigeria”.
