UK Conservative Party leader and minister, Kemi Badenoch, has declared that she no longer identifies as Nigerian and does not hold a Nigerian passport.

Speaking on the Rosebud podcast hosted by Gyles Brandreth, Badenoch said that although her ancestry is Nigerian and she spent part of her early life in the country, she no longer views it as part of her identity.

“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. “I know the country very well, I have a lot of family there, and I’m very interested in what happens there.”

Born in Wimbledon, London, in 1980, Badenoch revealed that she has not renewed her Nigerian passport in over two decades. She spent a portion of her childhood in Nigeria and the United States before returning to the UK at age 16.

Reflecting on her early struggles, Badenoch recalled, “The toughest thing I had to do was to fend for myself at 18.” She also expressed a lingering feeling of not fully belonging during her time in Nigeria. “Never quite feeling that I belonged there,” she said.

Now firmly rooted in British politics and life, she defined “home” as where her current family resides. “Home is where my now family is, and my now family is my children, my husband, my brother and his children, in-laws. The Conservative Party is very much part of my extended family.”

Badenoch is among the last group of individuals granted automatic British citizenship by birth, prior to the policy’s revocation in 1981 under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

“Finding out that I did have that British citizenship was a marvel to so many of my contemporaries, so many of my peers,” she added.