Nigerian human rights activist and former lawmaker, Senator Shehu Sani, has reacted sharply to recent remarks made by Kemi Badenoch, a British Conservative Party leader and UK Secretary of State for Business and Trade.
The senator mockingly advised Badenoch to consider changing her name from Kemi to Kimberly or Kim Kardashian, following her public disassociation from her Nigerian identity.
This reaction came in response to comments made by Badenoch during a recent appearance on the Rosebud podcast, hosted by British broadcaster Gyles Brandreth. In the interview, Badenoch, who was born in Wimbledon, London, in 1980, stated categorically that she no longer considers herself Nigerian and does not hold a Nigerian passport.
“Although my ancestry is Nigerian and I spent part of my childhood in Nigeria, I don’t identify as Nigerian,” she said. “I’m Nigerian by ancestry, through birth—though I wasn’t born there—because of my parents, but in terms of identity, not really.”
The minister disclosed that she had not renewed her Nigerian passport in over 20 years. While acknowledging strong ties to Nigeria through her extended family and cultural exposure, she emphasized a personal emotional distance from the country.
“I know Nigeria well, I have many relatives there, and I’m deeply interested in what happens there. But home, for me, is where my current family is—my children, my husband, my brother, his kids, and my in-laws. The Conservative Party also feels like an extension of my family,” Badenoch explained.
Badenoch spent much of her childhood in Nigeria and later in the United States before eventually returning to the UK at the age of 16. She is among the last group of individuals to have been granted automatic British citizenship at birth before the policy was changed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1981.
In addition to the remarks on the podcast, Badenoch previously stirred controversy in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. She expressed frustration with Nigeria’s citizenship laws, particularly how they affect women. According to her, despite her Nigerian descent, she cannot pass Nigerian citizenship to her children simply because she is female.
“Many Nigerians are exploiting how easy it is to obtain British citizenship, but Nigeria makes it nearly impossible to acquire citizenship,” she said. “I have Nigerian citizenship through my parents, but I can’t pass it on to my children, just because I’m a woman.”
Her comments sparked mixed reactions across social and political circles, especially in Nigeria.
Senator Sani, in a sarcastic response, criticized her public disavowal of her roots, suggesting that if she no longer sees herself as Nigerian, she might as well adopt a fully Westernized name to reflect her chosen identity.