Immigration on @CNN GPS today
Fareed Zakaria + Kemi Badenoch pic.twitter.com/LGtpL4jCRa
— Rich Opara (@ripplo) July 20, 2025
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, says her children are unable to obtain Nigerian citizenship because she is a woman, despite Nigerians becoming British citizens with relative ease.
Speaking on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS on Sunday, Badenoch criticized immigration policies she views as unequal. “It’s virtually impossible, for example, to get Nigerian citizenship. I have that citizenship by virtue of my parents, I can’t give it to my children because I’m a woman,” she said. “Yet loads of Nigerians come to the UK and stay for a relatively free period of time, acquire British citizenship. We need to stop being naive.”
Asked if she would permit a Nigerian immigrant to recreate a “mini-Nigeria” in the UK, she responded, “That is not right. Nigerians would not tolerate that.”
However, section 25(1)(c) of the Nigerian Constitution states that a child born abroad to even one Nigerian parent qualifies for citizenship.
Badenoch, born in the UK to Nigerian parents, grew up in Nigeria and returned to Britain at 16. She is married to Hamish Badenoch and has three children.