Islanders Magazine

Four Nigerian-Britons Win House Of Common Seats

Four Nigerian-Britons have all won resounding victories in Thursday’s parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom.
Three of them, Chi Onwurah, Helen Grant and Chuka Umunna won re-election, with wider majorities, while a new face, 46 year-old Kate Osamor will be representing Edmonton constituency in the 650-member House of Commons.

Kate replaced long-standing Labour MP for the constituency, Andy Love. But she did better expanding Labour’s majority here. She won 25,388 votes, as against her rival Conservative party candidate, Gonul Daniels who got 9.969 votes. Kate Osamor had spent 15 years as a GP Practice manager under NHS and has been a trade union activist and community leader. Her mother, Martha Osamor was a former community activist at Haringey Council, who was selected to represent Labour as MP for the same constituency in 1989. But Neil Kinnock, then Labour leader yanked her off the ballot at the last minute.
imageChi Onwurah, with Bola Tinubu: wins re-election

Onwurah, Labour MP for Newcastle Central and shadow cabinet office minister, thrashed her Conservative Party rival, Simon Kitchen, by a majority of 12, 683 votes. She garnered 19,301 votes in contrast to Kitchen’s 6,628 votes. The 50 year-old Imperial College graduate has already thanked in a tweet, all those who made her election ‘go extremely smoothly’.
Helen Grant, who has a Nigerian father has been since 2010 the first Conservative Party black female MP, representing Maidstone and The Weald in Kent. She is the current minister for Sport, Tourism and Equalities. In her constituency election, she even won a grander decisive majority, than her showing in 2010. She polled 22,745 votes, representing 45.5 per cent of the votes cast. Her Liberal Democrat rival, got 12,036 votes.The candidate of UKIP, Eddie Powell, that polls said was capable of creating an upset, got 7,930 votes.
Chuka Umunna, current shadow business secretary also won big in his Streatham

Constituency, winning 53 per cent of the votes cast. He polled 26, 474 votes, untroubled by both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats candidates. The Conservative candidate got 12,540 votes and Lib. Dem, 4,491.