British Prime Minister David Cameron defied pre-election projections to win a stunning election victory in the May 7 general elections.
Remarkably, four Nigerians – Mr. Chuka Umunna, Ms. Chi Onuoha, Ms Helen Grant and Mrs. Kate Osamor – won their elections which also saw a 20-year-old Scottish student, Mhairi Black, become Britain’s youngest lawmaker since 1667.
The victory of four Nigerians in faraway UK is a great lesson for Nigerians when even in this era the victory of non indigenes of Lagos became a subject of indication in some certain quarters.
This is just another signal that Nigerians have a lot of evolution to make in the poli cal scene.
Black defeated Douglas Alexander, a strong Labour Party politician in the Paisley and Renfrewshire South constituency outside Glasgow. Young Mhairi Black is a member of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP).
While the Conservative Party won 331, the Labour Party won 232, and the Liberal Democrats won 8, the SNP won 56 of 59 seats in Scotland. The UKIP became the third largest party with 11 seats. Other highlights of the elections are the rash of resignations from the leader of Labour Party, Ed Miliband, and of the Liberal Democrats, Mr. Nick Clegg. The leader of UKIP, Mr. Nigel Farage whose party took third position also resigned.
This is the first time the Conservative Party is winning such majority since John Major’s surprise win in 1992. Surprisingly, Mr. Alex Salmond, the former leader of the Scottish nationalists, was elected to represent them in parliament in London. The United Kingdom includes England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, with England accounting for 85 percent of the population. Interestingly, four Nigerians won their elections on Thursday. They are Chuka Umanna, Helen Grant, Chi Onwurah and Kate Osamor.
Former British Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair is putting forward Umunna to become the next leader of the Labour Party.
Umunna was educated at Hitherfield Primary School in Streatham, South London, and the Christ Church Primary School in Brixton Hill. He was awarded an upper second class LLB in English and French Law from the University of Manchester.
After graduating he studied for one term at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, before studying for an MA at Nottingham Law School.
Ms Helen Grant was born in 28 September 1961. She contested on the platform of the Conservative Party. She is also an attorney and the current Member of Parliament for Maidstone and The Weald in Kent. She is the current Minister for Sport, Tourism & Equalities. Grant was first elected in 2010 general elections. Grant was the first black woman to be selected to defend a Tory seat and her election made her the Conservatives’ first female black MP.
The third person is Ms Chi Onwurah who contested on the ticket of Labour Party for Newcastle upon Tyne Central. She was born April 12, 1965, and was first elected at the 2010 general elections when she replaced another Labour MP Jim Cousins, who decided to step down. She is Newcastle’s first black MP. Her father, from Nigeria, was working as a dentist while he studied at Newcastle Medical School when he met and married her mother in the 1950s.
After Chi was born in Wallsend, Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1965, her family moved to Awka, Nigeria when she was still a baby. Just two years later, the Biafran Civil War broke out, bringing famine with it, and forcing her mother to bring the children back to Newcastle, whilst her father stayed on in the Biafran army.
The fourth politician, Ms. Kate Osamor contested as a member of Labour Party in Edmonton constituency in North London. Ms Osamor, who has worked for the NHS for 15 years, is a trade union activist, a women’s charity trustee. She defeated Kate Anolue, another Nigerian. Victorious Cameron promised to make UK stronger and create more jobs.
