On May 7, 2015, a Nigerian, Chuka Umunna, could
make history by becoming the first black Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom. Born in London in
1978, Chuka was bred in the UK. His late father,
Bennett, hailed from Anambra State while his Irish
mother, Patricia, is a solicitor.
Co-incidentally, Chuka shares startling similarities
with the United States President, Barack Obama,
who is the first black President of the world’s
most powerful nation.
For instance, Chuka is of mixed race, being the
child of a Nigerian father and an Irish mother
while Obama is also of mixed race, being the
offspring of a white American woman and a
Kenyan father. Also Chuka’s father, Bennett, was
killed in a mysterious car accident in Nigeria in
1992 while Obama’s father was killed in a car
accident in Kenya in 1982.
If history repeats itself as it is being predicted by
British political observers, Chuka, who is also a
six-foot tall lawyer like Obama, could become the
first black Prime Minister in the UK.
Chuka’s life story is perhaps a better guide to his
future political direction. It is the story of a rise
from the streets of South London (scene of some
of Britain’s worse race riots in the 1980s) to the
parliament. But it is not the story that some
might expect.
His father, Bennett, was a Nigerian labourer, who
arrived in Britain in the sixties with one suitcase
and no money. Having borrowed the fare from
Liverpool to London, he worked in a carwash,
became a successful businessman and died in a
car crash when his son was 13.
Bennett began an import-export business trading
with Nigeria and was starting to make a decent
living when he met Patricia Milmo, a solicitor, at
a London party. She happened to be the daughter
of Sir Helenus Milmo, a Cambridge-educated High
Court judge and a prosecutor at the Nuremberg
Nazi trials. They later got married, a rare
combination during a time of high social
inequality and racism.
Chuka believed his father was killed because he
refused to indulge in corrupt practices when he
was running for the governorship of Anambra
State during the administration of former military
dictator, General Ibrahim Babangida (retd.).
Bennett died after his car ran into a lorry carrying
logs along the Onitsha-Owerri highway in
Anambra. Bennett had been splitting his time
between London and Nigeria – where he
unsuccessfully ran for the governorship of
Anambra State and had taken a stand against
bribery.
At a point Bennett was also the owner of the
Rangers International Football Club of Enugu, the
darling of the Igbo people.
When quizzed about his father on Sky News, he
had this to say: “There was a lot of speculation in
Nigeria at the time around his death. He was a
national political figure standing on an anti-
corruption ticket and refused to bribe anybody.
“We don’t really talk about it because it is not
going to bring him back but I think he would be
bowled over that his son is now a politician just
like him.”
Chuka, an English and French Law graduate from
the University of Manchester, who also holds a
Master’s degree from Nottingham Law School,
says his interest in politics was shaped by seeing
extreme poverty while visiting his father’s
relatives in Nigeria and the social divide in his
own Streatham constituency in the UK. He says
that he is “not super-religious” but that his soft-
left values are “rooted in my Christianity.”
The 35-year-old Labour Party Member of
Parliament, however, has two hurdles to cross if
he is to make history in the UK. This is because
in the UK, for one to become the Prime Minister,
the person must first be a Member of Parliament,
the person’s party must win majority of seats out
of the 560 seats in the House of Commons during
the parliamentary elections and the person must
be the leader of his party.
Presently, Chuka is the Member of Parliament for
Streatham, a position he has held since 2010 but
must re-contest in 2015 and win to retain the
seat.
He is also the Shadow Business Secretary, a
position held by a member of Her Majesty’s Loyal
Opposition. The duty of the office holder is to
scrutinise the actions of the government’s
Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and
Skills and develop alternative policies. The office
holder is a member of the Shadow Cabinet.
According to the UK Telegraph, Chuka is
rumoured to have the strong support of a former
British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who was also a
Labour Party leader.
According to the British newspaper, when asked if
he was Blair’s anointed candidate, Chuka said, “I
really don’t know anything about that.” However,
when he was pressed further whether he aspired
to head his party, he said, “I don’t entertain any
discussion beyond winning the election next year.
That would be completely hypocritical of me. To
start thinking about hypothetical scenarios would
be totally indulgent. All my energy is focused on
winning the election, and so should everyone’s. It
will be very close.”
Chuka is one of the youngest MPs in the UK
having been introduced into British politics by the
current Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, while he
was in his 20s.
It was Milband that helped him become an MP
and later made him his Parliamentary Private
Secretary before he was promoted to the Shadow
Cabinet in October 2011. He is tipped to become
Miliband’s successor and could become the Prime
Minister should the Labour Party win next year’s
election.
Chuka, however, claims to hate the comparison of
him and Obama which he terms the “construct of
lazy journalists.” He sharply divides opinion in
British politics. Good-looking, articulate, new-
media-savvy and a good orator.
According to FT Magazine, he is not universally
popular among his own colleagues, who see more
style than substance. “He just has a knack of
alienating people,” said one experienced Labour
MP. “He is probably the most natural
communicator I’ve seen since Tony Blair. The
problem is that each week he has fewer
supporters than he did at the start of the week.”
Even potential allies recount stories of apparent
slights or snubs. A senior party figure says,
“Chuka has put people’s backs up. They feel he is
inaccessible.” Another long-serving MP adds,
“The idea of learning the trade first is only for
mere mortals, not for him.” Peter Mandelson, the
former Labour business secretary who played a
key role in Blair’s rise through to the top, thinks
the explanation for this is quite simple, “Envy
plays a big part in politics,” he says.
Like Blair, Chuka sometimes connects better with
those beyond his own circle. John Cridland, head
of the CBI employers’ group, calls him “a guy with
whom we can do business.” Andrew Tyrie, Tory
Chair of the Commons Treasury Committee, say:
“He’s extremely talented and charming.” Andrew
Adonis, a former Labour minister, sums up his
cross-party appeal: “The best politicians are
those who look outwards not inwards.”
However, allies of the current British PM, David
Cameron, scoffed at the idea that Chuka might
represent a threat to Cameron’s second term bid.
“I can’t think of any issue where he’s put us
under pressure,” says one close friend of the
prime minister. “He’s pretty average – he’s a
slick corporate lawyer.”
Also, among his fellow party members, Chuka’s
lack of political definition is another source of
irritation as some claim they struggle to work out
what he really believes in. But Chuka says people
should show a bit more patience. “It would be
rather unhealthy if after just three years in
parliament I was setting out some blueprint for
my country,” he says. “What do people expect?”
But some see him as the potential leader of a
mainstream 21st-Century Labour party with the
kind of crossover appeal of Blair’s New Labour.
Despite initial reservations that Chuka might be a
bit too left-wing, Blair has started seeing him
regularly. “Chuka strikes Tony as very smart,”
says one close ally of the former PM. “Business is
a particularly important brief in tough economic
times and Chuka seems to be rising to the
challenge.”
As if Blair’s blessing was not enough, Chuka
recalls the “honour” of spending “a small bit of
private time with former US President, Bill Clinton,
who he describes as one of his political heroes. “I
think he defies the left-right description,”
Mandelson says in approbation. “He’s part of a
generation that transcends those labels.”
He has also recently been to Europe to meet his
friend, the French PM, Manuel Valls.
According to statistics, almost 15 per cent of
people in Britain describe themselves as “non-
white” but the country has never had a party
leader from an ethnic minority background.
Nobody has ever come close. Chuka confesses
that until his late teens he had not even thought
about a career in politics because there was
“nobody who looked like me” running the country.
Chuka has been vocal in the call for a reduction in
government spending as well as issues on
immigration. “They [the French] have something
like 40 ministers compared to our 80,” he says.
On the EU itself, he has called for reform, saying
not long ago that free movement of workers was
not intended to mean free movement of
jobseekers. “As one of the most pro-European
shadow ministers, I don’t think you can ignore
the impact that free movement has had on some
of our communities,” he says, adding that it has
changed because there are “many more EU
members.”
He adds, “There’s a number of things we need to
look at. Those who tend to raise the issue of
immigration with me are my African and Asian
constituents. They want confidence there are
proper controls.
“They want to see people integrate, which is why
we shouldn’t be spending all this money
translating documents and [instead] directing
resources to ensure people learn English. And you
do need to look at free movement.”
Next year’s election may not be based on
ethnicity but it obviously will be hard not to
notice that a British-Nigerian could become the
leader of one of the world’s wealthiest countries.
On the issue of ethnicity, Chuka has this to say,
“A lot of people presume – because of my
ethnicity – that I come from a particular social
background. I am very quick to disabuse people
of any sense that I’ve wanted and struggled in the
way that, say, my father did. I come from a fairly
middle-class background. People try and
pigeonhole you in a box and I find that frustrating
sometimes.”
If Chuka is hard to pigeonhole, that may be linked
to his own pedigree. It seems likely, if not certain,
that Chuka, whose name means God is the
greatest, is destined to become a larger presence
in his party and thus a bigger potential target
despite being a person whose father came to the
UK from Nigeria without a dime.
