Nigerian Set To Become British Prime Minister, Announces Bid To Lead Labour Party

Chuka Umunna with his girlfriend Alice Sullivan

 

 

Nigerian born Chuka Umunna is set to become the first black to led the Labour party in United Kingdom and is therefore on course to become the first British black prime minister. Presently Umunna is the labour’s shadow business secretary.

 Chuka Umunna today, announced his bid to become Labour leader in a video released online this morning.

The 36-year-old MP for Streatham in south London made the announcement on Facebook after savaging Labour's disastrous election defeat.

He is the second Labour MP to join the race to replace Ed Miliband, after Blairite shadow health minister Liz Kendall announced her bid on Sunday.

But the pair are likely to be joined by at least three more candidates, including Yvette Cooper - who will launch her bid as early as Thursday - and the shadow health secretary Andy Burnham.

Chuka Umunna has enjoyed a rapid rise since being elected to Parliament five years ago, aged just 31.

The sharp-suited former lawyer was promoted to shadow business secretary within two years of winning his Commons seat – and quickly became one of Labour’s most high-profile figures.

Before entering Parliament, Mr Umunna studied law at Manchester University before moving into a job at the top City law firm Herbert Smith.

Despite being in his 20s, he was already earning enough to buy a £230,000 flat in a converted art deco cinema on Streatham High Road – in the heart of his future constituency.

Mr Umunna was born in London in 1978 – the son of a Nigerian businessman and a wealthy British mother whose father was a high court judge.

His father, Bennett, moved to Britain to set up a successful import-export business – eventually earning enough to buy the family’s luxury holiday home in Ibiza.

Mr Umunna’s father tragically died in a car accident in Nigeria when his son was just 14 years old.

At the time Mr Umunna was attended the exclusive St Dunstan's College private school in south London.

His privileged background and sharp looks have been used to paint him as an out-of-touch member of the metropolitan elite who doesn’t understand market town England – seen as the crucial battleground at the next election.

Ths society journal Debrett's describes Mr Umunna as a protege of Peter Mandelson who is 'always impeccably groomed [and] exudes an air of effortless success'.

This reputation was cemented after it emerged he had once used an exclusive social networking website for wealthy Londoners to ask how to avoid meeting ‘trash’ on nights out.

Using the pseudonym ‘Harrison’ – the Labour MP’s middle name – Mr Umunna wrote: ‘Is it just me, or is there a serious lack of cool places to go in central London at the weekends? Most of the West End haunts seem to be full of trash and C-List wannabes.’

He has faced ridiculed in the Commons by David Cameron over allegations that he changed his Wikipedia entry to compare himself to Barack Obama.