Why Nigerian Britons did well in UK polls —Hilaria Asumu JP, British Nigerian politician
Hilaria Asumu JP, is Councillor at Walkden South, Salford City Council
a and former Chair of the Black and Asian Police Association, where she championed diversity and inclusion within the force.
The Oxford alumna and Labour member is also a member of the Fabian Society, the Fabian Women Network (FWN) and Operation Black Vote (OBV) and has over 15 years of experience across public, private, and third sectors, human resource management and community advocacy.
She tells Morenike Taire why Nigerians are the most dominant minority nationality in UK politics.
A good and unprecedented number of Britons of Nigerian origin were able to secure political positions in the last elections in the UK. To what do you attribute this?
Quite a few Africans, Nigerians mostly and mostly from the Yoruba communities won seats as MPs in the current Labour government. To be selected to stand as MP you have to be active within the Labour Party and in the community. Not just that, you have to show that you have got the skills and experience to advocate on behalf of your constituents and I think most Nigerians as we all know and every country knows, that Nigerians are very hard working. We give it more than a hundred percent and most of the Nigerians I know who are currently MPs have given a lot to their communities. They haver been involved actively within the Labour Party and have contributed to the success of the party. They were previous MPs and there are new MPs. The fact is that they see you. They are people within your community within the Labour Party who would suggest but this year they asked people to apply to the Number 2 ground seats and quite a few people put themselves forward. Unfortunately, some of them did not make it through but I think the majority of those who did, did get through.
Again, it has to do with the campaigning. You have to be out there everyday, you have to follow the rules of the party, do what you are told to do and at the end of the day, the best people won. I am really, really encouraged to see that there were more women and diversity across the cross-section of MPs. We have 41% of women in the Labour Party currently and of that, I think maybe about two or three per cent Nigerians.
That is a move forward. It’s also a sort of hope to other Nigerians who are thinking of becoming MPs or who have ambitions to sit in Parliament.
You have yourself won a seat in the local council and have been an active participant in local politics for a little while. What was for you the silver bullet, and do you think people like you paved the way for the present wave of successes?
I did have some ambition to be in government and mainly because of kidney patients. Initially, it was not about politics for me but as I started campaigning and speaking to people within the black communities, especially in the Nigerian community, I realised that a lot of people had a lot of inequalities that were faced within the system. It’s not just health, it’s other areas and you find that people don’t think it is attainable that they can get there and I wanted to show people that if you set your mind to something, you would get it.
After I got my (kidney) transplant, I thought, how do I help build the bridge between our host country and the black communities, especially the Nigerian community? I decided to stand as a Councillor, and I won. For me, it was more about giving the voiceless a voice and not just only serving people from Nigeria but everybody in my constituency, the residents in my ward. I am listening to what the issues are, trying to be their voice in the Council chambers especially when issues come up that would affect them adversely or issues come up that I think if they are looking for solutions they also have to think about the black community. I think I am doing that, not just me. There are two Nigerians in the Salford Council, four women from ethnic minorities but three Africans. One is from Congo, and two of us are from Nigeria. I am from Edo state and the other person is from Imo state. I am mentoring other Nigerians to stand as Councillors across Greater Manchester and the Northwest. Hopefully, we will prevail and maybe about half of them will be able to make it to the different Councils in their different areas and start to represent people in their communities.
Some Nigerians have attributed Labour’s win to the “Obi Factor”, of course referring to Nigeria’s Labour Party candidate in the presidential elections last year. Is this a thing?
As a politician in the UK, I cannot comment on Nigerian politics. I think that Nigeria is unique in terms of how they conduct their elections. I think the politicians themselves are unique. No country’s election process is the same. We are all totally different and some Nigerians who supported my campaign last year saw that it was totally different. I don’t know about the “Obi Factor” whatever that means. The Labour Party in the UK is in no way connected to the Labour Party in Nigeria and I did have people following me thinking me being a member of the Labour Party is linked to Nigeria. I had to tell people that the UK Labour Party is different, and our process is different as well.
And transparent. I have never been involved in politics in Nigeria so I don’t know what people are talking about and it is something I really cannot comment on. There is no outside body involved in the election in the UK, and neither will we get involved in the election in any other country. It is their jurisdiction and they conduct their elections in any way they want to conduct it.
So what is the implication of having so many Britons of Nigerian origin in the UK government. Does this have any direct or indirect implications?
Everybody who is elected either as a Councillor, Mayor or MP is only looked at as representatives of the community. We are all bound by oath to represent everybody within our remit. As a Councillor I don’t look at people and say, you are a Nigerian, I will only cater to you. When they come to us and they are within our Ward we can listen to them just like any other person and that is the same for all politicians across the board, so it all depends on which area they are in. The expectation is that you treat everybody fairly and also with dignity and respect. It doesn’t matter if they are members of the Labour Party or not. As long as they live within the area of jurisdiction or constituency you have to ensure that you treat them like any other person.
Telling the younger ones, you can be or do it yourself, you can be an MP if you want to be. You can be a Councillor or Mayor and I see a lot of youngsters joining political parties, some of them are mixed-race- their father is Nigerian, their mother is white or Asian, you name it. You have to put in the work. There is no, you are from Nigeria, so we are not going to give you the position. You have to compete and compete.
It all depends on the works of your hands as a politician or an ordinary citizen. I was asked three times to stand and then I wasn’t thinking of going into politics because it wasn’t for me at that time. I was thinking of something else until I started campaigning and noticed the issues we faced as black communities and Africans, and I decided I was going to be a voice but as soon as I got in, I understood that you have to always remember that there are other people within your constituency who also need that support so you cannot discriminate. You have to cater to everybody’s needs.
Sometimes someone could come from another constituency because they don’t know who to go to. You on your own will have to look for the people that are within those jurisdictions and then you send an email back to say, I have passed this on to your MP or your Councillor or Mayor and this is their email or their numbers. That is how it works.
