Wannabe MP Chinyelu Susan Onwurah is returning home

Sep 27 2009 by Adrian Pearson, Sunday Sun

LABOUR wannabe Chinyelu Susan Onwurah last night told of her dream to return to her home town and become the North’s first black woman MP.

The 44-year-old was born in Newcastle and attended the city’s Kenton Comprehensive School before leaving and eventually heading to the bright lights of London to go to university.

But with long standing MP Jim Cousins set to stand down from his Newcastle Central seat at the next election, Chi, as she is known to her friends, will soon be returning to her roots after she was elected to replace him and defend his 4,000 vote majority.

Chi is preparing to pack up her belongings and move back to the city in which her father was a dentist on Gosforth Road.

She lived in Newcastle for most of her childhood, except for a small stint in Nigeria, which ended with the family fleeing the war-torn country.

Now Chi says she is confident the city in which her parents met will welcome her back and show the same warmth she came to love as a child.

The engineer says she is used to traditionally white male workplaces and is undaunted at the stereotypes she may be up against.

She said: “Since I was child I have been interested in politics. Around this time of year my mother would always be watching the conferences on television and I was raised with Labour party values.

“I have always felt really privileged to have grown up in a country where education is free and to go to Imperial University, one of the best universities in the world for engineering, and to not have to pay.

“And I don’t want to sound pretentious but I have always wanted, in a sense, to repay that in Newcastle.”