Poland's Black Conservative Politicians

MP John Abraham Godson

From Africa Review, about Poland's elected black center-right officials: "[John Abraham] Godson left Nigeria in 1999 after graduating from university to preach and teach English in Poland. But after four years of lecturing at the University of Poznan, he resigned and for the next ten years, alongside his Polish wife, Aneta, spent their time preaching and doing social work. 'It is then that a political party approached me and asked if I could run for a political seat. I declined. At first I was apprehensive because I was not a politician. I only enjoyed preaching and doing social work,' he recalls."

The article continues about MP Godson, 42, who gets high marks in Poland for his American-style constituent services and charismatic-black-preacher-style speeches: "But in 2003, when he moved to the city of Lodz, pressure from the electorate forced him to run for a district representative’s post. He won by a landslide. Godson later served as a councillor in the same city before taking up a parliamentary seat in 2010, vacated by a party colleague after local elections. He garnered over 30,000 votes, one of the best voter returns in the elections. 'Winning the district representative inspired me. Later I went for a council post and in 2007, for a parliamentary seat. I lost in my in 2007 but in 2010 I became the first black MP in Poland.'"

MP Killion Munyama (pictured left), with MP Godson

More: "Born in 1961 in Makala, outside the Zambian capital of Lusaka, [Killion] Munyama went to communist-era Poland in 1982 for an economics degree. As Poland shifted rapidly to the free market, he stayed on to do a PhD on the role of the International Monetary Fund in Zambia’s economic reforms, graduating in 1994. He has since been a lecturer in international finance and runs a consultancy preparing bids for funding from the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004. In 2002 he was elected a councillor in the town of Grodzisk Wielkopolski. Days before Zambia celebrated its 47th independence anniversary, Munyama was celebrating his political victory, not in his native country, but across the seas and oceans."

They haven't forgotten the Motherland though: "Munyama and Godson now sit in a committee to foster ties with Africa. 'Our mission is to market Poland as a destination Africans can come to to live, work and even invest,' says Godson. A Polish/Africa chamber of commerce is being set up as part of the mission to build strong ties with the continent. Does the duo believe that a black man will one day be the president of Poland? 'You never know. The country is growing to accept blacks as equals. It may take long, it took America many years to have a black man as president, now we have Obama. Poland may also one day just have one,' says Godson."