Zimbabwean Elected Mayor In London
4 October 2020
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Paul Nyathi

Adam Jogee

ZIMBABWEAN Adam Jogee has been elected Mayor of Haringey, a borough in North London, the United Kingdom.

Jogee is a Labour Party councillor for Hornsey ward and chairs the environment and community safety scrutiny committee.

He has been a councillor since 22 May 2014.

Haringey’s new mayor urged greater action to tackle racial and religious inequality as he was sworn in on Thursday at the opening of Black History Month.

Cllr Jogee, paid tribute to his Jamaican and Zimbabwean heritage and he called for more “kindness” and “courtesy” in local politics.

The council AGM was held on Thursday having been subject of delay and political infighting following a series of recent suspensions of Haringey Labour councillors.

Cllr Jogee told the meeting: “It is fitting that on the first day of Black History Month Haringey has elected a Black man as its First Citizen.

“As important as that is, we all have more to do to advance the cause of racial and religious equality and we must never forget that responsibility.”

Cllr Jogee, who went to Highgate Wood School, paid tribute to his grandfather who left Jamaica for Britain in the early 1940s to aid the country’s war efforts.

“Haringey, where I have lived my whole life, is a diverse, multicultural, inclusive and vibrant community,” the Hornsey councillor said.

“We must always be proud of who we are as a people and we must be forever focused on what we can be, and what we can do.”

Haringey Council’s leader Cllr Joseph Ejiofor (Labour, Bruce Grove) paid tribute to the outgoing mayor Cllr Sheila Peacock who he described as a “champion” of the elderly.

He said coronavirus and Black Lives Matter were the two main points of reflection for 2020, which he called a “very challenging year”.

On Covid-19 Cllr Ejiofor urged residents to not listen to the “naysayers” and he called for “decisive action” to prevent another lockdown.

The council’s opposition leader, Cllr Luke Cawley-Harrison (Liberal Democrat, Crouch End), said Haringey stood “arm in arm” with Black Lives Matter and that the pandemic’s local response showed the best of the community.

Cllr Cawley-Harrison criticised Haringey Council for “indulging” its divisions in what he labelled the “political pantomime” of recent suspensions “rather than combating the pandemic”.