Twelve Lessons For African Youth
Africa stands at a pivotal moment in its journey. With the largest youth population globally, the potential for transformative change is boundless.
Lessons For African Youth: Embrace Cultural Diversity
By Adetayo Adetokun Africa stands at a pivotal moment in its journey. With the largest youth population globally, the potential for transformative change is boundless. These young Africans are the torchbearers of their nations, poised to steer the continent toward a brighter, more prosperous future. Yet, this path forward is laden with challenges, ranging from economic disparities and political complexities to environmental concerns and cultural shifts. To navigate these turbulent waters, every young African youth must be armed with a profound set of lessons that not only equip them with knowledge but also nurture their character. Lesson 1: Embrace Cultural Diversity From the bustling markets of Marrakech to the serene savannas of the Serengeti, Africa’s diversity is its hallmark. To the young African youth, the first lesson is to wholeheartedly embrace this richness. Diversity is not just a matter of demographics: it is a treasure trove of ideas, perspectives, and experiences. Every culture contributes to the intricate fabric of African identity. Whether you hail from the Sahara or the Kalahari, the Nile or the Niger, your roots are intertwined with countless others. This diversity is a source of strength, resilience, and creativity. Diversity is not a threat but a source of enrichment. It is about appreciating the beauty of a continent where over 2,000 distinct languages are spoken, where rituals and ceremonies differ from village to village, and where cuisine can be as varied as the landscapes themselves. However, embracing cultural diversity is not merely a passive act of acceptance but an active engagement with the world around you. It means understanding the customs, traditions, and beliefs of your fellow Africans. It means listening to their stories, tasting their foods, and dancing to their rhythms. It means breaking down barriers and forging connections. This lesson lays the foundation for a more tolerant, inclusive, and harmonious society. Through embracing diversity, Africa can overcome historical divisions and conflicts, forging a united front to address the challenges of the 21st century.
Lessons from the 2022 World Health Summit
General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director, World Health Organization by Adetayo Adetokun We attended the World Health Summit from October 16 – 18, 2022, and had insightful takeaways, especially from the sessions curated for African healthcare and food systems. The World Health Summit (WHS) 2022, organized jointly with the World Health Organization (WHO) for the first time, is considered the world’s leading meeting on global health. Held under the patronage of German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHS 2022 aimed to stimulate innovative solutions to health challenges, foster global health as a critical political issue and promote a global health conversation in the spirit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The health systems in many communities in Africa are vastly inadequate today. Since the pandemic began, it has become increasingly obvious that our health systems have further disintegrated, with barely any systems in place to check this rot. The COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed the lives of nearly 80 million people worldwide, further showed how vulnerable our healthcare systems are. Our governments have yet to make the investments in our healthcare systems that would provide the requisite knowledge to improve or even manage the sector. As a result, millions of people who got the COVID-19 virus could not be saved, worsening the social contract between governments and their citizens. Almost all funds we received – whether for research, vaccination, or other health service delivery components – came from nations and organizations who have made these investments in their health systems and could afford to share their excess. We believe every neighbourhood, state, and nation across Africa should have effective and efficient healthcare systems. As more advocates begin to hold the government accountable, we are starting to witness a gradual transformation of the healthcare systems in Africa. At the summit, we attended two main sessions organized for Africa: The Road to 2023: Are we Achieving Universal Health Coverage? Transforming Food Systems for Healthy and Sustainable Diets Here are some of the excellent lessons we learned from these sessions. First Panel Session: The Road to 2023: Are we Achieving Universal Health Coverage? The speakers in this session included: Sandrine Bouttier-Stref, Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility Sanoli; Alison Cox, Policy and Advocacy Director, Non-Communicable Diseases Alliance; Gabriela Cuevas Barrón, Universal Healthcare Coverage 2030, Co-Chair of the Steering Committee; Loyce Pace, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Assistant Secretary for Global Public Affairs; Dr. Luis Pizarro, Executive Director at Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi); and Dr. Peter Kwame Yeboah, Executive Director, Christian Health Association of Ghana. In this session, we learned that global health, numerous collaborations between product development partnerships and the pharmaceutical industry multilateral partnerships have already demonstrated the important role in driving access to healthcare in multiple low- to middle-income countries and across the most affected vulnerable populations. While it is clear that partnerships can result in significant benefits, challenging questions remain open. It showed us a clear road map to foster robust and sustainable collaborations that must be urgently developed to close the access gap and put us on the path to a world where equal access to quality health care is ensured for everybody. According to Gabriella Cuevas Barron, it took a pandemic that claimed the lives of more than six million people to realize how shaky the global healthcare system was. Although it may seem challenging, achieving universal healthcare coverage would be much simpler if monies were properly financed and monitored as they were used to develop the healthcare system. To ensure that nobody is left behind, we must include women and girls in these decisions. Peter Kwame Yeboah discussed the situation in Ghana and how they dealt with the recent healthcare crisis. In the last few years, religious and humanitarian organizations have assumed control of healthcare to improve coverage. In contrast to government-owned hospitals, they are nonetheless marginalized and subjected to extremely high standards, making them unable to perform as they should. To stop this, they must make sure that these partnerships are restructured. These selective regulations have made it difficult for these hospitals to operate. According to Luis Pizarro, it is crucial for every nation to be aware of the number of neglected diseases it has, particularly those in Africa. It is clear that several diseases impact millions of individuals, but because they reside in underprivileged areas, little attention is paid to them, and no solutions are explored. Ideas are excellent, but they need great finance to take flight. Thus nations seeking to attain universal healthcare coverage by 2030 must start providing funds for outstanding ideas. In her address, Alison Cox stated that 80% of current fatalities are brought on by Non-Communicable diseases (NCDs) and that this number might increase to 52 million in the upcoming year. Only 1% of individuals with NCDs have access to effective therapies. Since millions of people worldwide suffer from numerous chronic and lifelong diseases, most of which are chronic and lifelong, partnerships are crucial to addressing the NCD problem. We require funding from a variety of sources, including private organizations and individual donors to NCD funds. Regarding equity, she emphasized its significance. To eradicate NCDs, we must begin with the most disadvantaged populations. The significance of the pharmaceutical industry in assisting with the attainment of universal healthcare coverage was discussed by Sandrine Boutlier-Stref. The importance of understanding how these sectors contribute to making pharmaceuticals more accessible to people all around the world cannot be overstated. To reach a compromise where innovations are produced to address urgent problems, the government and the business sector must cooperate. Loyce Pace spoke on empowering healthcare professionals. Everyone who works in the healthcare industry needs to be given a chance to express themselves and complete their tasks in a calm setting that supports them. When we accomplish this, we’ll be able to gauge our readiness to meet the 2030 goal of universal healthcare coverage. Second Panel Session: Transforming Food Systems
We. Are.
Photo by Askar Abayev For all the Shades of Us, Tones of black, Hues of white, And all that holds in between, Moving strong in harmony. Undefeated! We are Elephants! “We are chapters of revelation,” “We are travelers of science,” But we all believe in life and hope, With powerful voices, And beauty to behold, We are Lions! From the land of wonder, We all rise from gold, Strong in our hearts, With spears in our fists, And fire in our voices, We are warriors! We move to the beats of our blood, Our feet firm, And hips warm, Dancing to the drums of our fathers, One rhythm at a time, We are dancers! Our resilience is in our ancestry, A common culture shared, In wealth and royalty, We are Kings, We are Shaka, We are Mansa, We are Asantewa, We. Are. Africans! © Safiyah Salawu-Ibrahim, Shades of Us Africa.
All We Learned at Google For Africa 2022
We attended the first Google for Africa event in 2021 and were impressed by how much Google was investing in Africa to improve educational, technology, entrepreneurial and developmental indices across the continent. We learned of the plan to invest $1Billion over a period of five years to support a range of initiatives from improved connectivity to investment in startups to help boost Africa’s digital transformation. The second virtual Google for Africa 2022 event was held on October 5-7, 2022, and the global tech giant shared how it is delivering on its commitment to support various initiatives: from improved connectivity to investment in startups and nonprofits. It was an opportunity to learn what Google is doing on the continent to improve our economic indices and overall development. Here are some of the key points we found fascinating at the event. In his opening remarks, Nitin Gajria, the Managing Director of Google, shared that Google was investing the $1 billion in Africa Digital Transformation in four areas: affordable access and helpful products; digital transformation for African businesses: investment in African Entrepreneurs; and support for non-profits in Africa. Investment in African Entrepreneurs through Google for Start-Ups provides equity-free finance, work space, and access to expert advisers. Last year Google for starters launched Black Founders’ Fund to invest in black-led startups in Africa and through Google for Nonprofits, Google is donating $1 million in ad grants every month and helping people collaborate with Google Workspace and Google Career Certificate scholarships. James Mayinka, Senior Vice President of Technology and Society at Google, spoke on Building the Future together. Something powerful about his speech was the need to understand that partnership is an essential foundation we need to capitalize on. The potential technology offers Africa for growth, prosperity, and opportunities cannot be overemphasized because 19 of the 20 fastest-growing countries in the world are in Africa and the African economy has the potential to grow by $180 billion in 2025. This potential would create increased opportunity, let families earn a living, and expand the incredible pool of talents and entrepreneur energy on the continent. He also mentioned that at the United Nations General Assembly, Google announced a renewed commitment to use Artificial Intelligence to monitor the progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. The commitment includes a $25 million fund to support non-governmental and non-profit organizations in this work. We were excited to hear that all the projects supported will be open source to ensure that the progress made by one organization will be accessible to others so they can build and expand on it. Ghana seemed deeply committed to benefiting from these opportunities. Dr. Manamudu Bawumia, Vice President of Ghana, delivered a speech titled, “Helpful Partnerships for Digital Transformation”. He made candid explanations that in Ghana, they have put the private sector at the front and center because the private sector is the innovation in the technology space, they can bring a lot of financing to the table and they have an incentive to keep the systems that are deployed to work efficiently. He explained their partnership with Google which has enabled job creation through the launch of the Artificial Intelligent Research Center: the only one in Africa, based in Accra, Ghana. Niral Patel, Director of Google Cloud, Africa, spoke on Digital transformation with Google Cloud. We learned that Google operates the cleanest cloud in the industry. It has been carbon neutral since 2007 and the goal is to operate on carbon-free energy by 2030. This would make Google the first cloud to achieve this. He announced that a google cloud region would be open in South Africa, building cloud interconnect sites in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Nairobi. In doing so, they are building full-scale cloud capacity for Africa. This will help businesses adopt new technology and unleash new opportunities for the people of Africa. And just when we wondered if there was no woman in the lineup of speakers, Agnes Gathaiya, Country Director, Google East Africa, was introduced. She spoke on Building for Africa with Africa by Africans and shared the improvements in language accessibility and barriers using Google. “If you talk to a person in a language they understand, it goes to their head. But if you talk to them in their language, it goes to their heart.” We learned that Google keyboard has about 200+ African languages and that Google made progress in ensuring letters and ascent that contribute to the richness of our African languages are available for text on our devices. One of the most fascinating things we gleaned from her presentation was that, through Google Source Initiatives, the community helps train machine learning models to improve speech recognition technologies. Also, the Africa Product Development Center in Nairobi, Kenya, is the first of its kind, where talents joining the team will help create full products and services for the continent. She announced that Google also launched Interview Warm Up, which helps people practice for interviews and get more confident about the interview process. Google was speaking the language we loved to hear about our continent. But there was more. Ola Fadipe, Senior Director, People Operation, Google, delved into the ‘Investing Africa’s Talents’ presentation. She declared that Google for Startups is supporting entrepreneurs who are solving local problems. And that the second part of the fund will support 60 African startups with $1 million in equity-free funding, $200,000 in Google cloud credits, and mentorship. And 50% of these are Women-led Startups. Whoopee! Some examples of job seekers’ support that she mentioned were: Google Career Certificate program where 87% of graduates have reported a positive career outcome within 6 months of completion; the Google African Developer Scholarship program which has helped 105,000 African developers on Android web and Google cloud technology, exceeding the original plan of 100,000 developers; Partnership with the Kenya Ministry of Education, the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Authorities, and the Africa Center for Advanced Technology helped to train 300 tutors from 45 institutions across Kenya to
When No One Is Looking
Photo by Gantas Vaičiulėnas from Pexels As long as I can remember, I have always cared about the issues that affect Africa, Africans and people of African dissent, with special focus on how these issues affect women and children. Even as a child in primary school, I can remember expressing anger at people who treated women and children poorly and standing up for the girls in my class. It would not be far-fetched to assume I was born this way, having what can be described as a gnawing need to lend my voice to women and children’s issues. I was probably around 10 years old when I learned about basic human rights and the government’s role in protecting them. Without meaning to, that became my Bible and code of conduct. I started creating content from a very young age. I wrote stories and school plays that centered women and children in roles that were not usually associated with their sex or age. These stories became church dramas because for most of my teenage years, I found expression in the church. Granted, most of what I created then was quite gruff and had a diamond-in-the-rough kind of feel but a central theme shone through all my pieces: women and children were human in themselves and needed to be treated with the full respect accorded to them by their basic rights. I remember a play I wrote that we performed in church. It started with the parents of the lead character – a young teen – finding out that she was pregnant. Rather than be judgmental, it promoted allowing yourself to be hurt if your child gets pregnant ‘out of wedlock’ but, loving (and supporting) the child regardless. It showed that children were themselves overwhelmed by the consequences of their actions and beating them or kicking them out of the house was not a fair way to handle the issue. This play connected so well with people that the way teen pregnancies were handled – a problem that was predominant in the community where the church was situated – became markedly different. It was for this openness that I was chosen when I was about 14 years to be part of a peer-education capacity building session on complete sexuality education. This opened my mind’s eye to the Millennium Development Goals and a world bigger than the things my environment had constrained it to. I began to actively promote these goals because I was: unhappy that the world didn’t take the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger as seriously as it should; wondering what could be done to achieve universal primary education; sure I needed to actively promote the idea of gender equality and the need to empower women; broken at the rate of child and maternal mortality and wondering how I could help; hated all discriminatory acts to people living with HIV/AIDS in a world where it was okay to do so; didn’t want anyone to die from Malaria or any other disease that could easily be prevented with small lifestyle changes; and, hated that our environment was gradually becoming dirty and unsustainable as a result of poor sanitation due to reduced enforcement of communal environmental protection activities. These issues became my issues. They mattered to me. And I wanted to do something about them. As I grew from teenager to young adult, I began to refine the areas that I was interested in. While I wanted to work in the field to directly help women and children, I knew it was cost heavy and living on the poverty line myself at that time, I didn’t think there was much I could do to help these people. So, I chose a path that centered more on creating content that could cause a mind shift in the general public and change behaviors that put women in boxes marked, ‘second class citizens’. I continued to write stories and plays for church, making sure to include the women empowerment nuggets in the overall message of the Christian faith. With the advent of social media, I found a bigger outlet for my work…especially as I was questioning faith and removing myself from the church. I began to share my views – my very gruff and many times, antagonistic views – on my social media platforms. A friend told me about blogs and the possibilities they held for massive, and maybe even global, reach. So, I learned about this new frontier of communication and started my blog: Shades of Us. I continued to evolve as a person, finding more perspectives to human rights and seeking even more succinct ways to communicate my ideas around them. When I heard the word ‘feminist’ during Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TedX Talk – We Should All Be Feminists – I knew this was the word that perfectly described exactly who I was and the issues that mattered to me. So here I was: Ramatu Ada Ochekliye, creating content around the Sustainable Development Goals and hoping I could change the world with my words. But, reality check. The world really doesn’t want to be changed. If the world has its way, it will continue to be patriarchal, misogynistic and abusive to women and children. It would continue to express hate against people whose sexuality is different from the accepted norm. It would continue to be intolerant of people’s rights to association, religion, belief and dignity. This is why, my work – and the work of other feminists, human rights activists and advocates, and anyone who just believes in the basic rights of all human beings across the world – can be really tasking. Nobody tells you that it is easier to maintain the status quo, as oppressive as it is, than it is changing anything. And because of this, many activists suffer the painful burnout that comes with wondering if their work even means anything. Oh! There are many reasons to keep
Announcing: ‘Quick-E’
One of the best things about Africa is how diverse the people, cultures and traditions, food, clothing, values and beliefs, and what makes us African is. From the horn of Africa to the swamps of the Niger delta, we are as different a people as the topography of our regions are. Despite our difference, it is safe to say that we are the most beautiful people on the planet! That been said, it is sad that many of us never bother to learn about our differences and the interconnecting things that unite us. Even more, as European, Middle Eastern and American cultures diffuse into ours, we seem to have the perfect excuse to be far removed from our heritage. I am guilty of this. My father is an Idoma man from Otukpo in Benue State, Nigeria. My mum is Ebira, from the town called Okene in Kogi State. When asked what tribe I am, I usually just say I am a Nigerian. As expected, I am usually asked again what tribe in Nigeria I am from. Again, I respond with the ‘I am a Nigerian and that is all that matters’ line. I know it is an ideological stand point but I have seen the effects of fixating on tribe rather than people in Nigeria. So I refused to be identified by my tribe. I have been to my father’s village once and only passed through my mother’s village on many road trips to the Southern part of the country. I also cannot speak either of their languages. To be fair, I understand my mother’s language but cannot speak it properly while I am completely hopeless when it comes to my father’s language. We all spoke the English language (and Pidgin English when our parents were not around) and that was fine by me. I grew up on American television and for the longest time, I wanted to live, eat, dress and talk like an American. I rarely wore African or African themed clothes. And though Nigeria’s English is based off our colonizers – the British – I always spoke with the twang of the American. A little over five years ago, I started to get more attune to the beauty of our continent. As I learned more about the people of Africa, my appetite for even more knowledge increased. I wanted to know why we acted the way we did, what informed our choice of clothing, how many trials we had to go through before perfecting thatcultural dish, what rules applied to men and women, how children learned values, what triggered wars, how diseases were treated, how wealth was distributed, the gods! Oh the gods! I wanted to know it all. But…history books can be so long (and sometimes so painful to read) and the thought of going through a million history books was not something I relished at all. I wanted an education and I wanted it quickly. So…a thought crossed my mind. Why don’t I ask people to teach me about their cultures and traditions in small bites?! As the thought developed in my mind, I remembered something I used to watch a lot on an East African channel – I think it was eTV – where they did these one minute videos that started with ‘Did you know…’ and proceeded to share little information about various aspects of East African cultures and traditions. I used to LOVE those nuggets! And I felt that I could do that too! For almost a year, I have been sitting on this idea because I want the delivery to be perfect, to be awesome and to be eye catching. I spent so much time worrying about the package that I forgot to just focus on the content. If anything, eTV just had the written content on their screens and it was a hit. So I didn’t need to waste all this time figuring out what I wanted the content to look like rather than what the content was about. Anyhoo, I stopped worrying about it and decided to just do it! So today, I am super excited to announce the newest thing on Shades of Us. I am calling this one…Quick-E. Quick-E is short for ‘Quick Education’ and they are a series of one minute videos looking at various aspects of African cultures and traditions. These videos will help us understand a little bit about our African brothers and sisters and their heritage. What I hope to achieve with this is that, by educating us on simple things that makes us the way we are, we can learn to tolerate and understand each other in the promotion of a united African people and sustainable peace in our communities. Now, this is not something I want to do alone. I want you and me to be part of this project. ‘How do you come in?’ may be your next question, to which I will scream in delight and give you a virtual hug. But, on a serious note though, I want you to be a part of this project by sending me a request to do a video about your tribe. An example could be, ‘Hey Ramat! I absolutely love Quick-E and learned so much from the last couple of videos. I am an Idoma person and I would love you too do a video about our food. Our traditional soup is called Okoho and we usually eat it with any ‘swallow’ which we call Ona. I will be excited to see my request accepted. Thanks boo!’ When I get a request like this, I will immediately do a research and put together a video that is like the first edition that I have attached in this post. Exciting, yeah? I know I am excited and I am super eager to learn from all of you. PLEASE be a part of this really awesome thing and let us get to know about our heritage! (PS: I will mention everyone who
On Bad Fathers, Body Shaming and Eminem’s New Song Featuring Beyoncé
Hey hey! So this is coming a bit late in the day but it is here! How was your week? We hope it was as full and fun as ours was? ‘What did we do?’ you ask. A lot…even if we say so our self. We reviewed Eminem’s new song featuring Beyoncé (Yes! Beyoncé!) It is called ‘Walk on Water’ and the video just dropped today, November 20, 2017. So we got in quick, right? And we know you might be wondering why we were doing a review of Eminem’s song since Shades of Us is about Africa, Africans and people of African descent – black and brown people basically – but Eminem is an honorary black person! He is one of us y’all! Any hoo, we also reviewed Ride Along starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart on The Review. It was lit! And from the blog, we shared posts about dealing with body shaming, fatherhood(or the lack of it) and the fourth installment of our Here Comes the Bride series. We really should finish that! We promised to conclude the Long Distance series and put up a new video but…life happened. We feel ashamed but our hands were really tied. They will come up this week. We promise! So here is everything we shared last week. From the blog; Why Athletes Need Formal Education; Here Comes the Bride 4; The Foreign Certificate Syndrome; Dealing with Body Shaming; Why We Support the Eradication of Poverty; The World’s Worst Fathers On The Review; That’s What I Like By Bruno Mars; Barbershop: The Next Cut; The Birth of a Nation; Ride Along; For Colored Girls; Walk on Water by Eminem featuring Beyoncé; And from the YouTube channel; The Launch; The Un-Invited Wedding Guest; My body, Your Problem; We also celebrated the Nigerian Bobsled team that qualified for the Winter Olympics happening in Russian in 2018. They are officially the first team in African to qualify for the Winter Olympics and they did it all by themselves. What an inspiration! This week! We already promised that Long Distance will come up but we can go further to say that you can read the final edition on Tuesday at 10am on the blog! Excited? We sure are! As usual, there will be two episodes of The Review this week and tentatively, a new video. Ei! We can see your skepticism! We will try! Ha! So much pressure. Any hoo…that was a summary of last week and a preview of what this week would look like. What topic do you want us to discuss? Share your ideas in the comment section and we will get to it! So…have yourself a great week! Thank you. Always Excited, Ramatu Ada Ochekliye, Founder, Shades of Us
To Africans in Countries That Don’t Want Them
African man being attacked in South Africa.Image: Reuters It started in South Africa. Well…it didn’t really. It was however one of the first times I had seen something so disturbing. So for me, it started in South Africa. It was sometime in 2015. The news was flooded with gruesome images (and videos) of angry mobs chasing a man, capturing him and beating him to death. The mob was made of men, women and children who seemed eager – too eager – to kill this man. There was no justification for the scene that played out but I needed to know why these foaming-at-the-mouth people decided to take a man’s life in such a deliberately wicked manner. I found out his crime; he was an immigrant. Just that. But for many South Africans, that was enough. That incident wasn’t an isolated case. It was however my introduction into the word categorized as xenophobia. I wondered how people could be so brutal and decidedly evil. There were nights when I couldn’t sleep because of the images and videos I had watched. I tried to understand the rationale behind killing immigrants. Some South Africans said these immigrants were the dregs of society and brought with them a life of crime and criminality. If that was the case, why then did they only seem to attack affluent or middle class people who were doing well for themselves, who had their own shops or businesses or who were students? Another rhetoric was that these immigrants were taking jobs away from citizens. Again, that rhetoric was flawed because in many cases, immigrants worked the dirtiest, most degrading jobs that citizens didn’t want. So if you didn’t want to do them, how could they have been ‘taken away’ from you? As I mulled over these problems, even more disturbing stories began to come out. From America, Europe, South East Asia, Northern Africa and even our neighbors in other parts of Africa, there seemed to be a whole lot of hate for African immigrants; especially if they are from Nigeria. Recently, I watched another really disturbing video showing how policemen from a Northern African country – I cannot remember which – treat black Africans in their prisons. This police man in particular beat an African prisoner so bad that he could not cry again. He just grunted every time a blow or a kick landed on his already bruised and broken body. Not satisfied with what he had done, the policeman pulled out a pocket knife and repeatedly stabbed the victim’s back with quick jabs of pain. The victim cried out again but the sound was lost in his throat. Only the agonized expression on his face explained what he had been trying to do. I was sick to my bone at the images I had seen. I am very visual so I really guard my eyes from these kinds of images but I stumbled on these two and was glued to my screen; a testament of how horrifying they were. My question then is, why do Africans go to other countries when they are obviously not wanted there? Why risk mob action, police brutality, racial or xenophobic discrimination, robbery and even death? And worse, why do they still stay in such countries after witnessing the hateful way with which their kin are treated? The answer, though glaringly obvious, still hurts. Our countries are not working! It is 2019 and many African countries are still dealing with poor infrastructure, communally entrenched corruption, sub-par education, poverty, religious and tribal discrimination, firmly rooted patriarchy, a myriad of preventable and curable diseases, unnecessary wars of power and supposed superiority etc. We are still lagging far behind! The rest of the world is championing new fronts in all spheres of life. We can’t even access basic necessities if we are not among the wealthy or middle class in our countries. Affluence divides the line of people in all countries, and it is a problem in Africa because many of the affluent are where they are because they shortchanged the rest of the population. So I want to tell my brothers and sisters to come back home and away from those horrible countries but… what are they coming back to? To failed systems that lets them down all the time? To governments that do not even care for them? Or to a no-dream country? Because you see, people would rather risk everything they have, even unto death, if it means a chance at a better life. That is why many Africans still try to cross the Mediterranean even though people are dying DAILY at sea. That is why we have immigrants doing the most disgusting jobs to survive. That is why our brothers and sisters return to communities where a brother was killed, hoping the sharp looks of hatred are just that; knowing that one day, they may transcend into something much worse. This is the reality of the continent we call home. And this why we have to, collectively, rewrite the entirety of our lives as Africans. We need to make our countries work! When each of our countries works, our continent will work! Europe is probably the most stable continent in the world because they have created systems that improve the lives of their people. Even Tunisia, which is a bedlam most of the time, works. Why can’t we have effective systems for ourselves? Why do we seem so keen on imploding first before finding ourselves? When will we catch up to the rest of the world? We need to take a cue from Nehemiah’s wall; a system where everyone worked to fix their own wall as they added to the grand wall of Jerusalem. We don’t have to wait for our nobles and leaders to start causing the desired change that we want. We can start from ourselves and our immediate environment. Educate ourselves and our children, love our neighbors as we do ourselves, work hard, clean our environment, refuse to be corrupt or
Complicit in Mob Justice
Armed African MobImage: Otago Daily Times The news of a ‘7 year old boy’ gruesomely tortured and burned to death for stealing Garri broke yesterday (November 16, 2016) when a user on Twitter, @Adeyanjudeji, tweeted pictures about it and Linda Ikeji carried it on her blog. In a matter of hours, a video had surfaced to join the pictures and though I didn’t watch it, the pictures were enough to show people standing by as this little boy was beaten up, draped with a tyre and set ablaze; all by a mob of men and women frothing at the mouth with supposedly righteous indignation. It was later discovered that he was a full grown man as opposed to the little boy that was originally reported. This is not the first time mob ‘justice’ has happened in Nigeria or Africa even. In fact, this is one of the many instances that have been in the news so far this year. Children, adults, groups and even whole communities are set upon by mobs and burned to ground; with wanton disregard for human life and humanity. There are all sorts of mob murderers in the country (and continent) and they can be classified into the following; 1. The Religious Zealots: These ones are the deeply uneducated yet easily offended members of a religious group. They are machete-happy and cannot wait to cut down and burn any and every one who dares blaspheme their precious gods. They are found in Traditional religion, Christianity and Islam. Depending on where you are in the country, you don’t want to be caught by these men. In Central African Republic, it is almost common place to hear of Christian mobs beating and killing Muslims. In Nigeria, we are still reeling from the mob killings in Zamfara, Niger, Abuja and Kano by Muslim Zealots. I wrote extensively about this in my post, ‘Attacking Christians?’ In fact, killers of Bridget Agbahime were just released by the Kano State Attorney General few days go. 2. The ‘Crime Reduction’ Killers: These groups are always on ground to deliver jungle justice to anyone who steals; whether that theft is money or Garri. Do you remember the gruesome Ejigbo pepper incident where a woman and her daughters were stripped down and rubbed with alligator pepper mixed with gin for allegedly stealing pepper? With the culprits even going as far inserting this mixture in the women’s vaginas and using sticks to ‘stir’ it in? Or the gruesome killing of four buys in what has been called the ALUU4 killings? Or the many cases of alleged thieves been beaten and burned to death across the country? In their view, killing these ‘thieves’ serves as a deterrent for others and in a way, a strike back at the number of terrible robbery attacks they themselves have had to face. 3. The Foreigners-Are-Taking-Our-Jobs-So-We-Must-Be-Xenophobic Lot: This is especially true for South Africa where citizens of the country targeted and killed immigrants and visitors for allegedly taking their jobs. From Johannesburg to Soweto, these rampaging crowds went about beating and killing fellow Africans in one of the worst xenophobic attacks in recent time. No one was brought to justice and even the South African Zulu king, Godwill Zwelithi, is still enjoying himself in his kingdom, even though his hateful speech about foreigners stirred the xenophobic attacks and his silence intensified it. 4. The Politicians-With-Authority-Over-The-Police-And-Military Killers: Many governments in Africa are directlyresponsible for the deaths of their citizens through organized mob action. Look at what is happening in Nigeria. Murdering herdsmen go on rampage in many towns across the country and almost nothing is ever done. Southern Kaduna is still broiling from the 31 people that were just killed two days ago. Many residents of Benue, Jos, Ekiti, Enugu and Taraba are still mourning the loss of their relatives. And what does the government do? Almost nothing! The government is complicit in the deaths of these Nigerians. On the other hand, bandits go into communities in Northern Nigeria (Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina) and kill at will. Cultists in the Southern part of the country (Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Rivers etc) act like nothing can be done to them. And what happens? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! All we have are a group of elected officials who always ask for understanding when these acts occur. When these killings begin to affect them or people like them, you then see a show of force. Even more so is the direct killings of Shiite Muslims by the government’s mob; the army. Hundreds of Shiites have been killed and hastily buried because they are dissenting voices from what is popular and accepted as the norm. And even though I do not agree with the beliefs of the Shiites, I do not think it is an excuse to kill them. People who protest peacefully are set upon by angry crowds and killed in the very glare of the army. You begin to wonder which minority is next on the list. 5. You And I: Oh you didn’t know? We are all complicit in these murders! You and I are part of the problem. We contribute to the mob killings by being silent. Oh yes! We stand and watch when people are killed and we even take out our phones for our favorite pastime; recording the moment. If there are no pictures, it didn’t happen right? We talk about it in anger on social media, spewing all manner of self-righteous indignation at the horrific way someone was killed and when it stops being a trending topic, we forget about it until the next incident happens. We come out en masse for rallies to protest increase in fuel price hike but we don’t do the same to demand that our government protects the lives of EVERY NIGERIAN AND AFRICAN. Well, who really cares about Nigerian (or African) lives? After all, it doesn’t affect us now, does it? We share pictures and videos of gruesome killings in our moment of shame and then we move
