A License to Kill Juxtaposed Against the Arab Awakening/Spring

During my attendance of the recent Easter Sunday festivities, I wondered why my fellow Africans were so callous and heartless with African lives. My being was still traumatized by the recent mass murders in Nigeria and a tragic family situation that occurred a decade ago. I was in an Easter Sunday family dinner in the Washington DC metro area were Senegalese and Gambian Muslims had congregated with Nigerians, Ivoirians, and Sierra Leoneans Christians and Traditionalist to break bread with their fellow black Africans irrespective of their religions. Moreover before we completed the referenced feast and actually got to “Item 7” (which is the infamous time for eating in Nigerian program of events), I had to attend the tenth year remembrance of my brother in-law, a young black Sierra Leonean with Islamic beliefs. Mr. Alhaji Yusuf Conteh was murdered on the streets of Landover in Prince Georges County, Maryland, United Stated in April 2001. The paradox of Princes Georges County is that it is the wealthiest African American county in the United States and has notoriety for pockets of high black on black crimes. Mr. Conteh was killed by fellow blacks less than six months after he came to America. He had survived untold horrors in then war-torn Sierra Leone and emerged as a refugee in Guinea. My speculations are that he was slayed because he was (African, had an African accent, dresses differently etc.) different.

            However, as I crisscrossed both gatherings with my children who can be classified as Nigerians, Sierra Leoneans, Americans, and African Americans, I contemplated why my people are so heartless with African humanity. Why are we so filled with pain, animosity, vengeance, selfishness, misinformation, and hate, which are manifested in our ability to take each others lives with impunity and lack of regard? I wondered why despite our sycophantic pronouncements of solidarity and love for each other we tend to get to our demise faster through the doings and workings of each other. My heart raced to the victims of the just concluded national elections in the United Nations of Nigeria. I marveled at why northern Nigerians with Islamic roots are quick to murder and maim their fellow countrywomen and countrymen in the guise of religion? I puzzled about the contradictions of declaring God’s omnipresence while assuming the punitive role of enforcers for the Almighty. The Koran says that it is man’s responsibility to deliver the message and the Bible says judgment is mine says the Lord.

            Notwithstanding, we have governments, rulers, and people in the African continent and the Middle East who are quick to cloth themselves in religion while perpetrating and enforcing brutality on others. Groups like Boko Haram in northern Nigeria are keen to point out the shortcomings of western education whilst importing the primordial elements of Arabic, Persian, and Asian cultures to our shores. These embrace of horrendous pseudo-spiritual colonial subjugation is a mirage that does not address any of the key issues that bemoan the Nigerian and African streets. The pervasive impunity of our elites, the corruptions of the government are not because of the lack of religious dogmas, instead they are functions of a system where religion is politics and is used to hoodwink a traumatized and vulnerable public. The likes of Boko Haram act as though they are oblivious to the ongoing situations in the Arab and Northern African streets.  

But this hypocrisy is not confined to organizations; they are very prevalent within nation states. We have governments and people in the Middle East and Africa who are quick to cloth themselves in religion while enforcing brutality on others. In Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, and Iran citizens and residents are treated like non-humans because of their desires for human rights, decency, economic emancipation, and true peoples’ democracy. The same governments that is eager to point fingers at the United States for supporting the apartheid regime in Israel, have no hesitations in enthroning carnages on their societies. As a clinician, I thought about the heights of psychosis and neurotic schemes it takes to maintain such cunning ingenuities.  I harkened unto the Niger Delta adage which states that- birds flew from a market place to complain that people were making noises and causing commotion in the market square, however when further investigations were conducted it was revealed that the people causing the nuisance and the birds were one and the same.

Thus, is has become radiantly illuminating and is becoming clearer that the Sunnis in Saudi Arabia and the Shiites in Iran are comfortable with the status quo which disenfranchises large segments of their populations. Both sides are united in maintaining the monstrosity of their authoritarian and Unitarian governmental structures. These oppressors are quick to label and stereotype the demonstrators for true peoples’ democracy as agitators, foreign influenced and unpatriotic elements. One recalls that the great Madiba Nelson Mandela of South Africa was branded as an agitator among other things by the Pretoria governments. There is reluctance and denial as we face modern challengers to see and/or understand the core human aspiration for self-actualization that is devoid of suppression and dictatorship.

Though it is tempting for some in the West to invoke banal interpretations of the situations in northern Nigeria, Africa, and the Middle East, there needs to be objective deductions of the “compoundness” of these problems. For example in the United States the much acclaimed Freedom Riders of the 1960’s were presented with similar terrors that have been manifested in Africa and the Middle East. The young people, who we are still celebrating after 50years, wanted to change the country for the better but were subjected to killings, bombings, tortures, imprisonments, and various untold hardships. As they journeyed from Washington DC to the south, some names that they were called include agitators, the n-word, and n-word lovers.

            Consequently, as we spoke, joked, and snacked in the metropolitan area in 2011, I sought for more empirical understanding of the license to kill syndrome that seems to be inescapable irrespective of geographical boundaries. Before leaving with my family from the family dinner event, I asked my fellow guests who happened to be Muslims from Senegal, about what they thought of the killings in Nigeria. Their report was that religion has become a scapegoat for pure hatred and other masked issues. I thought of how grave the situation is in the Disunited Nations of Nigeria, that foreign reporters are quick to identify the linguistic differences of the southern and northern Nigeria. In that moment of Easter related get-together, there we were Africans in harmony and peace in faraway United States of America. My heart went out to my in-law Alhaji who died too soon, the victims of the carnage in northern Nigeria especially the young youth corpers that were serving their country by acting as election invigilators, and the masses that have been killed in cold blood by their so-called governments in North Africa and the Middle East.

                       Nnamdi F. Akwada MSW, BA is a Social Justice Activist

President Barack Obama and Mogul Donald Trump

Although progressives’ support for President Barack Obama has fizzled consistently as a result of some of his domestic and international policies, it has been instrumental and jarring to watch the nativist pressures from the New York mogul Donald Trump. A situation where Mr. Obama with a Kansan mother would be so maligned with innuendos that he was not born in the United State of America and by default he is an illegitimate president begs the question about what other Caucasian man and/or woman could have been subjected to such utter nonsense. The conservative conglomerates that consist of the Republicans, tea partiers, birthers, the John Birch Society, among others have been relentless in their nefarious attempts at delegitimizing the Obama presidency.

            However, these calculated sinister strategies are not only isolated to President Barack Obama’s administration but they seem to flourish in contemporary times under democratic regimes and fade away when the conservatives are at the helms of authority. For example, President Jimmy Carter was hounded for economic (stagflation) and foreign policies while the Republicans carried out all types of direct and indirect quid pro quo arrangements with the Iranian government in the 1980’s. In President Bill Clinton’s situation the conservative machine hounded him repeatedly about his personal, business, and sexual relationships. Those that had logs in their eyes decided to go after the specks in their neighbors eyes. Consequently, while individuals like former speaker of the House of Representatives Mr. Newt Gingrich, Representative Bob Livingston (L) and Senator Jack Vitter (L) were busy doing more egregious things (like jumping between wives and patronizing prostitutes) they conspired to impeach President Clinton.

            Whereas some might postulate that republicans are regular customers (pay masters) who have a depth at politicking and destroying their political foes, it is worth nothing that the attacks on President Barack Obama has been elevated to feverish xenophobic plateaus. Republicans got a pass from hijacking the country during the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida. In a situation that would make dictators all around the world proud, the likes of Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris disenfranchised millions of African American minority voters. Ironically, President Barack Obama’s father Mr. Barack Obama Sr. died fighting against tyrants who usurped human and civil rights.  Presidents Bush and Cheney’s (co-presidents) administration also got untold passes from republicans for their failure in protecting the country before the September 11^th 2001 manmade (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/09/september11.alqaida) disaster. But they have been repugnant in their attacks of our Commander in Chief President Obama.  

            Were republicans like Mogul Mr. Donald Trump not present when New York was attacked and instead of sending enough forces to fight Al-Qaeda, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney decided to attack Iraq without provocation? I guess “the Donald” thought the nation was on the right track then. How come Mr. Trump never spoke up for the regular folks who lost their homes as a result of the unscrupulous dealings in Wall Street? The reality is that Mr. Trump has antecedents of dabbling in prejudice when it suits his course. In 2005 on his reality television show the Apprentice 4, Mogul Donald Trump placed Rhodes Scholar and Oxford University graduate Mr. Randal Pinkett in negative and compromised positions after he interrupted the final episode celebrations in an attempt to crown dual winners for the show. 

            Hopefully, with the developments in contemporary news cycles such as the release of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate and the death of Mr. Osama Bin Laden, the main street media, Mr. Trump and his republican comrades will grow up and address serious matters. Though President Barack Obama deserves credit for ascending to the presidency of the United States of America with his surname and background when his father was unceremoniously kicked out of the country by Harvard University, let the national/political debate revolve around substance. Why is there no comprehensive immigration reform? When are we going to stop the deportation of individuals that have grownup in the United States for the majority of their lives? Where is the compassionate conservatism in the destruction of families? How are we going to cut down on the federal deficits when we are involved in indefinite wars and negotiating more permanent (occupational) military bases? Why are global billion-dollar generating corporations such as oil cartel companies receiving tax breaks? Whose interest are we really protecting when we openly and tacitly support dictators and/or authoritarian regimes? When are Guantanamo Bay and secret prison sites going to be history? When are we going to have national moratorium on home foreclosures?

Nnamdi F. Akwada MSW, BA is a Social Justice Activist          

Carnage in Northern Nigeria

                                 

Amnesty International, one of the premier human rights organizations characterized the incidents in the northern areas of the United Nations of Nigeria as riots and demonstrations. Thus equating the carnage to the demonstrations in Bahrain, Yemen and Syria where people are currently using peaceful and civil means to petition their governments. This mischaracterization is appalling because what took place in northern Nigeria was hundreds of bloodbaths, lynching, burning of innocent human beings, arson, and gross destruction of properties by Dictator Muhammadu Buhari’s supporters. With over 500people dead and close to 50,000 fellow Nigerians displaced, give it up to the perpetrators of inhumanity to remain indifferent. They have mastered the skills of committing mass murders while simultaneously cloaking in victim hood. Similar butchery was the primary reasons behind the Nigerian and Biafran genocidal wars.

Contrary to revisionist historians after the 1966 coup, counter coup d'état, and extinction of some southeastern officers from the ranks of the Nigerian Army, our union was still standing. It was days of similar mass massacres like the world have just witnessed from April 17-18^th 2011, that has continued sporadically from 1960’s until now, that forced the hands of the South-easterners to head back home to peace and safety. In the process they realized that their safety could not be protected in some parts of the Disunited Nations of Nigeria and were forced to declare independence in 1966. Unfortunately these shameless killings have continued unabated since then. The Nigerian and international press always report about these barbaric incidents as though they began after 1999 when the civilians took over from the military.

However, Enough is Enough! How can northerners continue to preach “One Nigeria” only when they are holding on to the presidency? The sad reality is that they have controlled and/or occupied the said position for about 40years within our so-called 50years independence. In their time as rulers, the Northern Military Industrial Complex (NMIC) alias Army Arrangement have legitimatized corruption and mismanaged our national resources. The northern elites have set the country backwards about twenty-five years if not more with their incessant coups and dictatorships. This retardation in developments has been felt in every nook and cranny of the United Nations of Nigeria. With the marginalization of the Niger Delta and the assassination of Dr. Ken Saro Wiwa the veils were finally lifted off the eyes of the South-south. The south west including Awoist (who would like to focus on the prediction of Chief Awolowo that a Niger Delta man would become president someday) are beginning to understand that while the Southeasterners might allegedly play you wayo, some northerners are very willing to exterminate their fellow Nigerians.

            It is one thing to contest the votes/elections and the tabulations of the result but quite another to execute regional killing orgies. These ghastly acts were done to intimidate the masses who came out in droves to cast their votes all over the country. In the north, President Goodluck Jonathan got more than 25% (http://www.inecnigeria.org/results/states.php) of the votes in nearly a dozen states. So the vitriolic Congress for Progressive Change CPC) supported murdering quads wanted to silence the segment of the northern population that have realized that the Presidency is not the panacea to their problems. The CPC supporters wanted to terrorize the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) who conducted a commendable election. These killing thugs wanted to suppress the announcement of the election results. Why did CPC supporters not wait for the pronouncement of the outcome before going out to threaten and arrest our national security?

            Where were these hooligans, their parents, and their sponsors when Dictator Sani Abacha took the whole nation hostage and ostracized Nigerians from the African and global communities of nations? We could not participate in the African Cup of Nations in South Africa and we were suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations not for resisting imperialism but due to authoritarianism. Where were these miscreants when Dictator Abdulsalami Abubakar handed the presidency to Dictator Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999? Why was there no protest when Mr. Obasanjo and his pal Professor Maurice Iwu gave the post to President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007? But they have the audacity to slaughter law abiding Nigerians. These nonsense needs to stop right now, we have to break the cycle of massacres, we can not compensate our way out of these man made tragedies.

            Notwithstanding the concerns of Amnesty International the Nigerian government has a responsibility to use adequate force to defend law abiding citizens. While the observance of peaceful protest should remain sacrosanct the carnage that we have just witnessed in Nigeria should be prevented and suppressed with commensurable force to safeguard the lives of innocent law abiding citizens. The union of the United Nations of Nigeria can not remain sacrosanct for long when it is a death sentence in northern Nigeria to be suspected of southern ethnicities, an Ancestor worshipper, a Christian, and a Muslim who votes for a Christian. My own sister (a Christian, an Igbo and Ijaw) supported and campaigned for Dictator Muhammadu Buhari, so what would the murderers do in her case?

            Moreover the fact is that people like Mr. Buhari and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had sown the seeds of violence before the elections. They purposely used languages like “lynching” and the “inevitability of violence” to ginger up their supporters in preparation of the Saturday April 16, 2011 elections. Hence, Buhari did not see the need to call off his supporters from the streets while the killings went on for more than twenty four hours. Alhaji Abubakar wants to pay lip service to the so-called revered indivisibility of our nation when the lives and property of southerners and fellow northerners who voted their conscience is not guaranteed in the United Nations of Nigeria. Our people are nonchalantly orphaned, our parents are rendered childless through brutality, and others are maimed. The sanctity, safety, and respect of lives should be our primary sacrosanct obligation and not nationhood/religion.    

            Moreover, the Nigerian federal and northern state governments need to bow their heads in shame because of their negligence. They knew that some in northern Nigeria would turn to their tried and true part time of using tyrannical savagery. The stakeholders should have prepared for the worst while hoping for the best which many of us knew was not likely given the antecedents of some northerners. Heads of the Nigerian security apparatus need to immediately tender their resignations. Hopefully, contrary to press reports, Captain Emmanuel Ihenacho the Minister of Interior was relieved of his position for the ineptitude in providing security for our young national service coopers and the general public in the north. The expectation is that he was not suspended due to internal political considerations from Imo State. It would be a betrayal of the highest order to the victims if no one takes accountability for this perennial mayhem.

            Never Again should people be victimized in such callous ways with impunity. President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan and the authorities need to establish the Emergency Response Tactical Teams (ERT) in all northern states that have a past history of perpetrating this carnage. The ERTs should train and practice the needed skills to protect the general public and should never be deployed to disrupt non-violent protest. These teams should be able to be organized within 15minutes of any disturbances when the lives and properties of individuals from the United Nations of Nigeria are under attack. Our governments should mandate the ERT to protect our visitors too. We must protect the sanctity of the African lives.           

Nnamdi F. Akwada MSW, BA is a Social Justice Activist