International Social Justice Activist

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Saturday, July 20, 2013

OFFICIAL VIDEO-LEKA DUTIGITE VIDEO-KIGOMA ALL STARS

1st Music of the Week
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Phillippe Ndour - SenRegal NEW!!!! 2011

2nd Music of the Week
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JULIANI - UTAWALA (OFFICIAL VIDEO 2013)Kenyan Gospel 2013

1st Video of the Week
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Flavour - Ada Ada [Official Video]

2nd Video of the Week
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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Nelson Mandela + US Supreme Court +Trayvon Martin + Football + Mass Protesters + NSA Spying= Human Rights and Economic Justice

These confluences of historical events this week are such that most of us would be twitching our bodies and scratching our heads to resolve, and appreciate for years to come. Indeed the events that have transpired this week would require generational assessment if we desire the relevancy of mankind in the cosmos. Our human race have been saddened by the critical condition of the indomitable voice of the oppressed in South Africa under the apartheid reign and the eventual distinguished leader of the South African people. Most are eagerly praying that Mr. Nelson Madiba Mandela who gave 27years of his life to affirm our collective dignity and humanity will remain with us as we go through these trying times in our various societies.

Human Rights in the United States have undergone rapid developments this week that we have monitored through the main street media, alternative media, and social media a.k.a. NSA swimming pool. With the US Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action and abolition of section IV of the voter’s right act, one wonders what Mr. Bayard Rustin one of the great leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States and a convener of the 1963 Civil Rights march on Washington would say if he were still alive. In making the decision to rescind section IV, it is as though the members of the court who voted in the confirmatory were having their own hurricane Katrina moments. They conveniently disregarded the whole of last year when governors, secretaries of state, attorney generals, and legislatures sort to rig and/or influence the elections from Pennsylvania to Ohio to Texas to Wisconsin to Florida to name a few. These shameless justices practically sanctioned longer voting lines and fewer voting days’ policies. Instead of eliminating section IV, the US past and contemporary history necessitates that it should have applied to all fifty states and regions.

Ironically, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Right Act which made the United States a great nation and a beacon of freedom around the world has been guttered on the same week that our homosexual brothers and sisters were spared the indignities of federally sanctioned discrimination. The Civil rights movement and the resultant laws were the actualization of the American ideals, ideas, and promises that are contained in the Bill of Rights. It could be said that the American bill of rights were not worth the papers they were written on until the abolition of Jim Crow segregation laws and those practices that infringed on the inalienable rights, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for a cross section of Americans. At the core of civil rights movement that was led by the likes of Rev. Martin Luther King, Mrs. Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and Representative John Lewis is human dignity and economic empowerment for all.

But in 2013 those so-called jurist in the supreme court are of the opinion that close to 300years of slavery and 100years of Jim Crow racial segregation and discrimination can be whitewashed with less than 50years of civil rights, voting rights, and affirmative action. The Civil Rights act and the Voting Rights act were the affirmation of our equality, sanctity of life, and our collective human rights to survive, rather than to squalor with racial discrimination, prejudice, and insidious second class citizenship. Those rights were put in place to mitigate the carnage of lynching, apartheid, economic marginalization, and disenfranchisement in the United States. These laws were put in place to ensure that companies like McDonalds and others do not trick us with limited black people in their advertisements whereas they use our patronage funds to sponsor organizations such as American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC.

ALEC was the same organization responsible for placing stand your ground laws to shield criminals like George Zimmerman who was enthusiastic about dehumanizing any black life under the pretense of neighborhood watch. ALEC amalgamated corporations and legislators to sponsor laws that busted unions and restricted access to voting. We also need to remember the ALEC connections to the Koch brothers who were also sponsors of the AstroTurf Tea Party groups with their manufactured mass movements. Under their schemes, poor households and other minorities should be afforded limited affirmative action and educational financial assistance which is withdrawn for the flimsiest of reasons such as marijuana use. Conversely, it is okay to pass laws that allow African American and Latino boys and men to be subjected to systematic racial profiling. It is also dandy to promote laws that empower people to gun down young boys like Trayvon Martin with intended malice and hate void of any provocation, and wait for mass agitation before the murderer is charged and tried in court.

Other mass movements remain alive and well in places like Brazil and Turkey where the footballing industrial Complex has shown their might like they did at the South Africa 2010 world cup. When the South Africans got frustrated about the cost of the world cup and the dictates of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) they turned inwards and massacred fellow Africans under the guise of overpopulation and economic hardship. But in Brazil and Turkey the focus remains on the culprits of economic malaise and inhumane social justice policies. In Brazil which has excelled in uplifting the poor under former President Lula da Silva and his successor President Dilma Rousseff the question remains as to why more investment on the peoples’ economic development has not remained a priority, instead of state corruption and massive investment on FIFA projects like the stadiums.

In Turkey, the masses want to be able to shape policies in their country. They crave for a bottom to top approach rather than the heavy handedness of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Though, Mr. Erdogan has being instrumental in delivering foreign investment in Somali and accommodating the Syrian refugees, the Turks want to be consulted in their domestic matters. They long for a society that would be guided by the aspirations of the people rather than the dogmas of the religious right. Hence like the Brazilians who are protesting right in front of the soccer fields that are the venues of the confederate cup, the Turks are also demonstrating and boycotting the FIFA Under 20 soccer tournament. In both countries they would rather be on the streets than pay the exorbitant fees to watch the football matches.

The Occupy Movements in Brazil and Turkey are producing the next generations of Nelson Mandelas who are speaking truth to power and forcing concessions for a better world. Global citizens in Rio prefer capital expenditures in the favelas that will benefit the local inhabitants without creating artificial inflation and/or bubbles that results in homelessness in the short run and unsustainable growth in the long-term. Those in Istanbul are akin to Mr. Snowden of the United States who resents the power grabbing nature of some of the world’s governments. They want their government to desist from usurping authorities and abusing public trust. These heroes yawn to be part of the progressive public discourses that have been engrained in our collective consciousness this week. Irrespective of our economic systems these protesters and billions around the world long for transparency in government, which has human rights and economic justice at the core.

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

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Diaspora Voices and Our Perspectives

http://vimeo.com/66875436

http://vimeo.com/66875436

Diaspora Voices and Our Perspectives

Public Policy and Social Justice Monthly Program- Diaspora Voices

Our public affairs programming would highlight the state of affairs within specific African and African Diaspora countries, regions, and communities. We are going to take a driver’s seat on the condition of economics, politics, and social justice within our motherland and elsewhere by bridging the gulfs between the African peoples through the required awakenings. For example, emphases would be placed on our perceived intractable problems and the program would include calls for accountability and problem solving within the African context and throughout the globe.

Panelist: Mariama Jalloh-Heyward of the Green White and Blue Commission

Yemi Falusi Esq. of the Occupy Nigeria Movement in Washington DC

Cultural Education and Entertainment Monthly Show- Our Perspectives

With the on-going evolution of the African renaissance there remains the need for Africans to take ownership and present our cultures in ways that illuminates the various positive attributes of the African people. We intend to be the responsible vessels to interpret and utilize our cultural norms, values, food, crafts, and fashion as the means of repairing most of the bias, prejudice, and discrimination of the African people that remains prevalent in the global community. The show portends to reduce our self-hate while advocating self-efficacy and pride. Ours should be the authentic lens for affecting and spreading the African culture and vitality.

Guest: Anna Mwalagho DMV based musician, poet, and social activist from Kenya
www.annamwalagho.com

Emmerson musician, social-economic, and political activist from Sierra Leone

Venue: Agama Kitchen and Restaurants
5640 Annapolis Road, Bladensburg MD 20710
www.agamakitchen.com

Date: Sunday May 26th, 2013
Time: 2pm-4pm

Producer: Omar Rafik of Life Depicted Productions
www.lifedepicted.com

Declaration of Emergency in Nigeria! Is it too little too late?

In December of 2011 after the Christmas Day bombing, President Goodluck Jonathan missed the opportunity to address the Boko Haram issue head-on. Instead of resolving the terrorist problem the administration decided to zero in on taxing average and/or regular Nigerians with the Fuel Subsidy scheme on January 1st, 2012. Shock and Awe policies were rolled out to conflate the oil barons and marketers with ordinary Nigerians and the Islamic fundamentalism with oil subsidies.

Those of us that stood up as Occupy Nigerian Movement protesters have been vindicated over and over again with the exposed corruption in the Petroleum sectors reaching up to the National Assembly membership and the explosion of terror in West Africa. Hopefully, with the eventual declaration of emergency against those that have perpetrated carnage on our homeland, other fights would emerge such as those again corruption, impunity, and unemployment. These scrutiny and measures of accountability should not be reversed for opponents of the regime.

Carnage in Northern Nigeria (article written in April 2011)

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 nearly 250people 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 17-18th 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 cannot 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 cannot 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

Sunday, April 21, 2013

A Race to the Bottom and the Global Economic Abracadabra

While listening to the radio some days ago in the Washington DC metro area, there was an interview of an air traffic controller in the Frederick county area. The subject was so upset that as part of the United States federal government austerity or sequestration magic, his job would be vamoosed from federal funding. The shocked controller went on to indicate his right wing leaning support for cuts within the government but wondered aloud why his job should be on the cutting block. This is not unique as corporations and individual members of the elite 1% club have used their stooges such as the main street pan-international media to wage regimes of miseducation against public sector workers around the globe.

So from Cyprus to London England, from Greece to Wall Street America, and from Wisconsin to Ohio there is the renewed mantra to blame the victims of corporate malfeasance and victimize the fatalities of individual greed instead of the so-called makers. When middle income folks within the private sectors lose their jobs and are unable to secure and provide for their families they are quick to point fingers at government workers instead of taking an objective look at the global corporate gluttony. They become impotent to challenge the transfer of jobs abroad and the automation of businesses to render people obsolete in various employment arenas.

These economic casualties which are perceived as mere collateral damages but are actual systematic offspring of our global economic systems are depressed, demoralized, and dejected and become unable to connect the dots between the disparities in income within their former organizations and their present conditions. There is a failure to link the corporate jets and CEO bonus to the devastation permitted on the common folks. Ours is a race for the crumbs that seeks to scavenge and be content for what miserly benefits that greedy elites deem necessary for us to survive on. We are swift in condemning homeowners that lost their homes in loan mortgage crises without realizing that they were ponds of the banking cartels and/or turning a blind eye to the same scams which the bankers have used from Spain to west coast states in America such as Nevada and California.

Consequently, we are presented with a Europe of unimaginable dichotomy like in the bible (religion) for butter (resources) days. At the same time we have more Portuguese and Spaniards heading to Angola than at any time since the global slave trade economy. We now have Europeans openly embracing fascism politics and cultural xenophobia. Amidst the petroleum wealth and boom in Luanda no one questions the Europeans for their workers permits. But in Europe and America it is easier to pick on the foreigners instead of organizing against those from within that specialize in setting up tax havens, shipping jobs around the globe to pay the lowest cost, and reaping astronomical profits. On US television there is an open call to move monies and investments to Ireland whereas urban and rural unemployment remains off the chain with the ensuing societal cost.

Paradoxically, the race to the bottom is sanctioned by politicians and the corporate media types who are beholden to the corporate status quo. As such they have the masses divided and fighting themselves, for example poor Europeans in America against African Americans and Latinos and African Americans against immigrants. Whilst they keep us bickering and competing for the lowest common denominators, the Dow Jones and other leading financial markets are creating no jobs, depressing wages, gambling with the savings of folks, forcing municipalities into bankruptcies, but making record earnings for the economic/financial gurus and members of the exclusive 1% club. These entitled classes would rather hoard monies and properties to service 3-5centuries of their descendants, whence people are poor, homeless, and dying today.

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

Friday, March 29, 2013

Emmerson ft Timaya This Na Mi Yone...2012

1st Music of the Week
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LES PATRONS feat J.MARTINS OFFICIEL HD "Près du Coeur"

2nd Video of the Week
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