Although
I grew in Nigeria going against the norm in secondary school where I earned the
reputation as a student leader, my desire to rededicate myself towards activism
did not peak until 2001 just one month before I graduated from University of
Maryland (UMD). I had made the decision to concentrate on my studies when I got
to the Maryland academy due to some negative experiences in my high school
student government at the International Secondary School, Rivers State
University of Science and Technology. At the UMD I joined the African Students
Association (ASA) and was instrumental in setting up our very first website
which was established with my second student (glue) account. When the president
of the ASA who happened to be a Nigerian was forced to relinquish his position
due to misappropriation of our public funds and academic probation, I was
distraught but hung around as an active member to ensure that the organization
was in solid footing.
However, when we elected the first
African American female as the president of the University of Maryland African
Student Association, I worked with the organization for a while before deciding
to concentrate on my studies and employment opportunities. At certain times as
a student I took up full time job positions while enrolled in school as a
fulltime student with upwards of 12credits per semester. Since I did not want
to make the same mistakes I made in high school, I eventually disassociated
myself from the ASA and the larger student body Student Government Association (SGA).
But as the years went by, I was able to relate from a distance with the first
African/Black (Nigerian origin) and minority (in the United States) female SGA
student body president. After Juliana Njoku’s historic elections as the
President of the Executive branch and head of the student body, she was
confronted with several racial hostilities in 1999 that got the campus engulfed
in some publicized tensions.
In those
days, I would see the worried looks of stress on her face. I saw the student
president’s situation as analogous to that of my friend Irabor and mine in high
school. Nonetheless after witnessing the last 3years of the Obama presidency
and the explicit racial currents, I reckon that her situation is parallel to
that of President Barack Obama. Irabor was the president and this writer the vice-president
of the Christian Student Unions (CSU) in secondary school. Both of us were
strong evangelical students within the school body who believed in academic
meritocracy and were tapped to get nominated by the teachers as senior student
prefects in our final year. But our expectations were dashed when we received
our report cards. We found out that our arch rival and the principal of the school,
who hated us dearly because he was Sabbatarian and resented our Pentecostal
influence in school, had won the battle for control by rigging our grades and
essentially failing us. We were devastated and went back to the University
Chaplain for solace as we had done at other times when we were presented with
challenges from the principal.
Ironically,
the university’s pastor could not assist us because he was embroiled in his own
scandals. There were allegations that some of his academic documents from universities
in England and the United States could not stand scrutiny. Our dear chaplain
was also alleged to have sexually assaulted some of the university and high
school female students during his often held deliverance sessions. On some of
our visits to his office on campus I wondered out loud with my friends. Why he
took so long casting out the demons? Why there was a noticeable environment of
privacy? Why he came out with tremendous perspiration after his closed sessions
with the subjects who were alleged to be his victims? How come the ladies in
question always looked irritated and avoided eye contact after their emergence
from the so-called prayers? In the midst of these developments in Nigeria, I
got an epiphany about most organized religions and embraced the notion that
religion is indeed politics. I became conscious of the reality that secrecy,
sycophancy, and corruption were not only in the Catholic Church, the
denomination of my parents but also in my adopted Pentecostal community. These
teenage experiences enabled me to tread carefully when I got into the UMD.
During Juliana Njoku’s tenure at
College Park Maryland as the president of the SGA her situation was mostly complicated
because of the disarray within the black student bodies. Although, she did not
have a solid base and/or reliable allies who could give her the support that
was necessary as the first SGA president of African origin she was able to
maintain her pose. The Ethiopian students were busy breaking away from the ASA
and forming their own campus body. The Black Student Union (BSU) was involved in
shameless heated acrimony with the ASA and rejected the peace efforts of the UMD
Nyumburu Cultural Center staffs. When Ms. Njoku and others received hate mails
we thought that was an aberration but soon witnessed another round of uniform
hatred and distortions after President Nelson Mandela was invited to the
campus. His invitation was a crescendo to the anti-immigrant, anti-African, and
anti-black attitude on campus. Madiba as he is affectionately called was
invited to deliver the Anwar al-Sadat Lecture for Peace on November 14th, of
2001 at the University of Maryland, an annual lecture series named after the
former Egyptian Head of State.
However,
this most sacred moment was nearly upending by the venom of racial intolerance
and pseudo historical analysis on the pages of the Diamondback student
newspaper by some misers of the truth within the student body. The Republican
Student Association led the canard of opinion writers to suppress the truth on campus
by christening President Mandela as a terrorist. These nefarious, insensitive,
and privileged students decided to accuse Mr. Nelson Mandela of being an
extremist without portfolio. I and many others were lost for words and wondered
how one of the best symbols of peace and reconciliation in the history of the
world could be so maligned by few students. I marveled at how in a left leaning
state like Maryland (maybe second only to Massachusetts), people could have so
much irresponsible misrepresentations of facts. Thus my assessment was that if
these east coast chaps would call Mr. Mandela a terrorist then surely they must
realize that President George Washington is not as dignified as the Nobel Peace
prize winner Madiba. The Republican students took to a smear campaign because
most republican presidents are not honorable enough to touch the soles of
Madiba’s feet in a thorough and objective analysis of history.
After
witnessing the speech of President Mandela at the Cole field House and his
uncanny ability to speak truth to power especially on the issue of the original
9-11 attack and his opposition against the impending Iraq war, I was moved to
embrace my activism. In his keynote speech he called out the double speaks,
double talks, and insidious lies that were orchestrated to obfuscate the truth
in the United State and the West at this sold out gathering. Then my analysis
of the situation came full circle when I realized that the conservative and
Republican students had gone ahead to demonize President Mandela because he was
against the misinformation apparatus that would eventually lead us to an
illegal and unjust war against Iraq. Mandela spoke up way before we found out
that Dick Cheney was feeding information to the New York Times through Scooter
Libby and then going on the Meet the Press show with Mr. Tim Russert to cite
the same stories/sources as facts.
Therefore, as contemporary social
justice activists, I and others are able to stand on the shoulders of the Great
Mr. Nelson Mandela and expose the voters’ suppression laws, election fraud, and
misinformation campaign of the Republican Party and Tea Party. We challenge the
mainstream press or corporate media to do more to address the systematic
suppression, fraud, and misinformation that are hallmarks of the conservative
party. The same folks that told us that part of their packs of lies for
invading Iraq included the establishment of a free and fair election are now
writing their names not with the election ink of Iraq but along the hall of
shame annals of dictators and segregationist. Thus the Republican Governor of
Pennsylvania Mr. Tom Corbett is using the same scare tactic as Saddam Hussein. Governor
Rick Scott of Florida and the Secretary of State Scott Gessler of Colorado are the
new George Wallace of our times. How about other luminaries of the 2012
election cheating and stealing class such as Governor John Kasich of Ohio and
his secretary of state Jon Husted who have flagrantly undermined the decisions
of the courts in their unabashed determination to suppress voters and would go
down as comrades of Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Islam Karimov of
Uzbekistan? The chairman of the national Republican Party Reince Priebu knowingly
hired Nathan Sproul the election fraudster of international reckoning and
notoriety.
Like in the President Nelson
Mandela situation at the University of Maryland the Republicans have unleashed their
warfare of obfuscation and retrogression. Instead of expanding their base to include
a broad spectrum of the American public they have hedged their party’s future
on marginalizing all and sundry. On women issues, they are against equal pay
for equal work and women’s rights to control their bodies including in times of
rape and incest. For all immigrants especially Latinos, the Republicans are
espousing electoral intimidation with the pretext of voter identification
fraud, targeted economic sanctions that would starve and cripple families and
ultimately lead to self-deportation. The attack against white men and others
includes downsizing companies with enormous profits, outsourcing jobs, and then
using the proceeds to open hidden accounts in the Carman Islands, Monaco, and
Switzerland. African Americans and students face an unprecedented disenfranchisement
and intimidation exercise that would make apartheid seem like the next step
after a history of police profiling and discriminatory criminal incarcerations.
In
reality these attacks and the misinformation that follow are not exclusive to
these different groups and if the Republican Party is allowed to triumph we are
going to have an economic apartheid state ruled by the 1% for the 1% against
the 47% and/or 99% with more income disparities and indentured labor. If after
spending 27years in trumped up charges in prison President Mandela was
subjected to vitriolic attacks by members of the Republican Party then
President Obama should remain optimistic. Those of us that have lived under
dictatorships and have actually heard martial music on the airways know what
divide and rule and authoritarianism is all about. We know about economic
hardship that befalls the 99% when few plutocrats lie, steal power, and only care
about their privileged friends and country club communities. This is why we are
standing up on the mountain tops and screaming out of our lungs against the
Republican Party and their tycoon tax evading candidate Governor Mitt Romney. Senator
Rick Santorum was on point when he called him the worst republican. Albeit are
the American people going to vote for a job exporter with no moral core just
because he is a white man?
Nnamdi F. Akwada MSW, BA is a Social
Justice Activist
Reference
