Wednesday, 3 June 2020

David Sustained Leg Injury



Nigerian BET award-winner David Adeleke simply called Davido, has sustained an injury on his left leg.

Davido was captured in photos stepping out from a hospital in crutches.

The photos were shared by his lawyer, Bobo F. Ajudua on his Instagram page as he broke the sad news to fans of the Afrobeat star and his followers.

Sharing the photos, Lawyer Bobo sent well-wishes to Davido and expressed gratitude to God for the cancelation of music concerts.However, he did not reveal the cause of Davido’s injury and did not disclose the severity of his injury.

“How some people chose to enter June. Nawa. At some point yesterday we were literally thanking God there are no shows right now 😅. Get well soon bro @davidoofficial 🙏🏾🙏🏾 he wrote.


Tuesday, 2 June 2020

George Floyd: Malcolm X’s visionary speech in Africa is Still Relevant

By Jeune Afrique

Travel Trip Harlem Hotel
Malcolm X as he speaks at a news conference at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, New York in The famed Hotel Theresa on May 21, 1964 (AP Photo/FILE)

In 1964, during the Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit in Cairo, Malcolm X tried to make his "African brothers and sisters" aware of the discrimination experienced by African-Americans. A speech that foreshadowed the African emotion felt 56 years later around the George Floyd affair in the United States.

The President of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat has spoken out against the murder of George Floyd a 46-year-old African-American father of two children, who died from suffocation following an incident where a white policeman in the American city of Minneapolis placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for over seven minutes.

Mahamat strongly condemned the “murder that took place (…) at the hands of law enforcement officers” and offered “his deepest condolences to the family of the deceased and to all his relatives.”

In the same text, the Chadian recalled that in 1964, the Organization of African Unity – the forerunner of the AU – had adopted a resolution against racial discrimination in South Africa, Rhodesia and the United States.

South Africa is like a vicious wolf, openly hostile to black humanity. But America is cunning like a fox, friendly and smiling on the surface, but even more vicious and deadly than the wolf.

With regard to the United States, the OAU then recalled that “the existence of discriminatory practices is a matter of deep concern to OAU Member States”, urging “the government authorities of the United States of America to intensify their efforts to ensure the total elimination of all forms of discrimination based on race, colour or ethnic origin.”

Summit attended by Malcolm X

During this summit in July 1964, Malcolm X, the emblematic leader in the struggle for the rights and dignity of African Americans, was invited as an observer to make a poignant pan-African plea on the discrimination that African Americans were then suffering on the other side of the Atlantic.

A radical and visionary speech that Jeune Afrique is sharing today:

Excellencies,

The Organization of African American Unity sent me to attend this historic African Summit Conference as an observer to represent the interests of the 22 million African-Americans whose human rights are violated daily by the racism of the Americans.

The Organization of African American Unity was created by a cross-section of the African-American community in America and is modelled, both in letter and spirit, on the Organization of African Unity.



Just as the Organization of African Unity has called on all African leaders to overcome their differences and unite around the same goals, for the common good of all Africans, the Organization of African Unity has called on African-American leaders in America to overcome their differences and find common ground through which they can work together, for the common good of African-Americans.

Because these 22 million African-Americans now reside in America, not by choice, but only by a cruel accident of our history, we firmly believe that African problems are our problems and that our problems are African problems.

We also believe that, as heads of independent African states, you are the shepherds of all the African peoples around the world, whether they are still on Mother Earth or whether they have been dispersed overseas.

Some African leaders at this conference have suggested that they have enough problems to be concerned about the African-American issue.

With all due respect for these positions, which I respect, I must remind you all that a good shepherd will leave 99 sheep at home that are safe to go rescue the one who is lost and who has fallen into the clutches of the imperialist wolf.

Vicious police dogs

In America, we are your long-lost brothers and sisters. And if I’m here, it’s only to remind you that our problems are your problems. As African-Americans wake up today, we find ourselves in a strange land that has rejected us. And, like the prodigal son, we turn to our older brothers for help. We pray that our pleas will not fall on deaf ears.


We have been forcibly removed and shackled from the mother continent, and for more than 300 years now in our new land, America, we have been subjected to the most inhumane forms of physical and psychological torture.

Over the past decade, the world has seen our men, women and children attacked and bitten by vicious police dogs, brutally beaten with police batons, or sprayed with high-pressure water jets that ripped off our clothes and the flesh of our members, throwing us down the drain like garbage.

All of these atrocities were inflicted on us by the US government authorities, through its own police force, for no other reason than to claim the recognition and respect accorded to other human beings living in America. The US government is unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property of your 22 million African-American brothers and sisters.

We are helpless, at the mercy of American racists who murder us at will, for no other reason than the fact that we are black and of African descent.

Last week, an unarmed African-American educator was murdered in cold blood in Georgia; a few days earlier, three civil rights workers mysteriously disappeared, perhaps also murdered, simply because they were educating our fellow Mississippians in Mississippi about the importance of the vote and their political rights.

Our problems are your problems.

We have lived for over 300 years in this American den of racist wolves, in constant fear of losing our lives or being torn to pieces. Recently, three Kenyan students mistaken for black Americans were brutally beaten by the New York police. Shortly afterwards, two Ugandan diplomats were also beaten by the same police, who had mistaken them for African-Americans.

If Africans are treated like that when they are just visiting America, imagine the multiple sufferings that your brothers and sisters who live on this earth endure.

Our problem is your problem.

No matter how much independence Africans gain on the mother continent, if you do not wear the traditional dress of the country you come from all the time when you visit America, you could be mistaken for one of us and suffer the same mutilations that we go through on a daily basis.

Malcolm X addresses a rally in Harlem in New York City on June 29, 1963. (AP Photo)

Your problems will never be fully solved until ours are solved. You will never be fully respected until we, too, are respected. You will never be recognised as free human beings until we, too, are recognised and treated as free human beings.

Our problem is your problem.

It is neither a black problem nor a specifically American problem. It is a global problem, a problem that involves all of humanity. It is not a civil rights problem, but a human rights problem.

America, worse than apartheid South Africa

We pray that our African brothers have not freed themselves from European colonialism only to be defeated and dominated. Do not let racism be whitewashed by American “dollarism”.

America is worse than [apartheid] South Africa because not only is it racist, it is also deceitful and hypocritical. South Africa preaches segregation while at the same time practising it. At least they practice what they preach. America, on the other hand, preaches integration while practicing segregation. It preaches one thing while deceptively practicing the opposite.

South Africa is like a vicious wolf, openly hostile to black humanity. But America is cunning like a fox, friendly and smiling on the surface, but even more vicious and deadly than the wolf.

This wolf and this fox are both enemies of mankind; both are hunters; both humiliate and maim their victims; both have the same goals; both differ only in their methods.

If South Africa is guilty of violating the human rights of Africans here on Mother Earth, then America is guilty of more serious violations against the 22 million African Americans living on its soil. And if South African racism is not a domestic issue, then American racism should not be a domestic issue either.

We implore the independent African states to help us bring our problem to the United Nations on the grounds that the United States government is morally incapable of protecting the lives and property of African Americans. On the grounds also that the deterioration of our situation is clearly becoming a threat to world peace.

Out of frustration and despair, our young people have reached the point of no return. It is no longer time for us to be patient and turn the other cheek. We assert our right to self-defence, by whatever means necessary, and we reserve the right to retaliate against our racist oppressors, no matter how great the odds, in the face of adversity.

We are well aware that our future efforts to confront violence with violence – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth – could create a racial conflict in America that could easily degenerate into a violent, global, and bloody war.

In the interest of world peace and security, we therefore implore the leaders of independent African states to propose an immediate investigation into the situation of African Americans under the auspices of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

A final word, my beloved brothers, on the occasion of this African summit: “No one knows the master better than his servant. We have been servants in America for more than 300 years. We have a deep knowledge of this man who calls himself ‘Uncle Sam.’ Therefore, you must heed our warning. Do not escape European colonialism to become even more enslaved to a deceptive and friendly American dollar.

May Allah’s blessings of health and wisdom be upon you all.

Malcolm X

The African Report

I’ll stand by you, Buhari tells AfDB President Adesina



President Muhammadu Buhari says Nigeria will stand solidly behind Dr Akinwumi Adesina in his bid to get re-elected as President of the African Development Bank (AfDB).

The President made his position known at State House, Abuja, on Tuesday, when he hosted Adesina, who was on a courtesy visit to the Presidential Villa.

Mr Femi Adesina, the President’s spokesman, in a statement, quoted the President saying:In 2015, when you were to be elected for the first term, I wrote to all African leaders, recommending you for the position.

“I didn’t say because you were a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Minister, and I belonged to the All Progressives Congress (APC), so I would withhold my support.

“I’ll remain consistent with you, because no one has faulted the step I took on behalf of Nigeria.’’

The President pledged that Nigeria would work with all other leaders and stakeholders in AfDB to ensure that Adesina was elected for a second term built on the record of his achievements during his first term.

The African Union had already endorsed the incumbent AfDB President as sole candidate for the continent, but some other stakeholders are trying to ensure that Adesina is re-investigated on some allegations, and rendered ineligible to run.

In wake of Floyd killing, Police around the US are saying black lives matter to us too



Tuesday marks one week since the harrowing video of George Floyd pinned to the ground beneath a Minneapolis police officer’s knee went viral on social media.

The officer at the center of the video, Derek Chauvin, was arrested Friday and charged with causing Floyd’s death. All four of the officers at the scene were fired from the force. As activists call for the arrest of the other officers who were on the scene, police nationwide — who in the past have sometimes rallied behind officers accused of using excessive force or shooting suspects without good cause — are lining up to denounce what some are frankly calling “murder.”

The video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes — several minutes past the time when he appeared unresponsive — left little room for ambiguity about what happened.

“I was waiting for someone to push the officer off,” Camden County Police Chief Joseph D. Wysocki told Yahoo News. “We watched a murder unfold. … It was disgusting to see.”

There May Be New Rush of COVID 19 Cases After George Floyd Protests- Surgeon General



There will likely be a new rush of coronavirus cases following widespread protests this weekend over racism and the death of George Floyd — but people’s concerns need to be heard, Surgeon General Jerome Adams said in an interview.

“I remain concerned about the public health consequences both of individual and institutional racism [and] people out protesting in a way that is harmful to themselves and to their communities,” Adams said in a phone call.

He was leaving a White House meeting with governors to discuss the protests that have rippled across the country after video footage showed a white Minneapolis police officer pinning Floyd, an African American, by his neck. Floyd died in police custody minutes later, after telling the officer that he could not breathe.

“Based on the way the disease spreads, there is every reason to expect that we will see new clusters and potentially new outbreaks moving forward,” Adams said.

While many protesters have worn masks and some have distributed hand sanitizer, hundreds and sometimes thousands of people have gathered in close proximity to protest police brutality over the past six days. It will be particularly important to double down on testing and personal protective gear across the states, said Adams, the onetime Indiana health commissioner, who is black.

The surgeon general has repeatedly raised the issue of racial disparities during the coronavirus outbreak. But he sparked controversy in April after a White House briefing where he urged communities of color to "step up" to fight the coronavirus "for your abuela" and "for your Big Mama." Critics said the remarks, which also included admonitions to avoid alcohol, tobacco and drugs, as racially insensitive.

Religious leaders condemn teargassing protesters to clear street for Trump


Religious leaders around the country are condemning the use of tear gas on peaceful protesters outside the White House Monday evening to clear the area for President Trump to walk across the street to be photographed in front of a church.

St. John’s Church was damaged by fire during demonstrations over the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Reports indicated that the fire was mostly in the basement of the church and did not seriously damage the sanctuary.

“The President of the United States stood in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, lifted up a bible, and had pictures of himself taken,” Bishop Michael Curry said in a statement “In so doing, he used a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes. This was done in a time of deep hurt and pain in our country, and his action did nothing to help us or to heal us.”

George Floyd Protests Goes International



George Floyd spent the last few moments of his life on Monday lying on the ground, handcuffed, with his neck pinned under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer who ordered him to "relax" as the 46-year-old black man gasped, "Please, I can't breathe."

Anger over Floyd's death has bubbled over into protests across the United States calling for an end to police brutality and injustice — and now those demonstrations have gone global.

The UK

In the United Kingdom, hundreds of demonstrators reported at Trafalgar Square in London, with people kneeling in solidarity at 1 p.m. Sunday local time. This despite mass gatherings being prohibited in the country as part of its coronavirus response.

People were seen carrying signs that read, "Justice for George Floyd," "Racism has no place," "Enough is enough," and "Black lives matter." They chanted, "I can't breathe" and "No justice, no peace," and marched to Grenfell Tower, which was felled by a fire in 2017, causing 72 deaths.

Protesters also walked to the US Embassy in Battersea, BBC reported, and were seen in Manchester and Cardiff.In Germany, the scene was a familiar one.

A crowd gathered at the US Embassy in Berlin on Saturday. Graffiti artists also sprayed Floyd's image on a stretch of the wall that divided the German capital city for decades during the Cold War.


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