Black Lives don’t Matter and slavery is alive and well
(A glimpse into the harrowing fate of a
group of people on whose backs nations have risen and continue to rise)
By Eze Uche
When the word slavery is mentioned, what
comes to mind is ostensibly the horrific and inhuman treatment of Africans by
Europeans. The kidnap and capture from their homelands of unsuspecting and
innocent Africans sometimes on their way to the stream or farm, imprisonment,
deathly journey across the oceans, auctioneering, torture and eventual
servitude to various European masters wherever they are found on the globe is a
well-known history which has been taught in schools all over the world. In as
much as all of these are true events which are extensively documented, unknown
to many, slavery in all of its horrors, agonies and pains is very much taking
place today. And the numbers are staggering.
The UN and various global bodies continuously
remind us that slavery continues to thrive by releasing figures based on
statistics that they believe are the numbers of people currently living in
various forms of slavery around the world. These statistics vary from
organisation to organisation- [i]some
say 45 million while [ii]others
say 21 million, but within their various differences is an underlining
factor and that is there are today tens of millions of people who are held
under severe inhumane conditions solely for the benefit of others. In other
words, in this 21st century, there are millions of people currently
living in bondage. And the conditions are as ugly as they have ever been.
The
master, his commodities and his subjects
As thought-provoking as modern day slavery
is, these statistics barely scratch the surface of what is actually going on
especially in Africa, case in point Nigeria. The case of Nigeria and similarly
various countries in Africa is a bigger problem that is barely looked at or
simply glossed over and which ultimately feeds the millions of cases of slavery
under review by global organisations. To understand the nature and extent of
the human suffering taking place in Nigeria and the wider Africa, you need a history
lesson, albeit a brief one on why the place called Nigeria exists in the first
place.
Since the year 1914 when a British mercenary
officer of Scottish descent by name[iii]
Frederick
Lugard working for his British Royal Majesty King George V declared the creation
of Nigeria, lumping together with immediate effect various peoples with
distinct cultural, economic, social, political and religious ways of life
without any consultations with them, Nigeria has only gone from one calamitous
failure unto the next.
You see, Nigeria is a making of Great
Britain who owned some of the largest trading conglomerates in the then British
empire. One of such behemoths was the
Royal Niger Company. So for Britain’s sole interests, the lives of the various
peoples were totally destroyed with the creation of Nigeria which was merely an
act to consolidate Britain’s grip on her territories in that region of Africa.
And to prove that the lives of the indigenous peoples did not matter, the name
given to the country as you might have already guessed is a derivative of the
aforementioned British company.
160,000
0000 - One hundred and Sixty Million Slaves in one place in the 21st
Century
In a nutshell, this is the story of
Nigeria. A country created by Britain solely for British interests. And the
discovery of crude oil decades after the creation has only piled on the pains
and suffering of the masses as Britain’s crude windfall soared.
Nigeria is notoriously corrupt, universally
ridiculed and systematically repudiated. It does not help matters that European
leaders for all their rhetoric about African corruption remain active
participants in Africa’s state of affairs and by implication the failure of the
continent. Funds meant for building of hospitals, schools, roads, bridges etc have
been looted by Nigeria’s leaders who are by the way,[iv]
selected
or approved by Britain irrespective of how woefully under-qualified they
may seem. Britain like other European counterparts in turn grants access for
stashing of these funds into her financial institutions.
As other Western countries joined the fray,
upon seeing Britain’s wanton plunder of
her prize possession, the poor peoples of Biafra, Yorubaland, and Arewa who
make up the place called Nigeria, continue to wallow in misery, rejection and abject
poverty.
Nigeria is a place that works for various
governments through multinational companies or in the case of Germany through
government agencies like Julius Berger – an outfit that camouflages as a
construction company but gets paid in crude oil barrels. The massive oil and
gas fields are owned or operated almost exclusively by international companies
who decide how much crude oil production is reported to the mostly uninspiring,
unconcerned and unperturbed leaders of Nigeria.
Her coastal waters are criss-crossed by
Chinese and European fishing vessels who understand that they can do as they
please without much disturbance. Her crude oil and gas resources are a
thoroughfare to criminal syndicates from the West who have perfected the
business of [v]oil bunkering and
sale of stolen crude. Since the inhabitants of Nigeria lay no claim to the
enterprise called Nigeria, there is thus no willingness on the part of her
leaders or the people to sacrifice anything for it. It is an entity that is
completely detached from the people it rules over. And in such a state of
affairs chaos and injustice reigns supreme.
The government actively works against the
people through various means chief of them being extortion and harassment using
the security forces. The place is rampant with police extortions and wanton
arrests, customs and immigrations extortions at the various ports of entry, etc.
A look at the treatment Nigerians receive at the hands of these organisations
while Europeans, middle – Easterners and other Asians walk through is a sight
to behold.
Nigeria has not worked from inception and
does not show the possibility of ever working based on the fact that no one
believes in it apart from those who created the place.
Do
black lives matter?
That brings us to the question; do black
lives really matter? From all indications the answer is a resounding no.
As the name Nigeria connotes everything
unwanted, the country itself is one of the most difficult and tumultuous places
on the planet to live in. From the lack of basic necessities like pipe-borne
water, electricity, roads, schools, hospitals, etc which the country has
woefully failed to provide throughout her history, to the more serious cases of
human rights abuses which includes illegal detentions, government sanctioned
rape and extortion of the populace by security forces and ultimately[vi]
[vii]mass
killings[viii]
of innocent inhabitants.
In order to have a glimpse of the burden of
being a Nigerian, you are welcome to undertake this challenge to live 24 hours
as an African especially as a person branded a Nigerian by Britain. At the end
of the challenge, imagine having your entire life defined by those experiences
and parameters.
This ultimately begs the question why must
Africans live confined within the boarders of territories created for them by
European masters? Everywhere there have been disturbances or mass murders which
have the potential of setting the progress of Europeans back; immediate
attention has been given to them. And in some cases based on perceived
irreconcilable differences in culture, religion, etc., the boarders confining
those peoples within such tumultuous territories have been adjusted and in many
cases, new nation states created for the enablement of peace and progress for
those Caucasians. Why therefore is the
case for Africa and Nigeria different? Are Africans not worthy to live or have
a semblance of human decency which is accorded to others?
The
master who is indifferent to bloodshed
Africa has never been and is not yet free
from European imperialism. And it says a lot about humanity that a class of human
beings are subjected to such ordeal and carnage in the 21st century.
That such appalling situations and conditions are ignored, paid lip service to
or dismissed out rightly is a confirmation that Europe is not willing to
release Africa and her peoples from the clutches of imperialism and slavery.
The statements of European government as “The colonial boarders of Africa must
be maintained” should be rejected and condemned by every well-meaning and right
thinking human being. What it simply means is Africans must live within the
massive prisons/territories created for them by their European masters.
No statement is as dominating as hearing that
your master wishes to maintain the conditions which he or she has created for
you, though those oppressive conditions have been detrimental to your very
existence. These are boarders which have contributed to some of humanity’s
worst dictatorships and horrors which include the regimes of Mobutu Sese Seko
of Zaire, Idi Amin of Uganda and genocidal war criminal General Yakubu Gowon of
Nigeria who continues to be protected by Britain. The Rwandan genocide and the worst genocide in
recent memory, the
Nigerian / Biafran war of 1967-70 in which
millions of lives were wasted, all lay claim to Europe’s insistence that her
African subjects remain as they want them.
Since there is a consensus that colonialism
and slavery is evil, it is time therefore for Africans to be allowed to emerge
as free peoples without the yoke and burden of colonialism which includes
sustaining the economies of their European masters at the detriment of the
impoverished Africans. Europe must free Africa and allow the peoples to emerge
same way as nation states have organically risen out of Europe and elsewhere on
the planet.
This is the most important task facing
humanity. The fate of Africa in a rapidly changing world is a 21st
century question. Must Africans continue to be subjected to conditions set in
the dark ages by their European masters? In this modern age of knowledge and advancement,
Africans must be accorded the freedom they deserve in order to advance.
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) who
were once very proud and respectable people in the land of Biafra have taken
this task head-on. Having been forcefully merged into the place currently
called Nigeria, these people are saying they are no longer going to be slaves
in Britain’s and Europe’s experiment with human beings in Africa. They are
asking those with conscience to join their cause to free themselves and perhaps
the hundreds of millions of Africans whose lives have been wasted for far too
long with the bondage of slavery.
Their lives should matter as well.
 |
Human remains of the
victims of Rwandan genocide
|
Slavery - the keeping of slaves as a practice or institution. (Replace institution with Nigeria)
- the condition of being subject to a specified influence. (Replace influence with Britain)
- a relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another
and controls his life, liberty and fortune
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/world/asia/global-slavery-index.html?_r=1
http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/lang--en/index.htm
[iii] Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron
Lugard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Lugard,_1st_Baron_Lugard
[iv] Nigeria: What lies behind
Buhari’s London visit?
http://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00035556.html
[v] The Warri Crisis: Fueling
violence: V. Illegal Oil Bunkering
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/nigeria1103/5.htm
[vi] Nigeria: Killing of unarmed
Pro-Biafra supporters by military must be urgently investigated
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/06/nigeria-killing-of-unarmed-pro-biafra-supporters-by-military-must-be-urgently-investigated/
[vii] Who cares About Biafra
Anyway?
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/2/25/who-cares-about-biafra-anyway-pithis/
[viii] Mayer Returns Safe From
Biafra, Reports Two Million Face Death
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