Our Clown of Terror, Traitor Trump, now wishes to extend his slime trail to Africa and launch a Crusade on behalf of Christians in Nigeria.
This idea begs interrogation, as the government of Nigeria has for five decades been a proxy of American colonial imperialism and dominion, and of the American Pentecostal Church.
American evangelists in partnership with the Nigerian state have for many years fomented a witch hysteria where parents murder their own children as witches. This in parallel with an anti queer campaign of police terror and the weaponization of state controlled Christianity versus Islamization, both sides terrorists. But we Americans are the iron fist in the glove here, as in so many other places our elites have targeted for colonial exploitation, in this case of Africa’s largest oil resources.
Threat of Islamic violence against Christians is the fig leaf for Trump’s plans of imperial and colonial conquest and dominion of Nigeria, a pretext to which the lie is given by the government of Nigeria on hose behalf he wishes to invade, for they say there is no anti-Christian threat, and as is often true of all theocracies most of the violence against Christians is perpetrated by fellow Christians, in Nigeria as child witch hunts, and most of the violence of Islamic fundamentalists is perpetrated against fellow Muslims as sectarian and factional conflicts.
Yes, Boko Haram and other IS aligned elements which are the pretext for Trump’s call to invade Nigeria are a real threat and an enemy of all humankind and of civilization; but both the Christian Nigerian state and their sectarian enemies are organizations of theocratic terror, and only one of them are American creations and puppets of our colonialst economic exploitation and political control.
What’s really at stake in Nigeria is whose flag its oil wells will fly in defense against Islamic insurgent forces, mythical or otherwise; America’s or Russia’s Africa Corps?
And as always, if such threats do not exist, it is necessary for those who would enslave us to manufacture them.
As I wrote in my post of March 2 2023, Nigeria Chooses a Future; Who do we want to become, we humans? In this week’s elections in Nigeria, liberty and tyranny play for a future, and unlike Shakespeare’s line in Henry V, the lightest hand is not always the surest winner.
Nigeria faces an intersection of economic and cultural crises, the financial chaos of currency replacement by electronic banking and its impact on the vast unbanked precariat who have lived by cash per day labor as a quasi enslaved undercaste for generations first among immediate triggers, but the greatest existential threat Nigeria faces is one common to all humanity; from its hegemonic elites of wealth, power, and privilege whose true authority and legitimacy derives from faith weaponized in service to power as theocracy, an evil here inherent to the state as pervasive, endemic, systemic, and institutional crime against humanity whose vast presence can be read in the monstrous epidemic of parents murdering their children as witches.
Since the government of Nigeria and American Pentecostal churches formed an alliance over thirty years ago to organize and propagandize the murder of children as witches, about a thousand children each year have been killed by their own parents, families, and villages in a horrific campaign of loyalty tests by the state and legitimation of authority by the church. This was designed and is perpetrated throughout Africa by American fundamentalist religious fanatics in a coordinated campaign of colonialist and imperialist destabilization. In Nigeria this has had the full collaboration and authorization of the government, with the persecution and orchestrated violence against LGBT persons being a dual campaign of mass hysteria and state terror.
A nation which sacrifices its children in service to power and authority is in need of revolution; in Nigeria an entire ruling class does so as a colonial puppet regime.
Here the insidious subversions of an imperial dominion as cultural and economic total war have captured the state through Christian missionary falsification, commodification, and dehumanization.
It is a program of institutional genocide equaled in America only by the system of Indian Reservations as ethnic cleansing and the historical sterilization of Black prisoners during our Eugenics era, both of which Hitler so admired and copied in the Holocaust.
I should like to signpost especially that the organization of American Pentecostal churches which is responsible for the Nigerian witch child murders is also guilty of the Mayan Genocide led by Pat Roberts and perpetrated by the fascist puppet regime of Rios Montt, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority having captured the Republican Party in 1980 under Reagan’s nightmare regime as dual instruments of the Fourth Reich, and is today the largest unnamed co-conspirator in the wave of white supremacist terror such as that of Charlottesville which put Traitor Trump in the White House, and resulted in the obscenity of the January 6 Insurrection.
This network of false prophets and the murder of children broadly includes the whole den of serpents of deliverance and exorcism ministries, prosperity gospel, dominion theology, Gideonite fundamentalism as implicit Patriarchal sexual terror, and Christian Identity ideology as white supremacist terror.
Such organizations are not those of faith protected by the principle of freedom of religion, but a cult of child murder and global organization of terror whose ultimate goals in perpetrating crimes against humanity include the subversion of democracy, the capture of states, and the return of humankind to a pre-Enlightenment theocratic world order.
To this and all who would enslave us, to tyranny and terror and to fascisms of blood, faith, and soil, let us give the only reply it merits; Never Again!
As written by Utibe Effiong in The Conversation; “Child health researchers, including psychologists, social workers and economists, believe that the stigmatisation of children as witches in Nigeria is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Some research notes the trend has become widespread since the early to mid-1990s. As a result thousands of children have been accused of being witches. Many have been tortured, or even killed.
Others are subjected to inhumane abuse. They suffer severe beatings, maiming, burns caused by fire, boiling water or acid, poisoning, attempts to bury them alive, abandonment, rape and trafficking. They are denied access to health care and vaccinations. And they are blamed when they become ill and their diseases spread to other members of the family and community.
There are two factors that play a role in child witchcraft being perpetuated in Nigeria: religion and poverty.
One researcher has argued that the religious discourse of the new Christian Pentecostal movement has heightened the belief that child witches exist. The movement generally attributes failure and misfortune to the devil.
For some religious leaders there is the lure of economic gain attached to child witchcraft accusations. The purported capacity to deliver people from the power of witches can generate huge earnings for pastor-prophets who engage in deliverance sessions. Research shows that those religious leaders encourage congregants to repeatedly attend church programmes, pay tithes regularly and give offerings and vows, all with the aim of generating more and more income from their followers.
Widespread poverty is another explanatory factor. In 2006 the United Nations Development Programme reported that within the Niger Delta region high rates of poverty and environmental degradation are especially prevalent.
Researchers argue that poverty and other misfortunes are in many parts of Nigeria attributed to metaphysical causes. As a result, child witches are simply an easy target to blame for the economic misfortunes that befall families and communities in this region.
Interestingly, research notes that the belief in child witchcraft is also considered to be reflected in and perpetuated by Nigerian popular media. Nollywood, the Nigerian movie industry, has been blamed for making films that have played a role in popularising and disseminating the belief in child witches. Many of the older movies were produced by Pentecostal churches.”
As written by Marc Ellison in Al Jazeera, in an article entitled How Nigeria’s fear of child ‘witchcraft’ ruins young lives: Abandonment, persecution, violence: Childhoods lost as young Nigerians are branded as witches; “From a distance, the children look like scarecrows as they slowly scour the waist-high piles of rubbish for plastic bottles.
Their ragged clothing hangs loosely from their emaciated frames, their gaunt shrink-wrapped faces are deadened by the drugs they took at dawn.
It is hard to believe that these children are “witches”.
And yet this is exactly why several hundred skolombo – or street children – are now living at the Lemna dumpsite on the outskirts of Calabar in southeastern Nigeria.
“My grandmother was sick and her leg became very swollen,” says Godbless. “She said I was the one responsible, that I was a witch.”
The 14-year-old boy is sat in the makeshift hut at Lemna that he now calls home.
He shares this stuffy wooden hovel with half a dozen other boys who are now outside, smoking the cannabis that will get them through the day.
Godbless was taken to the family’s local church where a pastor confirmed his grandmother’s worst fears – he was indeed a witch, the pastor claimed.
His relatives demanded he leaves the house, but he refused.
Godbless rolls up the leg of his shorts to reveal a long, blackened scar on his upper thigh.
“This is what my auntie did to me when I did not go,” he whispers. “She heated up a knife in the fire and put it on me.”
Two years after he ran away, Godbless and his gang make money by recycling plastic soda bottles and cans.
These are weighed, and if he is lucky, he says, he can make a couple of dollars a week to buy food, clothing and medicine.
“When relatives throw these children out of the house, it’s as good as killing the child,” says Adek Bassey.
Bassey is a student who helps run Today for Tomorrow – a small Nigerian volunteer organisation that once a week meets the children near the dump to feed them, and address any health concerns.
She complains that the state’s Ministry of Sustainable Development and Social Welfare is not doing anything despite apparently having a pot of money with which to tackle the skolombo issue.
“Nobody from the Cross River government is coming out to feed these children, nobody is coming to send these kids to school, nobody is teaching them trades.”
“I don’t know if it’s corruption, or intentional negligence,” she says. “Or whether they have just given up on these street kids, that they think they will never change.”
Bassey alleges she has also received anonymous phone calls after a colleague posted photos on Facebook of their work at the Lemna dump.
“‘Who gave you the right to snap in that place?’, one person said,” recalls Bassey. “You better pipe yourself down before you get into trouble.”
“Someone even told me that they would arrest me for child trafficking.”
Her mother has pleaded with Bassey to stop her work, but she has refused to do so.
“They can lynch or kill me,” she says. “But I won’t stop.”
Manipulating fears
In the Niger Delta, where an extreme form of Christianity has taken root and blended with indigenous beliefs, an alarming number of children have been accused of practising witchcraft with malicious intent.
The accusations have created a generation of outcasts who live at the mercy of a system ill-equipped to protect them.
It is a relatively recent phenomenon that exploded across the region in the 1990s, fuelled partly by popular films and self-professed prophets looking to manipulate people’s fears to make a quick buck.
The epicentre of these accusations is in Nigeria’s southwestern states of Akwa Ibom and Cross River.
A report in 2008 estimated that 15,000 children in these two states had been accused.
And while there is no definitive figure for the number of skolombo in Calabar, a 2010 survey found that in one region of Akwa Ibom state, 85 percent of street children like Godbless had been accused of witchcraft.
The consequences for many of them were severe.
Children and babies who have been branded as witches have been chained up, starved, beaten, and even set on fire. Cases of parents attempting to behead their children with saws have also been reported.
These accusers typically use witchcraft as a means to scapegoat vulnerable children for acts ranging from unruly behaviour and absenteeism from school to a failed harvest or mechanical problems with the family motorbike.
“We have the laws to address witch-branding,” says Nigerian lawyer James Ibor. “But the problem is not the laws – the problem is implementing these laws.”
“And until we begin to implement these laws, our children are not safe.”
Ibor, who runs a local organisation in Calabar called Basic Rights Counsel Initiative (BRCI), says both the country’s criminal code and 2003 Child Rights Act outlaw not only degrading treatment but even accusing someone of being a witch.
But only about three-quarters of Nigeria’s states have domesticated the federal version of the Child Rights Act, and to date, only the state of Akwa Ibom has included specific provisions concerning the abuse of alleged child witches.
Their 2008 law made witch-branding punishable by a custodial sentence of up to 10 years.
And 10 years on, courts have yet to successfully prosecute a single perpetrator.
Ibor says his state of Cross River has not amended its own domestic version of the Child Rights Act to explicitly criminalise witch-branding.
But Oliver Orok, the minister of sustainable development and social welfare, says his ministry is working with UNICEF to address this legislative shortcoming.
“This has been an aged long practice particularly bothering on customs and traditions, and you know habits die hard,” he says. “The ministry is working assiduously to eliminate and curtail these practices.”
“Ample provisions have been made in the 2018 budget to build a new home for children at risk, and those who are in conflict with the law.”
The Calabar lawyer blames this partly on a lack of political will but says the lack of action primarily boils down to a lack of resources.
“The police are poorly funded, and not equipped to carry out these kinds of investigations,” he says. “Often, we have to push for investigations, and sometimes you just have to pay police as they don’t have the fuel they need to travel and collect evidence.”
Ibor adds: “They also don’t have the resources to run forensic analysis – and so most times you have to fund it yourself.”
“But even if I had the money, I can’t do it. The prosecution would argue I’d had the lab results altered.”
Ibor also claims police often fail to act because they believe in witches, and outing them.
The lawyer gives an example of three children aged between seven and 13 who were recently branded as witches by their father.
He locked them up in a poorly ventilated storeroom without food for several days.
Ibor claims police have taken no action against the father despite the case having been reported late in May.
And in another recent episode, a man who accused his three-year-old of being a witch before giving her second-degree burns was released by a court despite confessing to the crime.
The lawyer’s organisation BRCI specialises in legal cases concerning child rights abuse and runs a safe house for children accused of witchcraft.
Resources are a problem for Ibor’s organisation, which partly relies on volunteers.
Lack of staff results in a triaging of reported cases, with only the most serious complaints being investigated.
Ibor is disappointed that the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Social Welfare recently asked him for 20,000 nairas ($55) to approve their shelter – an initiative he feels they should be funding.
Cases have also stalled for years due to suspects absconding when on bail, or the mandatory number of court assessors not turning up in protest over several months’ unpaid wages.
“In the last eight years we haven’t got one conviction in spite of the series of reports we‘ ve made to the police about perpetrators and churches – it means something is fundamentally wrong.”
Ibor believes the failure to convict anyone so far will lead people to believe they can make accusations and attack children with impunity.
He blames the so-called “propheteers” – or religious conmen – for manipulating people’s fears of the supernatural.
In the Niger Delta – a particularly poor part of Nigeria where the average daily wage is little more than a dollar – congregants are more likely to swallow prophecies that explain their hand-to-mouth existence and ill fortune.
“Nigeria is one of the worst places to raise children because of the so-called religions of peace which are responsible for 80 percent of our problems,” says Ibor.
“They [the churches] have inhibited and undermined our laws, and we have placed these religious books above our laws.”
Diana-Abasi Udua Akanimoh, who works for a local faith-based organisation called Way to the Nations, explains that many churches and their congregants take a passage from the King James Bible literally – namely, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
“Being Christians ourselves we felt we could challenge people’s belief in witchcraft,” she says. “For, we believe in God just like they do, but we do not believe that the Bible was written to be used to hurt people.
“We tell them, ‘we understand the scriptures just as much as you think you do, but you must have misunderstood certain facts, and have used them against young people to hurt them’.”
The role of the church
Pentecostalism spread throughout Nigeria in the 1970s.
The Niger Delta region is said to have more places of worship per square mile than anywhere else on earth.
This form of Christianity adopts the idea that if you are not successful in life, then pernicious entities may be the cause.
Such a belief system should not be dismissed as antiquated African superstition – pentecostal churches also operate within the United States and the United Kingdom.
Indeed, these Nigerian Pentecostal leaders have emulated their American televangelist counterparts.
Many Pentecostal churches in the Niger Delta offer to deliver people from witchcraft and possession – albeit for a fee.
Joy is one of those people.
Like a boxer on the ropes, she raises her trembling hands to protect her face.
Three pastors surround the young girl and take turns slapping her head, pinching her earlobes and stomach.
The 15-year-old has been accused of being a witch, and tonight she has been brought to a ministry in Calabar for an exorcism.
One of the pastors clutches the iridescent sarong tightly knotted behind the child’s back.
It acts as an anchor to keep her from getting away and ensure she does not hurt herself.
One child, undergoing a simultaneous deliverance, has already knocked over the church’s glass lectern this evening.
“Your clothes are on fire, your head is on fire, your belly is on fire,” the pastors yell in Joy’s face as they twirl her around the church hall.
Joy tries to twist free, but there is no escape.
It is Pastor Eunice Emmanuel who had identified the four children – the youngest is eight years old – to be exorcised this evening.
“God helps me identify the kids that are possessed,” she explains before the evening’s deliverance begins. “We then conduct deliverance on them whereby the evil spirits that dwell in them, leave them, and the children become new creatures.
“The child becomes like a madman who has recovered his sanity.”
Pastor Eunice says a deliverance can last up to 10, 20 or even more minutes, depending on the type and strength of the possession or witchcraft.
But in Joy’s case, it is over half an hour before the spirit within her is compelled to speak.
Pastor Eunice asks the spirit what she has made the girl do.
“Destroy,” it says, according to Joy.
Joy is doubled over, hands over her face, crying.
The “spirit” is peppered with further questions by the pastor.
“How do you destroy? Do you go to a coven? Are you a witch? Do you drink blood? Do you eat flesh? Do you kill?”
“I have destroyed one person,” Joy finally cries.
Only when the child finally collapses onto the floor is the deliverance considered a success.
As she lies in a motionless heap on the floor, alone, the group of pastors look down at her grinning.
Many prophets in Calabar can charge up to a year’s wages – over $500 – to perform such a ceremony.
“But we don’t charge here,” claims Pastor Eunice. “I don’t have a price tag.”
She adds however that the ministry does welcome tokens of “appreciation” to help pay for generator fuel and rent.
But lawyer James Ibor says this is the exception and not the rule.
“It is backward that in the 21st Century churches are set up for economic reasons but they are spreading wickedness and ignorance,” he says.
“The government should be responsible for protecting our society from people who have set up businesses to destroy our children – but it is doing nothing.”
But minister Oliver Orok says that “currently the state government is not aware of such issues”.
“However, if such practices come to the fore, we would move against such churches and their founders and prophets.”
Ibor says that to date the government has yet to investigate several churches recently brought to their attention and Orok ignored repeated requests for updates on these investigations.
Ebe Ukara, a desk officer for the Child Rights Implementation Committee in Akamkpa, adds however that not all churches are out to hoodwink their congregants.
“Even in the case of HIV, these fake prophets will tell a person, ‘No, that it is family witchcraft that is attacking you, so don’t go to hospital, come to my church’.”
Ukara says that 60 percent of the child abuse cases that cross her desk are witchcraft-related and often prompted by a pastor’s declaration.
She claims that a profit has been made by scapegoating children, easy and vulnerable targets to blame.
“Even if nothing has happened to me, they will quickly tell me that something is attacking me,” says Ukara. “The next thing he will use oil on me, and beat me.”
“It is from the beating that they force the children to confess what they don’t know.”
The Nollywood effect
It is perhaps unfair to place all the blame for this epidemic of child witchcraft allegations on Pentecostal churches.
As with the assassination of JFK, and the falling of the Twin Towers on 9/11, it seems many still remember where and when they first saw End of the Wicked.
For Patience Itoro it was in 2001 in the town of Eket in Akwa Ibom state.
The film focuses on the Amadi family which is living with the father’s mother – who we find out is a witch in a coven.
Amadi’s children end up joining the cult, and in the movie are shown eating human flesh and plotting to murder their parents.
In another scene, the children laugh as a man’s eyes are gouged out.
Produced by the Liberty Gospel Church, the 1999 film also starred the church’s leader Helen Ukpabio as the pastor who ends up heroically exposing and destroying the witches.
The film was hugely controversial and at the time was blamed for the surge in witchcraft accusations against children in the 1990s and 2000s.
The movie has been criticised for blurring the line between fact and fiction.
But Itoro says she knows better.
“I found it scary,” she says as she dusts the floor of her compound. “But I know it wasn’t real.”
Three of her neighbours who are sat around the courtyard say they have heard about the movie but have yet to see it.
When offered the chance to watch a clip they are curious.
They huddle around the laptop, and tut and grimace as they witness the actions of the child witches in the film.
“That was very scary,” says Unwana Nse. “But for me, that really confirmed that there’s child witchcraft.”
Sat next to her, Esther Friday says she’s now confused.
“I don’t know whether that was real, or acting,” she says.
Peter Itoro says it is proof that such things can happen in the world.
“It’s just clothes covering people,” he says. “We don’t really know who they are.”
And now his wife Patience has changed her mind.
“That film now confirms to me that there’s witchcraft.”
Known colloquially as Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry is second only to Bollywood in terms of the number of films it pumps out year after year.
These most common themes are romance, comedy and the so-called “hallelujah” category – films with strong religious messages.
Nigerians have criticised the industry for proliferating negative stereotypes about the continent – including the focus on witchcraft.
But paradoxically one of the main reasons for the films’ popularity is that they provide a platform for Africans to tell their own stories.
One Nollywood producer, Orok Atim, says that however “negative” the theme of witchcraft may be, this is an issue that affects the lives of Nigerians – so they expect to encounter them when watching Nigerian films.
His next movie will be about a deceased friend’s experience of the supernatural.
“Witchcraft exists in our society today,” he says. “People want to see what they know, to hear what they know, they want to feel and actually understand.
“That doesn’t mean we should be scared, no, there’s hope.”
Atim maintains that his movies allow Nigerian audiences to face their fears.
“[It is actually the] churches today are using that witchcraft to deceive some families, destroy some children, and using it as a means of extortion,” he says.
Basil Ngene, a film producer and video shop owner in Calabar, said the film industry was not to blame.
“Nollywood movies only highlight what already exists,” he says as he places new stock on the shelves. “Film did not create witchcraft or witchdoctors.”
He says that he knows that witchcraft is real because he read about it in the Bible.
Ngene also challenges the Western notion that it is only “gullible” Nigerians who believe in, and are fascinated by, the supernatural.
“In the West, you watch films like ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Infinity War’,” he says. “All these focus on African magic, witchcraft and superpowers.”
But Ebe Ukara believes that rather than reflecting culture, these movies are creating a new one.
“People watch these movies and imitate what they see these advanced prophets doing.”
“Movies today are teaching a lot of things that were never practised before,” she says.
And James Ibor argues it was movies like End of the Wicked that not only popularised the notion that children could be witches, but that people could easily become witches by eating tainted food.
“And movies like End of the Wicked are not shown as fiction like Harry Potter – it is shown as a religious tool for evangelism, it is shown as a compliment to the Bible.”
The fallout
Whatever is behind these beliefs, children like Godbless can attest to one thing: once you’re on the streets, it is hard to go back.
However while many have fallen through the cracks, there are people fighting for them.
A handful of Nigerian organisations like BRCI and Way to Nations attempt to do more than just rescue those accused of witchcraft – they try to reunite them with the very relatives who have ostracised them.
But their efforts are rarely successful, even with extended family members.
Emmanuel has been at BRCI’s emergency shelter since December 2017.
The nine-year-old was kicked out of his stepfather’s house after having been accused of witchcraft at his local church.
His stepfather, Udong Umoren, threatened to kill him with a machete should he try and come home.
He slept rough for several months before BRCI took him in.
The organisation says it had to pay the police 5,000 nairas ($14) to arrest the stepfather, but he is now out on bail.
Attempts to reunite Emmanuel with his family have been fruitless.
Udong recently fled, mistaking BRCI staff for police officers.
Despite being against her child being thrown out onto the streets, Emmanuel’s mother, Theresa Umoren, tipped Udong off.
“My son sleeps in the road and I’m not happy about it,” Theresa said. “But I must respect my husband because of our other children.
“There’s nothing I can do – you should keep him away where he is safe.”
Theresa’s inner turmoil is evident when she gets to speak to Emmanuel on the phone for the first time in five months.
Across the state line in Akwa Ibom, Jehu Tom has had a little more luck.
The Way to Nations staff member has managed to track down the grandmother of a child living at their safe house in Eket – and she has agreed to talk about Precious.
The seven-year-old was abandoned at a Mobil petrol station in Eket, where he lived for a month.
The grandmother had been forced to take the boy in when both his parents died and blamed her subsequent ill-health on Precious.
But even getting to this stage has been a challenge – the organisation’s vehicle has been unreliable and fuel here is expensive.
When they are able to locate Mercy Campbell, Tom brings Precious with him to see his grandmother.
It is an odd reunion; there are no hugs, greetings, or even a smile.
Tom insists that Precious sit beside his grandmother.
He acquiesces, clearly unhappy to do so, but sits at the opposite end of the wooden bench.
Tom asks her why she thought her grandson was a witch.
“He was very stubborn,” she says. “He disobeyed me, and he didn’t listen to my advice.”
Campbell adds that he also used to play truant from school, and that he would sing strange songs at home.
“They say actions speak louder than words – even though I don’t believe in witchcraft,” she adds hastily.
Tom explains that the right place for Precious is not at the safe house, but with family.
But Campbell says she cannot afford to take him back.
“I took care of him for one year,” she explains. “I can ‘ t take care of him any more – his paternal family should take him in.”
Tom asks what she feels when she looks at Precious. Love? Fear? Sadness?
The grandmother seems to find it difficult to answer.
Thinking she has not heard him, Tom asks the question a second time.
“I do not hate him,” Campbell says finally.
As written by Tihomir Kukolja in Huffpost, in an article entitled Saving Witch Children In Nigeria: In Nigeria beautiful, innocent children, as young as two years of age, are tortured, abandoned and killed by their own parents, family and community members. Deliverance pastors and prophets have over the years branded thousands of children as witches; “ In Nigeria beautiful, innocent children, as young as two years of age, are tortured, abandoned and killed by their own parents, family and community members. In a land stricken by poverty and illiteracy self-styled deliverance pastors and prophets have over the years branded thousands of children as witches. Leonardo Rocha Dos Santos, cofounder and director of the Brazilian organization Way to the Nations, leads an orphanage in Nigeria that provides a safe place for the rescued children. In this interview he graphically illustrates the disturbing darkness that blankets the country of Nigeria.
Tihomir: Since 2009, when some UK media extensively covered the Nigerian tragedy, not much has been written or covered by the international press until recently. Has the problem diminished over the years?
Leonardo: Over the past four years, since I’ve been involved in the rescue mission of the falsely branded children as witches, the number of tortured and killed children has not decreased. I’ve seen many cases, and some very dramatic ones. We are present with our rescue work only in one of the three Nigerian states, the one with the Christian population. The so-called witch children are tortured and killed also in Cameron and Angola, and the UNICEF report calls the situation in Congo as critical. Some international organizations are talking about thousands of stigmatized children. I have met at least 400 cases of tortured, abandoned or killed children. Only two moths ago we rescued four children who were to be murdered together, at the same time. We received a distress telephone call one night from someone who had heard about our organization.
Tihomir: What is the role of Helen Ukpabio, a founder of a controversial Liberty Foundation and her exorcism “ministry” in exciting the violence against children in Nigeria?
Leonardo: The problem has really escalated since 1999 when Helen Ukpabio produced a horror movie, End of the Wicked. The movie and her exorcism “ministry” have provided a leading inspiration for many deaths of children in Nigeria and surrounding countries. She is at this time visiting the U.K.. If I were to speak publicly, or in churches in the U.K. or U.S. teaching how to make bombs I would be arrested immediately because bombs kill people. Yet this woman, whose public work is turning parents into murderers of their own children, has been allowed to visit the U.K. where she is performing her deliverance séances and exorcisms on children at this moment.
Tihomir: Give us an overview, how do Nigerian parents become murderers of their own children?
Leonardo: The problem flourishes in those African countries where Christianity has blended with native pagan religions. They are a fertile ground for superstition. Most of the rescue cases that involve our work start in the church environments in which deliverance ministries, prosperity gospel and dominion theology have taken a central stage. Self-styled pastors and prophets, greedy for cash, teach their parishioners that many problems they are facing, like poverty, joblessness, financial crisis, sickness or poor harvest — are all caused by a witch-child hiding in their families. Then those pastors promise that they would cast the witch spirits out of their children. For their deliverance séances they charge poor parents the amounts which most of them are not able to pay. Then, the superstitious parents are starting to guess which of their six, seven or eight children is a witch. They end up choosing the one who has something different about him or her — one who is the most mischievous, strong willed or the most intelligent among the children in the big family or the one who already has some serious health condition. We knew a child who had epilepsy. His parents were convinced that the boy was possessed by a witch-spirit. The children are then forced, through torture, to confess that they are witches. Those children always end up severely beaten, cast out of their homes into the dark streets and forests, mutilated and often killed. All of this is due to a blend of Christianity and native paganism that has been brought inside the church in Nigeria. Most of the killer parents claim that they are born-again and spirit-led Christians.
Tihomir: Could you share a few concrete cases?
Leonardo: The case that still breaks my heart happened in October 2012. Michael, an 11-year-old-boy was brought to our center with a big, almost fatal wound on his head. His father and his uncle wanted to kill him. Our team rescued him and registered the case with the police. His father, who claims to be a prophet, accused Michael during a church service of being a witch. He blamed him for his joblessness and his failed marriage. We wanted to keep the boy in our orphanage because he was seriously injured, and his life was under the threat as long as he stayed with his father and close to his uncle. Our organization worked hard to get the guardianship approved by the social welfare office. Meanwhile Michael was ordered by the police to stay with his father, who starved him every day and would not let him stay in the house. One day, as he was about to move to our center, Michael disappeared. We spent more than a month visiting every village in the radius of 30 kilometers. The chief of the village where Michael used to live told me, “I know the boy’s father and uncle very well. They are very violent people. I am quite sure that this boy has been buried somewhere around his house.” This was very hard for me, because I had this boy sitting on my lap, eating with me. He loved to talk with me. He was a very bright and sweet boy. When we realized that the child had disappeared we told the police. Nothing was done, no investigation. He’s gone, just wiped out of the history like that, without any investigation.
Tihomir: I just want to make sure I understood you correctly. You believe that the boy’s father or uncle, or both killed him?
Leonardo: Yes. Everybody believes it. The neighbors believe it. The chief of the village believes it. I believe it too.
Tihomir: What is the Nigerian government doing about the cases like Michael’s? Is it able to do anything?
Leonardo: In 2008 the government approved the Child Rights Law. It became illegal and a criminal activity to label children as witches. But the law was never seriously enforced. One year ago a father beheaded his son because the father believed his son was a witch. The boy was starving in the streets, without anyone wanting to help him. Once he came to the back of his house and asked his brother for a bowl of soup. His father heard his voice, ran after him and chopped his head off with an axe. This man worked for the government as a public servant. He was arrested and let go one day later because of “lack of evidence.” Another case: A father, who was a policeman, marched his eight-year-old daughter naked through the village, with the AK-47 in his hands. He humiliated her publicly because he believed she was a witch. He too was arrested and released two days later due to “lack of evidence.”
Tihomir: I hear that this eight-year-old girl now lives under the protection of your organization?
Leonardo: Our team met the girl in the local hospital, recovering from the serious injuries his father inflicted on her body. She was placed in the bed next to one of our children who was treated there as well. Her mother also heard about what happened to her daughter, and came to the hospital to look after her, but being without a job she could not take care of her and the other child that lived with her. We decided to employ her as one of the caregivers for the children that we have in our center. The mother and her two children are now safe in our center.
Tihomir: Your mission statement states: “Way to the Nations is an international organization dedicated to fighting ignorance, eradicating superstition and to the rescue, support and rehabilitation of children branded by church leaders and their parents as witches.” Tell us more.
Leonardo: In 2004 a movement, Way of Grace, started in Brazil. It was initiated by pastor Caio Fabio. Inspired by his practical exposition of the Gospel a group of friends decided to dedicate their lives to living practically Jesus’ command to “love our neighbors.” Way to the Nations was born to serve others who are less fortunate. We went to Nigeria for the first time in 2010. Since then we developed projects in Senegal and Northeast Brazil too. Now we are well established in Nigeria, with a staff of eight people.
Tihomir: In Nigeria we see an ugly demonstration of what happens when the so-called prosperity gospel is radicalized to the extreme. We see the so-called pastors, prophets and evangelists get obscenely rich at the expense of their poor parishioners. It seems that your mission also targets such a perverted religious establishment.
Leonardo: Much more could be achieved if we could succeed in changing the minds of pastors. But many pastors are not about being spiritual shepherds. They are about getting rich. The wealth of some popular pastors and evangelists in Nigeria could compare with the wealth of some of the wealthiest mega evangelists and pastors in the U.S. This is obscene when placed against the culture of extreme poverty in Nigeria. I’ve often asked Nigerian pastors, “Why don’t you do something to stop the superstition that leads to so many deaths of innocent children?” I asked one of them if he believed that children in Nigeria were witches. He said, “If Jesus would cast demons into pigs, why couldn’t demons go into children too?” And he is the pastor of a huge church; when he walks behind the pulpit to preach, he enters as if he were a rock-star. Unfortunately, I have not yet seen any church in Nigeria with any program that addresses the issue of children falsely accused as witches.
Tihomir: Your website features a photo of a group of rescued children, cared by your organization, all nicely dressed on their way to school. Your work is a sign of hope in Nigeria.
Leonardo: At this time we have about 30 children in our center. We want to give them their lives back, to help them and to give them love and opportunity. Two of them are doing courses in skill acquisition. Not long ago one of them started a welding course. There is a girl in our center who is training to become a hairdresser. One year ago it was such a blessing to have with us Dr. Tony Edet, who spent three months with us in the orphanage treating the children. His wife Alicja was helping too, looking after the children and teaching them good habits. We feel privileged to have taken this challenge, given to us by our Brazilian pastor. We are glad to see that God is doing something good through us in Nigeria. Any saved young life in Nigeria is worth the sacrifice.”
Will the current elections bring meaningful change ?
As written by Jason Burke in The Guardian, in an article entitled Nigeria election 2023: what are the issues and why is this vote different?; “When do Nigerians go to the polls and what are they voting for?
On Saturday, up to 94 million voters in Africa’s most populous country and biggest economy will cast their ballots to elect lawmakers and the president. It’s the seventh election since the end of military rule in 1999, and an exercise involving enormous expenditure and logistics, keenly watched across the continent and beyond.
Why does the election matter?
Nigeria faces a host of serious challenges: growing insecurity, a struggling economy, massive debt, deep poverty and a corrupt political class – and this moment is genuinely seen as a potential turning point, with hopes that a fair and credible poll may alter the country’s trajectory for the better, allowing its youthful, creative and entrepreneurial energy to be harnessed for the good of all. Alternatively, it could lead Nigeria towards a very difficult future.
Nigeria is regionally dominant and a keystone state in Africa. Matthew Page, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, describes the election as a chance for Nigeria’s democratic process “to send a proof-of-life message to the world”. With democracy in retreat across the continent, some analysts say a good election in Nigeria would revitalise the hopes of democratic reformers in other countries, with many of the issues resonating elsewhere.
Everyone recognises that the next decade is vital for the country, which is forecast to become the third-most populous in the world, behind India and China, by 2045.
What have been the issues for voters in the buildup to the vote?
The most obvious are security, with violent crime that was once restricted to more marginal areas now reaching into major urban centres, and the economy, as most people are considerably worse off now than they were in 2015 when the outgoing president, Muhammadu Buhari, started the first of his two terms. Corruption is also an issue for voters.
In recent weeks, a self-inflicted crisis after a poorly executed effort by authorities to replace the country’s banknotes has brought acute hardship and inconvenience. With naira currency so scarce, the poorest simply cannot buy basic foodstuffs or travel to vote. Many are adapting, but only slowly. In the meantime, “people are cashless and desperate … That is adding to tensions around the poll,” says Nnamdi Obasi, the International Crisis Group’s Nigeria-based expert.
What is different about this election?
A lot. One big difference is the size of the electorate, with 10 million more registered voters than in 2019, including many who are very young. A second big change from earlier polls is that the two main parties that have dominated Nigerian politics for decades – the ruling All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic party – have been challenged by a third credible contender: Peter Obi is an energetic 61-year-old who appears a generation younger than his main rivals, Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar, who are in their 70s and look increasingly frail. More than anything, Obi represents a new kind of politics, reaching out beyond Nigeria’s sectarian and ethnic divides with the promise of dynamic, clean and efficient governance. Whether he will be able to fulfil that if he wins is another question. A final difference is new voting technology, which should cut down on rigging.
Many opinion polls have given Obi a substantial lead, and there is no doubt that the wealthy businessman turned politician has run a very effective campaign. However, analysts and ruling party officials say Obi may have difficulty converting “virtual” support on social media and among the young into enough votes to beat the vast patronage networks, deep pockets and powerful political organisation of his rivals.
Much depends on turnout, which has been woefully low in recent elections. Last year, before Obi launched his campaign, a survey found that just 39% of Nigerians felt close to a political party, a sharp decline compared with 2015. If more than two voters in five reach the voting booths, this will be seen as a boost to Obi’s chances, possibly signalling a wave of support.
When will we get a result?
Official results could take up to five days to be announced after the polls close, but the turnout should become clearer much earlier, along with some of the counts. This should give a sense within 36 to 48 hours of who will lead Nigeria.
Nigerian electoral law makes a runoff unlikely, as the winning candidate needs only a simple majority, provided they get 25% of the vote in at least two-thirds of the 36 states.”
As Jason Burke wrote in a previous article entitled African democracy on the line as ‘bellwether’ Nigeria goes to polls:Presidential election comes as fuel shortages and currency woes take toll on continent’s most populous country; “Nigeria’s election on 25 February has been described as pivotal to the progress of democracy in Africa, where military coups and attempts by longstanding rulers to cling to power have raised fears of a “democratic retreat” from advances made since the end of the cold war.
More than a dozen African countries go the polls in the coming 12 months, but experts agree that the presidential and parliamentary vote in the continent’s most populous country is the one that matters the most.
Nigeria “is a bellwether country”, said Nic Cheeseman, a professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham and an expert on African politics. “If the election is successful and seen to be democratic, that is going to be a big shot in the arm for democracy more generally across Africa … but the opposite is also true.”
Idayat Hassan, the director of the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja, described the election as a cause for optimism and also a test.
“On the one hand, this is a sign of progress,” she said. “Nigeria has now had almost 24 years of uninterrupted democracy and the two-term limit [for presidents] is being followed … But Nigeria has to get it right.”
Foreign Policy, the US global affairs magazine, recently called the election the most important anywhere in the world in 2023, describing it as “a global event – even if the world scarcely knows it”.
The vote comes at a critical time. As well as coups across west Africa, wars have flared and extremism has spread. Economies everywhere on the continent are struggling to overcome the damage done by the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation caused in part by Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, and multiple other challenges. Investment has stalled.
Nigeria is suffering from multiple intersecting crises including economic turmoil, violence, extremism and criminality affecting much of the country, from kidnappings for ransom in the north-west to a 13-year Islamist insurgency in the north-east, separatist violence in the south-east and decades-old ethnic tensions mostly between herders and farmers in the north-central region.
The outgoing president Muhammadu Buhari’s two terms in power are widely viewed as a deep disappointment, and even his wife has apologised to Nigerians for failing to meet expectations.
Last week, Nigeria’s currency slipped further after a “surprise” downgrade of the country’s credit rating by Moody’s, the rating agency. The International Monetary Fund has upgraded its projection for Nigeria’s 2023 economic growth rate, but only to 3.2%.
Observers point out that Nigerians are still looking to an elected government to solve the country’s challenges, and interest in a vibrant campaign has been intense. “It’s a very competitive, close election,” Cheeseman said.
Eighteen candidates are vying to replace Buhari, and analysts say their diversity is evidence of the strength of democracy in Nigeria.
The main contest is between Bola Tinubu, from the ruling All Progressives Congress; Atiku Abubakar, of the main opposition People’s Democratic party; and the Labour party’s Peter Obi, who is leading in some polls.
Tinubu, 70, and Atiku, 76, have significant power bases across Nigeria. Both are seen as traditional politicians who will seek to mobilise voters with massive organisation and spending. Obi is seen as a reformist willing to overhaul Nigeria’s political system.
The 61-year-old former businessman is running an insurgent campaign that relies on social media, word of mouth and the energy of his largely young following. More than 80% of the 10 million new voters who have registered for the coming poll are under 34.
“Obi has emerged as a third force that has shaken the political scene dominated by two established parties … although realistically his chances are slim,” said Mucahid Durmaz, a senior analyst focusing on west Africa at Verisk Maplecroft, a global risk intelligence company. “The democratic progress made since the end of three decades of military rule [in 1999] shows that despite all the problems the direction of travel is still positive.”
Observers point out that none of the main candidates are former military officers – a first for a Nigerian poll.
One significant factor is new technology that identifies voters through fingerprints and facial recognition. Officials hope this will make the rigging that has historically marred polls in Nigeria much harder.
“This is an election in which all major fault lines are reflected but there is a renewed trust in the electoral process,” Hassan said.
A peaceful transition of power could help roll back a tide of instability in west Africa, where Mali and Burkina Faso have both seen elected governments replaced by military regimes in the last three years.
It could also send a message to other leaders and ruling parties clinging to power on the continent. Teodoro Obiang has been in power in Equatorial Guinea since 1979, Paul Biya has ruled Cameroon since 1982, and Yoweri Museveni has held Uganda in an iron grip since 1986.
Elsewhere, it is parties that once defeated colonialism that are still in charge. The MPLA has ruled for decades in Angola, while Zanu-PF has controlled Zimbabwe since 1981.
“This is an important barometer for Africa [which] could mark the cards of other leaders and say to the dinosaurs ‘your time is up’,” Cheeseman said.”
As everywhere, in Nigeria church and state are parallel and interdependent institutions and systems of oppression. Both weaponize fear and the need for safety in service to the legitimation of authority and the centralization of power. This spikes rebellion of the poor, the ethnic minorities, and other underclasses against those who would enslave us. There is always someone in a gold robe whose lies shift the true costs of the hard and dirty work of wealth creation to others.
As I wrote in my post of October 21 2022, Anniversary of the Assassination of Oke and the Nigerian Massacre; Today we celebrate the glorious resistance of the Nigerian peoples against state terror and tyranny, and mourn the anniversary of the police assassination of Oke and the victims of the Nigerian Massacre which were perpetrated two years ago yesterday.
Now are disbanded and gone the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigeria Police Force and its death squads and use of sexual terror as a primary institution of the repression of dissent, but neither the policies of tyranny nor the centralization of authority and power by elites which provide the impunity by which state terror operates have changed.
In America and Nigeria, Atlanta and Lagos, the great work of revolutionary struggle and liberation remains to be achieved. Let us commit an act of Liberty today in the name of Oke and all those who refuse to submit to authority; in the name of all whom Frantz Fanon entitled the Wretched of the Earth, and place our lives in the balance with those of the powerless and the dispossessed, the silenced and the erased.
Resist!
As I wrote in my post of October 23 2020, The Anti-Police Brutality Protests in Nigeria and the Black Lives Matter Movement in America Are Parallel Revolutionary Struggles; A call to end police brutality and disband special operations forces of the carceral state with a history of perpetrating state terror, abductions, torture, and every kind of force and control at the command of authority; only to be met with more massive repression, which then becomes a movement to abolish police and win democracy from the iron grip of a tyranny; the trajectory of the protests against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars) of the Nigeria Police Force and the Black Lives Matter movement for equality and racial justice here in America are parallel developments of revolutionary struggle.
We must unite in the cause of liberty and universal human rights with all those who resist tyranny, where ever they may be, for when we become an infinite chain of human lives we are unconquerable and free.
Okechukwu Obi-Enadhuze is a martyr in this universal cause of our liberty, whose final message and witness of history to the world, after twelve days of reporting on the state terror which engulfed his nation and just before his assassination, was “Nigeria will not end me.”
It echoes Washington’s order at the Battle of Trenton which was adopted as our family motto by an ancestor who was present, “Victory or Death.” It propagates across time and space like a wave, echoes in the heroes of the Resistance for whom Camus wrote, who had to find the will to claw their way out of the ruins and make yet another last stand beyond hope of victory or even survival, and resonates through us as we challenge and defy the forces of state repression in the streets of Lagos and Atlanta, Hong Kong and Seattle, Srinagar and Portland, al Quds and New York, and wherever men hunger to be free.
Nigeria has not ended our heroic Oke, for his beautiful refusal to submit to authority and force has become a song of freedom on the wind and in our hearts, with which we rise together to discover possibilities of becoming human as yet undreamed.
Who dies for Liberty becomes eternal.
As written by Da’Shaun Harrison last year in Wear Your Voice Magazine, in a brilliant interrogation of systemic and epigenetic violence and the problems of co-optation and internalized oppression; “As I write this, thousands have taken the streets of Lagos, Nigeria in protest of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS)—a branch of the Nigerian Police Force under the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID). The reason for the protests is similar to that of the reason thousands have been protesting here in the States for over six months: SARS has long been accused of the kidnapping, raping, and extrajudicial murder of Nigerian people. A video, alleged to be showing SARS officers murdering a Nigerian man, went viral on social media in early October. Officials claimed that the video was falsified, and arrested the person who filmed it. On October 8, protests ensued, calling for the abolition of SARS through the re-emergence of the hashtag “EndSARS.”
On October 11, the office of President Muhammandu Buhari tweeted, “The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars) of the Nigeria Police Force has been dissolved with immediate effect.” Inspector General of Police later announced that to “fill the gaps” left by the disbanding of SARS, they would be implementing a new unit, Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT). And while the former SARS officers would not be allowed to join the SWAT Unit, they would be able to join other forces once they’re “redeployed.” This is not the first time the Nigerian authorities have promised to either disband or reform the force; in fact, it’s the fourth time. Protestors are demanding more, and as such, they have continued to protest in the streets of cities across Nigeria.
On October 20, protests got significantly more bloody. After a 24-hour curfew was imposed and anti-riot police were deployed, claims of the Nigerian military opening fire on protestors flooded social media feeds. One death that shocked social media users is that of Okechukwu Obi-Enadhuze, affectionately referred to as Oke. The details of his murder are murky, but what is clear is that Oke had spent 12 days tweeting in support of the #EndSARS movement, and in his final tweet he wrote, “Nigeria will not end me.” That tweet went viral, and when it crossed my Twitter feed, I just sat there. Stunned. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Not because the idea of a Black life being taken, even suddenly by police, was unbelievable—on the contrary, it couldn’t be more believable—but because I couldn’t wrap my mind around how similar that story was to what so many of us have been experiencing here in the States.
I started organizing in 2014—the year that Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, and Antonio Martin were murdered by police. My work, while a result of the murders of Black people outside of Atlanta, was centered around police and other state-sanctioned violence in this city. In the last two decades, police have killed many Black people in the City of Atlanta, including: Kathryn Johnston, Nicholas Thomas, Alexia Christian, Deaundre Phillips, Caine Rogers, Jamarion Robinson, Anthony Hill, Oscar Cain, Jimmy Atchison, D’ettrick Griffin, and most recently, Rayshard Brooks. Brooks was murdered just weeks after uprisings sparked across the nation in response to several murders of Black people this summer. As such, Atlantans took to the streets for several months straight with the intent to honor Brooks’s life, wreak necessary havoc on the city, and to draw attention to the continued violence Black residents face here.
For over 50 years, Atlanta has had a Black mayor and majority Black leadership. It has been and remains one of the most important and culturally relevant cities in the country, and perhaps even the world, which is why it is so often referred to as the “Black Mecca.” In many ways, people overlook the harm Black residents experience here because it is believed that since our leadership is Black, then we must be properly cared for. Atlanta is not often looked at as a city, but rather as a safe haven for Black people to live freely and happily. To this, some may ask, “Well what is a city?” or “Can’t it be both?” The answer is no.
As I reflected on Oke’s death, I started thinking more intently about this. Nigeria is the largest Black country in the world and is led by a Black president, a Black police force, and other Black leadership. It is revered as the richest country in Africa; Lagos is referred to as the country’s “Big Apple”—an ironic nickname considering that New York, America’s “Big Apple,” is home to one of the most corrupt police forces in the nation. When one makes mention of Nigeria, they also mention the country’s entertainment. Where America has Hollywood and India has Bollywood, Nigeria has Nollywood. And at any given moment, you could hear a Nigerian artist on your radio; from Davido, to Wizkid, to Burna Boy, to Tiwa Savage—many of whom were featured on Beyoncé’s latest album and film, “The Gift” and “Black Is King”.
Like Atlanta, Nigeria is engaged like a Black mecca and is thought to be one of the more relevant and influential nations when it comes to creating culture the world thrives on. Yet, also like Atlanta, Nigeria’s leadership has proven to be uninterested in protecting its citizens. The government becomes wealthy by association through the culture the citizens create while upholding anti-Black structures on which a city, state, and country are built.
Several years ago, I penned an essay about the ways in which white supremacy uses the bodies of Black subjects to protect and maintain the power it wields. In that essay, I wrote about Black politicians like Bakari Sellers, former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, and others whose sole purpose as elected officials was/is to push the anti-Black, capitalist agenda of the state so as to invisiblize the real harm being done to Black people. In other words, they tout zionist rhetoric, allocate more funds to police, or displace Black people from their homes while maintaining that they are “down for the culture” and “with the people.” This is an intentional act of violence by the state.
The idea is that, as long as Black leadership exists in positions of power, they can push the state’s agenda with less blowback. I learned this almost immediately when I started organizing here in Atlanta. It’s easy to see anti-Blackness when the leadership is white, especially if you don’t yet understand this harm as something that is institutional. When leadership is Black, like it was while I was at Morehouse College and like it continues to be in the city more generally, the critique of power is no longer “sticking it to the man” and quickly becomes “tearing the Black man [woman or person] down.” It is a particular and special form of violence.
In that way, I relate deeply to the very specific type of pain Nigerians are experiencing right now. Over the summer, it was Atlanta’s Black mayor who allowed the U.S. military to terrorize us in the streets; it was Atlanta’s majority Black city council that, instead of defunding the police as the city’s residents called for, chose to allocate over $217 million to the Atlanta Police Department for the 2021 fiscal year; it is Atlanta’s Black mayor who has facilitated the displacement of Black residents for most of her career. Because of this, I also know that the issue at hand cannot be simply summed up as “police brutality” or even “police violence.” This does not disappear with the disbanding of a single police force or a transition out of office from one Black leader to another. Black leadership cannot and won’t save Black people as long as anti-Black capitalism is a global phenomenon. And to this point, the only way we can ever escape this violence is through the total eradication of anti-Blackness itself.
The organizing happening both in Nigeria and in Atlanta is essential to the dismemberment of the anti-Black carceral state and the ways in which it uses Black subjects to do its bidding. But it must be framed as such. This requires more than reform; it requires the toppling of whole structures intended to kill us. In the immediate, Nigerians need us to show up for them, but in doing so we must always be cognizant of the fact that more is required. And we must remain that much more diligent as the state pushes the idea that Black subjects leading the charge against other Black subjects somehow erases the violence of anti-Blackness when it, in fact, only amplifies it.
Africa is bleeding. And I don’t just mean the continent. By this I mean that the blood that painted the streets of Atlanta this summer is the same blood that dyed the Nigerian flag red in place of its white stripe. That same blood stains the ground on which little Congolese children perform slave labor so that the west can benefit from the DR Congo’s natural resources. It’s that same blood that flows through the streets of Haiti as Haitians continue ongoing protests that started more than a year ago, and as they continue to be killed, harassed, and beaten by their police for doing so. That blood fills the streams of Brazil as Afro-Brazilians continue to die at the hands of their police. Africa is bleeding. Africa has been bleeding.
I’m reminded of this as so many of us give up our bodies, voluntarily or involuntarily, to the ongoing uprisings happening around the globe. We have suffered, bled, and died since the inception of this World, and there was never a choice. From the moment we were held captive at the genesis of colonialism’s hold on the Earth, we’ve bled. Our blood, in so many ways, fills the air and covers the floor of the ocean. That’s the legacy of the World, and no form of Black leadership can undo that.
So yes, we must #EndSARS, and we must abolish the Atlanta Police Department, and we must end the US occupation in the Congo, and we must end the exploitation of Black people around the globe. But if we want to close the wound, if we want the bleeding to stop, we must be committed to destroying the World on which anti-Blackness is built.
Everything must burn.”
Deadly superstitions – Nigeria’s “witch children” | DW Documentary
Trump threatens to go into Nigeria ‘guns-a-blazing’ over attacks on Christians
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/01/trump-nigeria-christian-persecution
Why is Donald Trump threatening military intervention in Nigeria?
US president’s remarks about alleged persecution of Christians seemingly in response to pressure from his evangelical base
Nigeria strongly rejects Trump’s claims of ‘anti-Christian genocide’
https://thecradle.co/articles/nigeria-strongly-rejects-trumps-claims-of-anti-christian-genocide
Sahel-based jihadists are extending their reach. Can a fractured region push back?
Fears of Boko Haram comeback stir in Nigerian birthplace of Maiduguri
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/28/fears-boko-haram-comeback-stir-nigeria-maiduguri
‘Left at the mercy of jihadists’: Niger’s junta fails to curb surge in violence
https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-children-being-cast-as-witches-in-nigeria-57021
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/witch-children-in-nigeria_b_5149931
Examining Nigeria’s Elections — with Obiageli Ezekwesili, New Lines Magazine Podcast interview
Torch of Liberty 