EP 4 Resistance, Repression and Resource Wars I African News Review 🌍

In this episode of African News Review, hosts Adesoji Iginla and Aya Fubara Eneli discuss various pressing issues affecting Africa, including the recent flooding in Texas, the peace agreement between Rwanda and the DRC, and the scepticism surrounding African leadership. 

They examine the role of external powers in African conflicts, the influence of historical context on contemporary events, and the significance of youth activism and education in shaping the continent's future. 

The conversation emphasises the need for critical thinking and a reevaluation of economic strategies to ensure sovereignty and empowerment for African nations.

Takeaways

*The flooding in Texas has led to loss of life and raises questions about emergency preparedness.
*The peace agreement between Rwanda and the DRC is met with scepticism due to the historical context.
*African leaders often prioritise personal gain over the welfare of their people.
*External powers play a significant role in African conflicts, often undermining local governance.
*Historical context is crucial in understanding current political dynamics in Africa.
*Qatar's involvement in African politics reflects broader geopolitical interests.
*Kenya's political climate is marked by protests against police brutality and governance issues.
*Youth activism is essential for political change in Africa, but faces significant challenges.
*Economic challenges in Africa are exacerbated by debt and mismanagement.
*Education and historical awareness are vital for empowering future generations.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Current Events in Texas
02:16 Rwanda and DRC Peace Agreement
05:04 Skepticism Towards African Leadership
07:42 The Role of External Powers in African Conflicts
10:25 The Impact of Historical Context on Current Events
13:11 The Influence of Qatar and Global Politics
15:52 Kenya's Political Climate and Police Brutality
18:38 Youth Activism and Political Change in Africa
21:16 Economic Challenges and Debt in Africa
24:20 The Future of African Economies and Sovereignty
27:03 The Role of Education and Historical Awareness
29:50 The Rise of New Leadership in Africa
32:10 The Importance of Critical Thinking in Politics
35:09 Conclusion and Call to Action

Recommended Books

On Congo
1. May Our People Triumph - Patrice Lumumba
2. Black Africa - Cheikh Anta Diop
3. The Congo - Plunder & Resistance 
4. Challenge of The Congo - Kwame Nkrumah
5. The Congo - From Leopold to Kabila - Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja.

On Kenya
1. Imperial Reckoning - Caroline Elkins
2. Not Yet Uhuru - Oginga Odinga
3. Something Torn and New - An African Renaissance - Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
4. Mau Mau from Within - Donald L Barnett and Karari Njama

On Traore
1. Washington Bullets - Vijay Prashad
2. Fallen Heroes - Janvier T Chando
3. Africa's Last Colonial Currency - Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla.

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:02.382)
Yes, greetings, greetings, and welcome to another episode of African News Review. As you can see on the screen, I don't have Comrade Milton Alimadi with me. We're in the capable hands of my sister from another mother, Aya Afubarili Esquire. How are you, sister?

Aya Fubara Eneli (00:16.589)
No.

Aya Fubara Eneli (00:25.848)
Glad to be here this, I guess, morning, afternoon, evening, wherever people are watching. Thank you for the invitation.

Adesoji Iginla (00:32.588)
Yes, it's all our pleasure. It's all our pleasure. And yes, things first, since it's news, news, news, news, the question would be, we heard about the incident of flooding in Texas, would be remiss of us not to ask how people are faring in light of the situation in Texas at the moment. Could you give us some real?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05.066)
Yeah, so there have been people who've lost their lives there are many others who are Who are currently being searched for so there's a rescue mission if you will some people are saying it has really turned into a recovery mission It the flooding occurred primarily in Central, Texas and I am in Central, Texas, but it didn't really affect me as badly, you know where I am we have creeks and things that have flooded but we have not had the

loss of life in the way that they experienced for those people who are near the Guadalupe River. You know, anytime that there is loss of life, any of us who consider ourselves human beings should have reason to pause and to be concerned. certainly, sorry, let me move my mic closer and certainly.

feel the pain that those who've lost loved ones, lost homes, businesses, things like that, just the pain they're experiencing. At the same time, this is also a time to pause and to think about what we're doing in the United States of America, gutting services that perhaps could have helped to alert.

people about the severity of the storm on Thursday when I was driving back from court. They just said, you know, we would have some rain. They did not indicate that it would be to this magnitude. And I'm not saying that human beings can ever always, you know, 100 % predict things. But even in the city where they

Adesoji Iginla (02:37.518)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (02:41.688)
Thanks

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:47.63)
or the area where they experience the most human loss of human lives, that community voted against an emergency alert system. The taxpayers refused to pay for one. So, know, when all our decisions are based on dollars and cents and as opposed to serving people, we may end up seeing things like this. I'm going to pause there for those of you who may be interested.

you can go and research the Christian camp that unfortunately saw the loss of lives of some young people and what they're about because as I look at

what this evil dictator is doing across the United States of America and how it's impacting other parts of the world. There are many people who consider themselves Christians who continue to boy him up and support him and support these very inhuman actions and none of us will be unscathed from it.

Adesoji Iginla (03:44.62)
perpetuates.

Adesoji Iginla (03:57.166)
well, we hope they're able to take Sokka in the Lord as he's aware. Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:08.522)
Enough said.

Adesoji Iginla (04:13.158)
I mean, without Sanimobit obviously, but you know, it is what it is. And sometimes we vote for what we want and sometimes you get it and we just have to live with the consequences. Speaking of consequences, over the course of the week, we had Rwanda, Congo come to Washington DC to sign a deal. And for that story, we go to The Guardian and it's...

Questions and it reads questions over terms as Rwanda and DRC prepare they have signed a deal and so question will be Rwanda and Democratic Republic of I expected to sign which they have signed last Friday to end fighting in Eastern Congo and bearing uncertainty over which the agreement means and who stands to benefit. The agreements

mediated by Qatar and the United States seeks to end decade old conflict that is rooted in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. I will stop there.

Adesoji Iginla (05:28.436)
your initial take when you heard about this agreement.

Adesoji Iginla (05:36.523)
And feel free to, you know.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:39.65)
there's a song and I'm not a singer so I'm not going to try and sing it. I'm just going to recite some of the words that goes, the lyrics go, where have all the young men gone? Long time passing, where have all the young men gone? Long time ago, where have all the young men gone? And the end of it, the refrain is, when will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

Adesoji Iginla (05:43.48)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:05.998)
And actually, haven't heard that song in decades. I don't know why it just popped in my head. But as I look at how African leaders continue to move, I understand that we are in a global society, if you will, that we cannot live in silos. But.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:25.974)
When you understand your history and when you listen to the rhetoric of the current president of this country, when you look at the history of the current secretary of state, under what circumstances, I mean, I want peace. I don't want to see the slaughtering of my people. But under what circumstances?

Are you coming to the United States, to Washington DC, to sign a peace accord? First and foremost, for those of us who've ever lived outside of this country, do you know how much money African leaders spend on these trips to Europe and the West? The entourages that they bring.

the, what do they call it? There's a, as the code, yes, that's the word I was looking for. And all the other benefits. I'm telling you, the cost of coming to sign this deal here could have probably wiped out poverty for 10 % or more of the population. I'm not exaggerating at all. And so I would need to, which I haven't done, go into the details of the deal, but.

Adesoji Iginla (07:19.586)
code.

Adesoji Iginla (07:26.168)
Hotel?

Adesoji Iginla (07:38.83)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:46.74)
I happen to raise chicken, it would be like my chicken now saying, let's work out a deal with some of the foxes that we also have in our neighborhood. Like it's not going to bode well for you. And so, you you think about where the ammunition is coming from, where the guns are coming from, who has been benefiting from the instability in these areas. It's not all.

Adesoji Iginla (08:10.168)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:11.392)
And so unfortunately, I do come at this with lot of skepticism to the extent that maybe it causes a pause and maybe provides an opportunity for us to rethink what we're doing to ourselves or allowing other people to do to us. I welcome it. But any time Black people have to go to the bosom of their oppressor to work out a peace deal,

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:39.104)
What do you think, brother?

Adesoji Iginla (08:41.238)
OK, so the initial, I'll give what the suppose terms of reference are. One is that Rwanda would have to withdraw from, they would draw their support for the M23 rebels. The M23 rebels will have to hand in their arms and they will have to leave Congo. And

to ensure that they never return. So that's one.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:12.14)
Yeah, yeah, who's going to enforce this, by the way?

Adesoji Iginla (09:15.496)
this is where the matter comes in. They're going to hire a third party that will oversee, that will ensure that the terms of the agreement are monitored on the ground. So that means you're going to give resources, you're going to pour resources. That is something else to determine in the course of the negotiated peace.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:19.17)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:33.198)
Yeah, to which third party?

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:39.726)
Aya Fubara Eneli (09:44.02)
okay.

Adesoji Iginla (09:45.166)
So that's two. Three is this. Rwanda has benefited from its plunder of Congo's resources to the tune of about a billion a year. So a billion a year over since, let's just say 1997 for the benefits of that. 1997. 1997, 2007, that's 10 years. 2007, 2017, 20.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:57.278)
Absolutely.

Adesoji Iginla (10:15.118)
20 odd plus years.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:16.674)
So that's the official figure is one billion. the, okay. Yeah. All right. Carry on.

Adesoji Iginla (10:19.182)
Yeah, yeah. So it's not, it's not audited. It's just, it's just an idea. It's just a ballpark figure of what they end. Right. So that money goes into propping up Rwanda region. Why? Rwanda doesn't have resources, but yet for some reason, the companies in the West get the tantalum, tin, cobalt from Rwanda, not from Congo.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:29.76)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (10:49.25)
From Rwanda

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:49.486)
Did you say for some reason?

Adesoji Iginla (10:52.558)
I'm being facetious now. For some reason, the supply chains procures their resources for the tools you and I are speaking on from Rwanda and not from Congo. So that will now stop, which means

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:11.534)
So why is it in Rwanda's interest to sign this deal?

Adesoji Iginla (11:15.598)
Okay, so it's in Rwanda's interest to sign this deal because once the Americans have gotten involved, the Americans are the ones who are propping up the Rwanda regime. They fund that government. the moment they stop the tap, that country folds. So you can still keep that money, but the extra money you do on the side, which is the M23, the M23 has been

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:28.682)
We know that.

Adesoji Iginla (11:44.33)
a body used by Rwanda for how can I say it well I don't really know what it is about them I don't know them and so they've been able to you know use them as a proxy go in there I mean these guys were basically

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:59.022)
So since we're not manufacturing guns and ammunition in Africa, who is arming M23?

Adesoji Iginla (12:03.288)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (12:07.214)
That would be Rwanda. They wear smart uniforms, smart everything. And me, every... Good.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:10.412)
Yeah, and Rwanda is purchasing it from...

Adesoji Iginla (12:16.331)
well, the United States.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:18.688)
Okay, and so what does the United States gain from this peace deal?

Adesoji Iginla (12:22.978)
The United States stands to gain unfettered access in eastern Congo to some of the

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:31.616)
Okay, unfettered access and at the same time possibly Congo now having to pay for these peace troops that will be there to set up more military bases and everything. Okay, just so we're clear on what this deal is and what does Congo get out of this?

Adesoji Iginla (12:46.432)
Yeah, so.

Congo gets negotiated peace and some of their well-heeled leaders can be able to focus on feathering their own nest and the people are left was for wear. At least now they're no longer being shot at but it doesn't mean they're gonna be better off. So for me that is the problem. There is one other thing that stands out with regards to them coming to Washington DC.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:56.494)
and

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:00.802)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (13:18.988)
What they've done there is they've reduced the influence of the South African Democrat, SADAC, which is the regional body for, that neck of the woods. They've also reduced the influence of the African union. So now what you're now saying is two countries, and I'm using the term loosely because even the border of those countries have not been really determined.

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:28.355)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (13:49.224)
we're going about is we're fighting over borders that have been bequeathed to us by so-called colonial masters in the case of both of them, Belgium, which brings us back to the film we were talking about last week, soundtrack to a coup d'etat. You see how all of these stories are interlinked. They're never far from each other. And so when you look about one in isolation,

You don't get a complete picture of what it is you're looking at. So you're more than likely to run away with the idea that, this problem started in 1994. No, didn't. This problem started long before 1994.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:35.29)
Do you want to speak to Qatar's influence because it seems like that country's name keeps propping up in a number of so-called peace negotiations and to what extent are they in bed with the United States?

Adesoji Iginla (14:50.87)
OK, so Qatar and the United States. Qatar wants access to friendlier status with the United States. At this moment in time, because of its link to Hamas in the Middle East, it's seen as a pariah state. It holds one of the most, what word, one of the more vocal press

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:56.27)
you

Adesoji Iginla (15:19.83)
organizations in the world, Al Jazeera. And in order to bring Qatar on board with the Western imperialistic agenda, you want them to come in under the guise of friendliness. And here's a problem. Qatar also has its heels in the Sudan. So you begin to see that all of this counter-Arab...

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:45.89)
that Africans have no friends. I just wanted to thank you. Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (15:51.294)
Yes, but so if you come under the guise of, we're going to help you gain certain amount of peace, then you're more than likely to be able to get on the friendlier side since you have a transactional precedent. Who believes if you scratch my back, I will scratch yours? So that's how Qatar comes into the picture. Qatar wants to be on the web.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:07.074)
There you go.

That's great. Yes.

So everybody's looking for access. And when it's all said and done, the people of Congo.

continue to suffer and don't gain much out of any of these deals one way or the other. It's just like trading one master for the other. And Africans continue to run to their oppressors for relief.

Adesoji Iginla (16:26.03)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (16:37.238)
I want it to actually be very important for people to go and just do a cursory look at all the stories that emanate out of the Congo. You can count the number of times people are mentioned in the stories that come out of Congo.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:56.97)
No humans involved, right?

Adesoji Iginla (16:59.186)
Yes, Therrannubilis, you know, it's a land of no people. So we can go there and do whatever it is we do. And this has gone on since the 1850s. So you can be, I mean, it's crazy, but there is one, before we move on, there is one something I want to read. And this comes from a gentleman by the name of Patrice Lumumba. He happened to have been

the democratically elected.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:28.078)
Where have we heard that name before?

Adesoji Iginla (17:31.392)
Yes, if you watch the soundtrack to Ikudita, he was the protagonist. So he had an interview in Washington, DC, same Washington, DC, July 28, 1960. And he was speaking to the Russian news agency TASS. And one question was put to him. And he said, what is the situation in Katanga, which is the neck of the area where M23 operates?

Katanga was the breakaway republic created by the Belgians in order to seize Congo's resources away from Congo once they got independence. In fact, that country was created three days before Congo got its independence. So the question posed to him here was, what is the situation in Katanga? What is your opinion of?

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:02.69)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:14.584)
FedEx.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:19.798)
You know what you say things and then you like just rush through them. Just pause for a second. A country was created by whom in three days. And to make sure that Congo had no money in its coffers. And no. You know, direct way of filling their coffers, you know, in the short term.

Adesoji Iginla (18:29.911)
Yes?

Yes. So a country was...

Adesoji Iginla (18:40.163)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:48.054)
while people were expecting that independence would bring liberty and some relief to them. So you set up the Congo to fail immediately and make sure that you set up this other enterprise where you can continue extracting goods at will. And then, hey, even when your own people get in the way, did they not? Did...

Did not the plane of the UN ambassador just kind of just fell out of the sky? How many times have planes fallen out of the sky? But carry on, sir.

Adesoji Iginla (19:15.884)
Yes. fell out of the sky as it were. Yes. So yes. So I mean, give context. Yes, he's playing fell out of the sky and plays eastern part of Congo, no less.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:34.19)
For those who are listening, who was this person who's playing just... Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (19:37.134)
So that was Doug Hammershaw. He was the Secretary General of the United Nations and his plane went down at a place called Indula, which is just near the border with Zimbabwe, which just happens to be Rhodesia at that time. you know, speculation. Oh, funny enough.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:54.094)
Rodisha named after... They keep connecting these dots. Rodisha named after...

Adesoji Iginla (19:58.519)
Yes, Cecile Rhodes, who...

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:02.702)
a great leader and now I just want to be a Rhodes Scholar because that connotes prestige and all across the United States of America they are erasing our names from buildings and websites and so on and so forth because you know what's in a name it doesn't really matter I'm sorry please continue sir

Adesoji Iginla (20:19.788)
You

Adesoji Iginla (20:24.59)
Yes, so I mean, it's like pulling a thread. And once you pull a thread, can see the entire fabric of imperialism come true. Because once you mention one name, it sends you down a rabbit hole, and you start seeing the connection and the connection and the connection. So if you're paying attention. So again, I remind people, this question comes from an interview that

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:42.954)
if you're paying attention.

Adesoji Iginla (20:53.422)
Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected prime minister of the Congo, held in Washington DC, July 28, 1960, with a Russian news agency called TASS. It no longer exists anyway, but back in the day days. So the question was, what is the situation in Katanga? What is your opinion of Katanga? So-called succession from Congo recently announced by Mr. Tishombe. Now you begin to see.

parallels with today. His answer was there has never been a Katanga problem as such. The gist of the matter is that imperialists want to lay their hands on our country's riches and to continue exploiting our people. The imperialists have always had their agents in the colonial countries. Tishonbe in particular is an agent of the Belgian imperialist. Everything he says, writes, is not his own. He merely mounts the word of the Belgian colonists.

It is well known that Tishombe is an ex-businessman who has long since thrown his lot in with colonial companies in the Congo. So in this case now, what you have is Mr. Kagame is Rwanda. So he's Mr. Tishombe of 2025 who has thrown his lot with colonial companies who are exploiting Congo. And this deal they've gone to sign just sort of

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:52.514)
Thanks.

Adesoji Iginla (22:21.236)
removes him out of the picture now because he's no longer relevant. Now the colonialists can come in, get unfettered access, and exploit the resources without being disturbed.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:34.712)
would really I mean and I know we can't go into all of that today it would be really interesting to see what what incentive has been given to Kagame because I'm sure there's one yeah

Adesoji Iginla (22:37.614)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (22:47.874)
Yeah, yeah, of course, of course, of course. mean, they, one day, when the real agreement comes out and we're party to all the intricacies and text, you'll be able to read through us the nuanced language, what he stands to benefit, because I don't think they would have just simply told him hands off and, you know, he will back off. And I like to, you know, so before we move on, for people who want to read more,

You could read, May Our People Triumph, poems, speeches, letters, and interviews. So this is the entire collection of Patrice Lumumba's speeches and his interviews. That's one. On the issue of Congo, again, Congo does have agency. can read George's intelligence history of the Congo from Leopoldo Kabila. We spoke about

what he called, Sandra Te Kudita. It wasn't as if Africans did not fight back. They did. They gave you an idea of what it is, how to go about solving the problem in Congo. And that was written by a great man himself, Kwame Nkrumah, who wrote Challenge of the Congo. And we're just talking about plunder. So that's Congo, plunder and resistance.

So that's by Leo Zeleg and a host of other brothers. And these books are not more than 120 pages. So you should be able to read them. But more importantly, more importantly, more importantly, it's not as if Africans have not come up with solutions to their own problems. The solutions are there. They've been documented. It's just that for some reason, we've set them aside.

And we keep repeating the same thing over and over again. In 1974, Chekiata Diop wrote this book, The Black Africa, A Case for a Federated Nation. He told you how all the resources of Africa can be channeled for all the people. Power. I mean, it goes into great detail. And this was written in 1974. It was translated in the 1980s.

Adesoji Iginla (25:12.022)
and is still relevant till today. So the book is...

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:14.926)
So how do we apply the lessons to perhaps putting pressure on our leaders to strengthen the African Union or to really focus on how we can be the source of our own solution, so to speak, understanding that it never works out well for us when we bring in these foreigners. And we can go back to pre-colonization where you saw different ethnic groups.

you know, at loggerheads with each other and then they would bring in the colonizer to mediate the conflict. And then the next thing you're signing treaties and don't even know what you just signed. So what is it that listeners, whether they're here in, you know, on the West or whether they are in the diaspora on the continent, what kind of pressure do we need to put to bear?

Adesoji Iginla (25:51.896)
Mm.

Mm. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:10.6)
on our leaders to strengthen our own organizations.

Adesoji Iginla (26:15.374)
OK, so the question is, you have to first of all look at those organizations and see whether they're still fit for proposing with regards to the present challenges. Of course, they.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:26.648)
Wait a second, you want us to start from scratch?

Adesoji Iginla (26:29.248)
No, no, no, I'm not saying start from scratch. saying, I'm saying you have to. OK, I'll give an example now. The African Union does not finance itself. It's financed by the EU and some other agencies outside of the African continent because they're not paying their own subventions. They're not paying their subscription to the club.

most of them owe and so when you get when you get monies from outside you're beholding to those interests i'll give you

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:09.858)
There is the golden rule that I learned from a racist in my area. Because prior to that, I was going by the biblical golden rule, do unto others as you would like them to do unto you. He said, he who has the gold makes the rules. So, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (27:23.598)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (27:28.59)
Yes. So classic example, this happened about five years ago. New building was donated to the African Union in Addis Ababa. No, it needs to be said. So a new building was donated to the African Union from the Chinese.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:40.652)
Don't say it. Don't say it.

Adesoji Iginla (27:52.396)
the Ghanaians and the Nigerians for some reason.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:52.91)
that we let them construct without any oversight, right? Yeah, carry on.

Adesoji Iginla (27:58.07)
Yeah, no oversight whatsoever. Everything was handed to you, electrics, the water system, the technology, the glass, the microphones, everything. For some reason, the Ghanaian delegation to a meeting decided to meet with their Nigerian counterparts. And when they went in, they noticed that the microphones were crackling. And so they did a sweep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:05.482)
The technology, the everything, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:25.536)
you

Adesoji Iginla (28:27.03)
And then they found that the entire room was bugged. But when they expanded their search, they found that the entire building was bugged. And so.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:37.642)
And what it's like, duh, of course it is. Like, what's the incentive for China to just gift you this? Like, think about it.

Adesoji Iginla (28:49.144)
So, but if you had your own subvention and you decided at some point the building that you started with was no longer fit for purpose, you can build your own building. You could rotate the meeting amongst host countries, knock down that sectariat while that is going on and rebuild in your own time.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:08.59)
But that would require leadership from leaders who have decolonized their minds. And that's not what we have existing in Africa.

Adesoji Iginla (29:15.018)
Yes, yes. So I mean, we don't even have time to break down the malaise that is African leadership, the malaise. From North to South, you can count on one hand the number of leaders that have not just the interest of the people, their own people, but the interest of the African continent.

at heart. The rest of them are you know, for want of a better word, waste of spaces. you know, this is

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:55.454)
And of course, these are very deep-rooted issues because, I mean, you can go to any number of sources, but at this point, I'm thinking of a novel by Ayikwama, The Healers, and he brings up this notion of leaders thinking that the people work for them as opposed to they working for the people.

Adesoji Iginla (30:15.32)
Yes. For the people, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:18.636)
And so this idea of you get into a position of power and you just gorge yourself, you just take and take, you're not there to serve the people, not even the people in your immediate environs, let alone thinking of Africa as a whole. we have some work to do to question these things and to decolonize our minds and to go through the...

Adesoji Iginla (30:24.423)
Mm. Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:45.122)
The very painful process of getting people to start to see things differently and any leader who steps out and goes against the status quo, it's going to have a hard road to travel, a hard road to travel.

Adesoji Iginla (31:00.746)
Yes, yes. mean, we'll come to, we're going to talk about the leader, particularly the leader in the course of this discussion. That gives us a very important segue in terms of leadership to go now to Associated Press and the story comes from Kenya and it reads at least eight.

eight dead in Kenya protest against police brutality and poor governance. And so the story is at least eight people have died. this is on the back of the supposed one year anniversary of the demonstration against the finance bill. And also on the back of that, a blogger was taken in by the police and he ended up being killed.

And so the question is, on that note, how do we take care of the so-called democracy in Africa? Or is that something that we've just been told exists and we're just supposed to buy the label and go with it? I mean, the history of Kenya is replete with repression, repression, repression. But I'm just saying,

In order for us to understand what is going on, how do we come away from the Western notion of so-called democracy and really have representative politics in the African continent? Speaking of, starting with Kenya, of course.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:48.056)
So I'm thinking of a leader probably because I was listening to his speech on what I call Fourth of July. What to the slave is the Fourth of July. So thinking of Frederick Douglass, and I believe he's the one that this quote is attributed to. He says, power concedes nothing without a demand.

Adesoji Iginla (33:03.47)
Part of you lie, Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (33:13.933)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:14.286)
And quite frankly, don't see, first of all, the premise of your question about democracy, how are we defining it? And what does that mean? And where has it ever existed? Because I certainly have not seen it exist anywhere in the West. And they're the ones who are always making the noise about democracy. So when we just throw out terms, I'm like, are we even talking about the same thing? Like, how are you defining it? Are we talking about a government that

Adesoji Iginla (33:26.318)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:43.502)
is made up of its own people and responsive to its own people's needs. What are we talking about here? Are we talking about majority rule? Are we talking about when it takes off? What are we talking about here? And so I don't necessarily for me believe in some of these terms that have kind of been forced on us.

And yet I don't see the templates that has worked from the countries that supposedly are going to tell us what kind of governments that we should have. And I think that in Africa, in the same way that we did not reconstitute what education looks like after colonialism, not what government looks like, not what the judicial system looks like, we continue to...

play a losing game, let me just start there. Because there was a time across the continent where we had systems in place. my family's hometown of Opogol and Bonnie before that, and we can go back beyond then and go all the way to Kemet if we want to. We didn't have the concept of orphanages.

We did not have the concept of old people's homes, nursing homes. We did not have prisons. We were not building alligator alcatraz. And yet we lived together and we had rules and order and ways of being and interacting with one another. And so to forget that time or to...

Adesoji Iginla (35:15.448)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:32.948)
reject it without even going back to study what were the tenants that upheld that how do we adapt it to the lives that we live now i think is

is absolutely detrimental to this cause of liberation. So having said that, looking at Ruto, again, it's like, who is Ruto? Where did he come from? How did he make his money? He's a capitalist. Actually, part of his campaign was, I'm a hustler and I'm not part of the established class and all of that. When we look at the extreme weight of debt on Kenya,

where 70 % of their gross domestic product has to be spent on servicing, not even paying off these debts. And then the question for me is, okay, so where did the debt come from and what do we have to show for it? Right? If I have a car payment, a car loan, then at least I have the car and hopefully it's a car that is now helping me to get to work or

Adesoji Iginla (36:23.566)
goes to us.

Adesoji Iginla (36:27.522)
that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:48.098)
do business or whatever, what does Kenya have to show for this crushing debt?

Adesoji Iginla (36:55.918)
Hmm

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:56.044)
And if we say, it's been mismanagement of funds from Kenyatta to Arapmui and so on and so forth, where did they put these funds? Because if the funds are in the banks of Kenya, then they're at least circulating and creating more resources, right? So are there countries outside of Kenya that have benefited? You loaned us the money and the money came back to you. Did we get the loans to pay your company's inflated rates?

Adesoji Iginla (37:13.059)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:25.978)
the loans to build infrastructure and you build it poorly and you don't train us and we don't insist that you train us on how to maintain it so we're constantly dependent on you. we get that at some of these loans things that they debt that they were saddled with from when on behalf of the Kenyan people loans were taken up by colonizers from their own people right.

to build plantations and railroads to benefit their extraction of our goods? Are we paying for the coffee and tea that we can't eat, that can't sustain us, that you nevertheless buy at pennies? I mean, and then we import it back? So I'm going back to Thomas and Kara. What if all these African leaders grew some daggons spines?

Adesoji Iginla (38:08.098)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (38:21.292)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:22.614)
and sat in a hut, let me use their terminology, or sat under a tree with no technology, not a Chinese sponsored building, and said, you know what, we ain't paying not one more dime.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:39.822)
Come and take over the whole continent if you can.

but we're not paying one more dime. We are wiping our slates clean ourselves. And we actually have enough human resources and brain power to build and yes, it might take some time, but we can build what we need for ourselves. What would happen if we did that? But you know, I may just have my technology cut off because I'm...

Adesoji Iginla (39:06.391)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:13.834)
advocating to liberation.

Adesoji Iginla (39:14.465)
No, no, no. I mean, you raise a very important point when you talked about selling tea in order to buy whatever it is you need. The problem of most African countries often stem from their history, and which is why history is very important. When the British got there in the early 1800s and moved people off the land,

and then divvied up that land for their so-called soldiers that fought for them in First World War, right? Gave them this land. About 25,000 came in then and subsequently more did. And then the people rose up in what is now popularly known as the Maoma Rebellion. The key issue there was the displacement of people.

Once you displace a people from their land and then you come in and you trivialize that land, you know the importance of it to them. They know the importance of it to you as a people. Most of Kenya's problems still stems from that dispossession. Using the land to plant not food that you can eat and probably sell excess, but to plant tea.

coffee and fresh flowers. Yes, you heard me right. Fresh flowers for some little scrotum to profess his love in Europe.

Aya Fubara Eneli (40:56.898)
This is important.

Adesoji Iginla (40:59.124)
is

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:00.694)
The queen must have her tea. no, your king must have his tea. And all of you royal subjects, don't you take breaks for tea and crumpets?

Adesoji Iginla (41:08.608)
Yeah, we break, we take, yes we do. But, you know, that being said, now this is an entire body of people that have now been subdued. And to make matters worse, you now have military bases, everything given to you in order to repress your own people. We've talked about the stories of the soldiers who have sexually assaulted,

Kenyan women. We've talked to

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:39.402)
I'm glad you're bringing that point up about the police brutality and the brutality by the people in the army. And again, where did we learn this behavior? What is the genesis of police departments or police forces in Africa? I know here in the United States, we can definitely trace it back to

Adesoji Iginla (41:44.75)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:07.374)
the militia who would go out to patrol and quote unquote capture slaves and so on and so forth. What is the genesis of this level of brutality of leaders against their people in Africa? We need to go back and trace it. Where did we get this concept of having police forces?

Adesoji Iginla (42:09.617)
Slipper drugs.

Adesoji Iginla (42:22.369)
violence.

Adesoji Iginla (42:27.694)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (42:33.495)
Hmm

Well, it's about controlling the so-called savages, keeping them under control, giving the occasional blessed ones amongst them a chance, a leg up, so that they can then act as your police. And so,

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:57.368)
So we saw the colonizers do it. Then they recruited the Askaris. And now without them being physically present, we've just taken on all of those same characteristics.

Adesoji Iginla (43:00.408)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (43:07.02)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you do it with glee as well. You do it with big glee. The problem now we have is you have, you have, in the case of Kenya,

Adesoji Iginla (43:28.546)
The fact that you have so-called representative democracy, but they're not truly representing the people in their actions is disturbing. Now, Ruto is just following on from what the likes of Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Arakmoway, what's his name? Umbaki.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:50.748)
Becky.

Adesoji Iginla (43:55.256)
then the son of Jomo Keata, Uhuru Keata, and now him. Now, what's the issue at stake? The issue at stake is, like you said,

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:07.342)
And there's the World Bank and the IMF and who runs that, but carry on.

Adesoji Iginla (44:11.566)
Yes, so the issue now is using 70 % of your GDP to not pay back your debt, but service your debt.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:22.55)
And at the same time, you are under strict austerity measures to cut education. You can spend on military because you're just gonna give the money back to us to buy weapons, but you have to cut your education and you have to cut your and your budget for education and for health in a country.

Adesoji Iginla (44:28.928)
of what is existing.

Adesoji Iginla (44:49.976)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:50.19)
where I believe 75 % of the population is 35 and under. So when you cut health budget and you cut the education budget, what is the long-term plan for your people? All to service a debt.

Adesoji Iginla (44:57.74)
And yes, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (45:11.662)
Every

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:14.382)
That you know, we can go and look at it's been inflated. It's like when you pay your credit card, you know, unfortunately, I'm an attorney who sometimes deals with Okay, suits here in the United States. And you look at the situation and you're like, okay, this person bought a car. had bad credit. So their car was serviced at 28 % interest.

They made the car was ten thousand dollars actually worth maybe five thousand but because you're desperate you have bad credit you're just happy someone is willing to sell a car to you. You've made payments over six thousand dollars but hardly any of that went to the principal. You've paid you you've just paid off interest and then the minute

Adesoji Iginla (45:50.754)
Then we go to you.

Adesoji Iginla (45:57.655)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (46:02.562)
You just be of interest.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:08.586)
You miss a payment. They repossess the car. Charge you for repossessing it. Restarting fee. Cleaning it. Then they sell it. They don't tell you the real truth about how much they sold it for. They've already made their money back twice over for the worth of that car. And then they sue you for...

Adesoji Iginla (46:25.133)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (46:31.884)
Wow.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:37.126)
the remainder of that principal plus all the fees because they repossessed your car. And then the court will charge additional interest. And now your credit has gone even further in the toilet. Yes, this is the blueprint for the kind of loans that unfortunately African countries have repeatedly gotten from the IMF and World Bank.

Adesoji Iginla (46:49.996)
Mmm!

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:03.894)
We've paid enough for them to have recouped whatever investment they made. At this point, they're just strangling us to death.

Adesoji Iginla (47:13.474)
So before we move on, it would be important for us to give people an idea of what it is that could be done in this case in Kenya. It would be to quote the greater man himself who said, it is very important to organize, organize, and organize.

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:26.702)
Absolutely.

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:39.598)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (47:40.014)
That would be the words of Stokely Carmichael, probably known as Kwame Ture. Now, why is that important here? You get people onto the streets.

That's the most important part. Now the next step is to what point are these people on the streets? If you're not going to seek political power, organize and seek those political powers. You've got the numbers. Like you said, the population is under a certain demographic. Go out there, organize your local, seek political power, and then turn the country in the direction you want it to go.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:21.208)
think that so much of the propaganda engenders this sense of hopelessness and helplessness. But of course, we see the youth are fighting back in whatever ways some of them can't, clearly not all of them, because that would bring the country to a complete standstill.

Adesoji Iginla (48:27.778)
Hope-lessness,

Adesoji Iginla (48:32.994)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:41.782)
So these issues did not appear overnight. The solutions are not going to be like instantaneous, like take an injection and tomorrow you're fine. But I think that to the extent that young people are pushing back, they were able to for a moment prevent the parliament from implementing that tax hike.

Adesoji Iginla (48:50.35)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:07.374)
Although of course it started to show up later in other legislation. But you're right, to the extent that there are people who are elected into these positions, it is time for us to elect folk that we can hold accountable. And folk that are willing to, it might be sacrifice their lives to say no to imperialism. But

That's easier said than done, right? Who wants to be the one who bails the cat, so to speak? But we will not give up. We have not given up.

Adesoji Iginla (49:39.854)
Yes, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:46.958)
kudos to the youth and for those of us who are a little bit more mature, support the youth. You may not be out there with your bodies in that way, but when you're in these boardrooms or in these places, be the one who speaks up, be the one who opens some doors for our young people, be the one who also fights for the right for them to have a country. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (49:53.486)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (50:09.102)
Yes, so let's give people books if they want to, should they want to read.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:19.084)
You're only on the second article, right? Carry on.

Adesoji Iginla (50:23.98)
Yeah, for them to read further, you could read Maomao, the story of the Kenyan land army from afar. This has been written by two now ancestors, Gitaemere Mogo and what's the gentleman's name? Ungugiwa Fiongo. And so it's that's

Kenya and the free Maomao and Maomao from Widi. So that's an info.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:56.236)
two very recent ancestors.

Adesoji Iginla (50:59.31)
ancestors. Yeah, and like I was saying earlier, the history of Kenya is replete with violence. This is imperial reckoning. As you can see, Britain built a concentration camp between 1952 and 1962 when they got independence. you begin to see where certain people got ideas from. that's the

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:23.89)
so are you trying to say that in the history of humanity, Germany was not the only place where they had concentration camps. It was not just for the Jews. No?

Adesoji Iginla (51:35.15)
No. Britain came up with the idea of concentration camp and they did it in the Bois War and it was the subject of a question at the Nuremberg trials when the German general Goebbels was asked, can he tell us about what happened? And he said, well, for you to understand what it is, you need to understand where we got our ideas from. And he

initially they didn't want him to speak but then he forced himself and said well we only perfected what you started.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:11.086)
There you go. And of course, we covered the issue of land too when we covered Wangari Matai. So for those of you who are watching Women and Resistance still on this channel, you can check out the episode on Wangari Matai because that definitely focused on the land issues and implications for Kenyans today.

Adesoji Iginla (52:12.556)
So yeah, and that.

Yes. Yeah.

So, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (52:34.222)
Yes. And yes, I'm minded of time. Let's go to the, we'll go for the third and final question, which comes from the Wall Street Journal. And it's the coup leader who became an anti-Western hero in Africa. We all know who this is.

And so this story is about, I don't know, for some reason, this is not moving. Why is that the case? OK. And so, yes, it's about Ibrahim Traore. it goes into Ibrahim Traore was a junior officer in Burkina Faso before he took then emerged as a surprising anti-Western hero. I don't know why they have to use anti-something in order. You can't stand.

Africa, it has to be anti-west. But Traore has his own agenda of reviving the Pan-African movement, which means even they agree that he is not a puppet of Russia. Traore has his own, and whether he succeed in putting Burkina Faso on a stronger footing, pushing back a long running Islamic constituency could influence what happens elsewhere across the region. in terms of how we are

viewed in the West, which is almost to the point that we don't have agency. Somebody else has to be pushing or pulling the strings for us to act. What would you say to that?

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:20.872)
say, God bless Ibrahim Ture'o. I would say thank you sir for reminding not just the people of your land but the greater African people and diaspora about the legacy of Thomas Sankara.

Adesoji Iginla (54:26.126)
You

Adesoji Iginla (54:47.406)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:48.962)
Thank you for having a spine and being bold enough to stand up to countries that obviously are much stronger than you if we just look at military might. Knowing that again, if you study history, he is probably on a collision path with death, untimely death.

Adesoji Iginla (55:01.208)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (55:12.203)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:16.226)
but knowing that just these acts by him have energized a whole generation of what is possible when we start thinking for ourselves. The fact that even the Nigerian analysts that they're quoting is calling him, you know, we'll go along with the, the, again, the importance of language of him being anti-West and things like that.

I don't have to be anti anything to be pro-me.

And so I just hope that as we talked about the youth in Kenya that he becomes a lightning rod. He becomes a source of inspiration for other young people to say, you know, we don't have to quote unquote, wait our turn, which you saw in Nigeria. was, teeny booze. That was his slogan. It's his turn now and everybody else wait for your turn.

Adesoji Iginla (56:16.598)
If that, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (56:20.363)
We see that in New York City where...

Adesoji Iginla (56:24.226)
Zuran Mamdani.

Aya Fubara Eneli (56:26.06)
Mandani is like, yeah, I'm 33 and my turn is now or I'm not waiting a turn. And so hopefully people like Traore and the work that he's doing and the courage that he's exhibiting will be something that energizes other youth. Now, to the extent that he is being accused of, which is so rich, accused of enriching himself with...

the minerals of his people as opposed to just letting the West unilaterally enrich themselves. think it's really interesting. He does have to temper.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:11.244)
The great work I think he's trying to do for the country in reestablishing their sovereignty, you have to temper that with what level of...

force you use against the very predictable inside sources that would try to undermine what you're doing. So just like when you talked about the Congo and you look at Lumumba and you look at Tshombé, there's no doubt going to be a Tshombé in Burkina Faso. Shoot, Thomas Sankara experienced that, right? I mean, we don't have to, we don't even have to.

Adesoji Iginla (57:26.094)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (57:49.164)
Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:52.564)
make up anything like we saw that play out. He was he was betrayed by someone who was very close to him. And so and some say that Thomas and Kara was too naive and he didn't take enough precautions. And so it's that fine balance of protecting yourself in the work you're doing, but not being so oppressive that even

Innocent people are also then harmed and that's a fine line that he's going to have to travel So, you know, I pray for him and I pray for good advisors for him and I pray for his health and for his protection

Adesoji Iginla (58:35.574)
I mean, he fights lots of imperial forces when it comes to the issue of Bukina Faso. For one, they sit on a very, very table gold mine and making money. And this is a resource that France has always controlled since the 1960s, even before independence, post independence, they've always controlled it and they want it back.

But here's the thing. He is getting a bad press in terms of the insurgency in the north. Now for those who are not aware of the north, the way it sits, it shares a border with Libya. And anyone knows what happened in Libya in 2011 was the overflow of Libya by

NATO under the obsessions of the United States, the UK and France. The place became awash with weapons. Every man and his dog has now a gun and so everyone can go on rampage. And so a country with limited resources is having to push back against that. Would mistakes be made? Absolutely. Now here is where it gets very funny.

Up to recent times, up to about five years ago, France was helping Mali, Burkina Faso to contain the insurgency. They've been there since 2002. Nothing happened. Now all of a sudden that they're gone, it's O.C. You can't even handle it. But whilst you were there, nothing was happening. And...

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:24.123)
you mean they didn't contain it either?

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:26.882)
They didn't contain it either. So now you know that when you read that in the news circle, that is just a way of calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it. And so,

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:39.746)
Yeah. And if you push that narrative long enough, people start to buy into it.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:44.288)
It will start to buy it and then that becomes an issue. Now, on the issue.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:49.184)
while you stoke more of the... Yes, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:52.494)
internal, you know, exactly. And so for France, France has been taking a hiding in that neck of the woods. So Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, who have now formed the assertion of Sahel states, broke away from ECHOEARs. No longer part of the French orbit have taken vast amounts of resources away from France. So France being a member of NATO,

would lean over to Uncle Sam, the United States, to use its vast network of media, espionage, and everything to undermine these three countries. So what you're seeing in the Wall Street Journal, a morning paper talking about a political leader in another part of the world, is essentially telling you you're messing up our money. This guy needs... Exactly. This guy...

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:44.478)
I've got my eyes on you. Songs come to my head. Yeah, Yeah, and we're paying attention. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:49.9)
So this guy is messing up our money, and so he needs to get out. Yeah, so exactly. And so on a final note, when you mentioned that he needs to be very careful, I'm sure the people around him would have studied the stuff that has gone around that have been the objects of assassinations and what have you. And so for that, for people who want to read more about America's imperialist intentions in the world, ends.

particularly in the United States and their contribution to the assassination of Thomas and Kara, you could read Washington Bullets by Vijay Parshad. And if that is too much of a read, mean, come on, you can do that in a day. And if that is too much of a read and you just want a lazy read, you could read all the imperialistic assassinations in Africa. This is actually

It's a story, but if you've got a strong constitution, you can read it. It's titled Fallen Heroes. And you can see the list of all the imperial countries that have carried out assassination of leaders in Africa. So it comes from that we are aware of, yes, from drinking poison tea, use of women to entrap people.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:58.786)
that we are aware of.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:10.67)
to, I mean, all sorts of machinations, but you know. And so it's important that, go on. So it's important that we put all of this stuff into context that we don't just read the news articles and news or listen to or watch, in this case now, majority of us watch on our mobile phones and just consume this stuff for what it is. Sometimes most of these stories are nuanced.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:20.15)
No, please go ahead.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:40.014)
they're steeped in history. A little bit of digging, would start, you know, like we were saying earlier, you pull one string and before you know it, you get an entire story unravel and you be wiser for it. And then as they would say, the lie is gone. And yes, it's important that we do that on a regular basis, which is one of the pivotal reasons why we have this.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:03.31)
you

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:09.336)
program here. again, we're actually to support the work we do here. Go to our Patreon. Subscribe if it's just by pressing the subscribe button. But you know, the more of people that subscribe this channel on support this channel on Patreon, on membership helps us to continue this work and be here for the foreseeable future. Sister, you wanted to say something?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:37.09)
Do you, do yeah, I was gonna say, can you touch on that last article just briefly because that one is, is very problematic for me.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:45.278)
OK. OK. And so, the problem the story sister is alluding to comes from the economist. And it's titled, Call Centers Could Be a Gold Mine for Africa. Forget factories. There is a better answer to the continent's job crisis.

And so he goes in business processing outsourcing, otherwise known as BPO for short. In the mid 90s, it's now going to become common practice in Africa. He wanted to say something. Go on.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:28.974)
No, I got you know again

we have to look at what are the long-term implications of some of the things that look like solutions in the short term. So didn't Metta go into, was it Kenya that Metta was in? And as soon as there were issues, what did they do? They just pulled out and then now they're trying to establish in Ghana. And so the

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:47.254)
Yes, Kenyatta.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:52.782)
It pulled out and sucked. Yeah, and sucked everyone.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:57.888)
Yes, and so the issue here again is the notion of sovereignty, having control over your source of your own economy. And so when we're not building factories and they're selling this to us as something great, but you are consuming goods, but you don't make anything.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:19.02)
And yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:20.384)
And all you're gonna do is answer the phone because you speak English. So we're gonna make sure that in all of our schools, we don't emphasize our own languages. You gotta speak the oppressor's language so you can get some of their pennies or whatever crumbs they drop. We don't wanna pay Americans or people in the UK for these call centers because these people want too much money. Go to the Philippines and India.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:43.49)
money.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:46.594)
But some people are complaining and even those countries are starting to charge a little bit more. second, let's go to Africa. They have all of these youth who are unemployed and they will take pennies on the dollar, take them less. We don't provide any support for them. There's no real growth in terms of what their opportunities are.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:00.824)
The dollar, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:12.122)
And whenever we're done with them because we really didn't build any infrastructure, we can just pull out and 20, 30 % of your population that was getting an income all of a sudden do not have any source of income and your country has nothing to show for it.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:28.846)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:32.334)
Mm. Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:34.22)
And so the idea that yes, one or two capitalists can go and start building these BPO's and make money in the guise of, and I'm not saying that they're not well meaning, but we're providing jobs for the youth. It's so myopic.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:51.497)
Mm, mm, mm, mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:53.326)
We don't want to just take the calls. We want to be able to transform. I mean, what's happening with the GDPs of all of our countries? We have raw materials that we're sending out and the buyers dictate the price at which they'll purchase. And then we buy the goods after they've been manufactured and all of that. And we buy it at the price that the seller determines.

And so forget about factories. Let's just be a call center. and the pro is at least people aren't leaving their countries to go somewhere else. A pro for who? You're basically saying we want your labor, but we don't want you in our countries, but we're still going to keep exploiting you from afar until we're done with you. And so, there are some pros with this, but,

The cons, in my opinion, outweigh the pros. Now, if I'm a young person sitting in any of these countries where I have no resources, I'm going to be like, hey, shut up woman on the internet who has a job and has a roof over your head. Let me start somewhere. I get to the extent that I can. But again, these are the decisions we make that just put us behind in the long run. And I hope that.

We will insist on building our own factories so we can manufacture so that we are actually producing what we need because then and only then can we even talk about tariffs and, you know, making sure that we don't have trade deficits right now.

Almost every African country has huge trade deficits and we have no basis with which to, well, we do because of our minerals, but our leaders are not ready to really make those arguments. So I am not for this, can BPOs be the new gold mine for Africa? Again, will not work out well for us in the long run.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:48.226)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:05.75)
I mean, even the use of the headline, can the BPO be our new gold mine? We're still going, yes, we're still going back to the idea of Africa is still an extractive industry for us. We can go there. We used to mine their minerals. Now we'll mine the people for pittance. In other, we'll pay them. Yeah, we're going to pay them money.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:10.91)
Exactly the same way with mind.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:35.598)
that they will then use to buy stuff from us, from people who don't like them. And so the money is coming back here because we know once you get $100 a month, you're going to want to buy the latest iPhone. They don't make the iPhones in Africa. You're going to want to buy the latest Apple Watch. You're going to want to buy a car.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:39.512)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:03.692)
Most of the cars are not assembled in Africa.

Again, it's this circle of this. Again, if we are not conversant of the economic history of a place, the political economy of Africa, one will begin to think that, this grandiose idea, they're not. I mean, once even the subtext, forget the factories. That is loud. Forget the factories. So we don't produce nothing.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:29.42)
get the factories.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:38.498)
But we consume a lot.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:40.174)
I've seen everything.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:42.476)
So whose benefit? To whose benefit? Clearly not ours in the long run. And even that GDP that we think most of these companies that come in are on tax-exempt status.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:58.912)
well, yeah, and they talk about it in the article about being deliberate in wooing these companies and giving them all these tax incentives. And I'm like, for what? I mean, of course, I live in Texas, and so I see what we do here. That's why Elon Musk has moved his. Yeah, and now he has a whole community that belongs to him, basically. They voted. Yeah. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:14.336)
He's gigantic.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:19.906)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:24.93)
Yeah, if you have that tax exempt status, like you said, all they would do is come in, pay these people petence, get their profits, and once that year is about to turn out, they will cook up some books to say, this organization is not viable in this country. And then they will hop on to the next country who is willing to give them a longer tax exempt status. And then

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:52.878)
and who gets taxed in the meantime.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:57.142)
you the workers who are paying, who are being paid, will pay tax at s-

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:13:02.518)
with no healthcare infrastructure, with no educational infrastructure, no pensions, no room for growth. Yeah, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:06.064)
No pension, no pension.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:11.416)
That's it. So you begin to see how this, again, putting stuff out there. people often say the economists are not talking to the average person. They're talking to the venture capitalists. But we get to see it. So we get to see an idea of what it is coming down the pike. This is not an idea. If this is put forward in the African space, the question should be asked.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:13:36.414)
It has been. Nigeria is all over it and so is Kenya. And Ghana. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:39.674)
Yeah, mean, Nigeria will be all over it because again, we don't have, it goes back to the idea of leaders. We don't have them. We have people masquerading as leaders, but we don't have any. you know, so we now know where the problem is. It's not just in the words of Aikuyama in his book, remembering a dismembered continent.

The problem is not that we don't have people who can lead us properly. The problem is the leaders that should have led us have been curtailed and the ones that are there are doing the bidding of Massa.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:24.854)
Not my master. But some of your viewers are asking if you would put the books that you recommended.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:32.129)
Yeah, I'll put them in the description. I'll put them in description after the program. Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:38.326)
And then I would say for our brothers and sisters on the continent who may not have access to these books, that they're versions of them that you can link to it as well. Because the last few times I've been in Nigeria, actually finding hardcore books on some of these topics are really hard to find. There are these newer writers who are not doing as great of a job in terms of connecting history.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:49.246)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:54.872)
Hard copies.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:59.502)
No.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:06.228)
Yeah, no, no, no, I mean, there are few and far between. And most of them are elderly and on their way out. Unfortunately, that chain of memory has been

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:16.802)
Yeah, I couldn't find any opportunities with books in Nigeria.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:21.858)
can you imagine? And the man wrote some brilliant, brilliant thought provoking book.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:28.462)
He wrote about decolonizing the mind.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:31.32)
Decolonizing the mind, the West and the rest of us, decolonizing literature. What's the other one? Yeah. I mean, just those three come to mind now. yeah. Speaking of decolonizing the mind, if people want, they can actually read this from Ungugiwa Fiongo, Something Turned a New.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:34.754)
bus.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:59.212)
This gives you an idea of how, what's it called? Colonialism will destroy a society. We think, yes, something else has come up. But because that chain of events has been broken and there is no connection, you're bound to lose sight of what is important to you as a community. So.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:59.351)
Mm-hmm.

you

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:16:23.022)
Buena says President Ruto's net worth is $400 million. Yes. And ask exactly how he amassed all of that. It's an interesting thing to see. And again, for those of us who are solution oriented because...

Yeah, at times call for a different way of thinking, but it's still going to have to be connected to a memory of what has gone on in the past. Shekhar Tadio wrote a book called Towards the African Renaissance, Essays on African Culture and Development, 1946 to 1960. I think if we read that, we can see exactly what was going on. Then we can see how that continues to play out today and how even these new partners, Qatar.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:51.756)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:17:07.489)
China are to some extent using certain aspects of the same old Playbook, so if you want to add this to the list of what you you share with people in the chat And again, they're very very short book

Adesoji Iginla (01:17:21.178)
OK, yes, would capture that.

And then on the issue of how do you connect all of us, the people within the continent, so-called countries. Again, that's a big problematic. Lines were drawn across the continent, and they became countries. the diaspora. Kwame Nkrumah also wrote a book titled Africa.

must unite and he speaks to not just the aspirations of people, he talks about why it's important that you're not just thinking, but you're also placing things that have gone before in proper context. This man basically made our job very easy. I mean, I've just shown you three.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:18:24.49)
Yeah, okay, and I know we gotta end, but I'll say this just because it needs to be said because I think it's a cautionary tale for those of us who are teaching or trying to lead in this day and ages. Cormen Cruma wrote so eloquently and had a deep understanding of the issues and still and still fell prey, still was

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:33.422)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:18:55.114)
arguably an instrument that helped to dismantle his country in certain ways. I mean, so he wasn't really able to really live out what he wrote about in its entirety. And that's not to take away from

anything positive that he did. I mean, we could probably have this conversation about any of our quote unquote leaders because we are human. But the reason we have this conversation is not just to put people on a pedestal and idolize them, but to understand what the pitfalls are so that hopefully we can avoid those pitfalls in the future. so, yeah, read with critical thinking skills.

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:41.846)
with critical thinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's important. And, you know, I'm not lose sight of the fact that while they were thinking and trying to build community, they were also very aware that at some point there might be a change of God. He lost power when he went to Vietnam to help settle the Vietnam War.

and he was overthrown.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:20:13.772)
What business did he have going to Vietnam?

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:17.294)
because Vietnam at the time was part of the non-aligned group. again, know, that's, know, sometimes it happens and you then realize, oops, what did I let happen? But it is what it is. And so, yes, we've come to another hopefully very exciting episode for people watching and who are going to be listening again.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:20:23.47)
I hear you.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:46.006)
You can download the audio version of this conversation. We're on all audio podcast platforms on Monday, which will be tomorrow sometime in your neck of the woods. And yes, we've come to end, sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:21:06.86)
What would comrade Milton say? Aluta continua. So since I'm sitting in for him, I was trying to be a little bit more a state lead.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:10.414)
I'll do that. I'll do that.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:18.563)
But

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:21:26.894)
I know I failed miserably at it, but thank you for the opportunity to weigh in on some of these topics. And we just need to keep educating ourselves, educating others. Send books, send books that center who we are and what our real history is to Africa. Get books from across the diaspora and learn about other people. Our stories are the same. Our fight is the same. We don't win divided. So thank you for the work that you're doing.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:43.246)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:56.364)
Yes. No, thank you for coming through. And I'll leave you with the words of Thomas Ankara. He says, and I quote, he who feeds you controls you. So whoever feeds you information feeds you, you know, metaphorically and literally controls you. So be mindful of the stuff you consume. And until next week, people.

Stay blessed and yeah, continue to read more.