EP 2 Coup in Bissau, Mali's Gold; Apple and More ... I African News Review 🌍

In this episode of African News Review, host Adesoji Iginla and guests Aya Fubara and Milton Allimadi discuss pressing issues affecting Africa, including judicial challenges faced by black judges in Texas, the political situation in Venezuela, the recent coup in Guinea-Bissau, and the ongoing kidnapping crisis in Nigeria. 

The conversation highlights the historical context of these events, the implications for the African continent, and the need for a comprehensive approach to governance and security. In this conversation, the speakers discuss the historical context of conflict in Nigeria, emphasising the need to learn from past mistakes to avoid repeating them. 

They advocate a multi-pronged approach to security that addresses root causes and does not rely solely on force. The discussion shifts to the mining industry in Mali, highlighting the complexities of corporate interests and local governance. 

The discussion concludes by focusing on corporate accountability, specifically Apple's sourcing of conflict minerals, and stresses the importance of local empowerment and awareness.

Takeaways

*The lack of racial diversity in judicial positions affects justice.
*Venezuela's political situation reflects broader geopolitical tensions.
*Guinea-Bissau's coup is symptomatic of a larger crisis in Africa.
*Kidnapping in Nigeria has become an economic industry.
*Historical context is crucial for understanding current events in Africa.
*The youth in Africa are increasingly restless due to poor governance.
*International relations play a significant role in African politics.
*The impact of colonial history is still felt in modern governance.
*Transparency from governments is essential in crisis situations.
*Cultural understanding is key to addressing Africa's challenges. 
*Learning from history is crucial to avoid repeating mistakes.
*A multi-pronged approach is necessary for effective security.
*The agricultural decline in Nigeria reflects broader economic issues.
*Revolutions may be needed to change ineffective governments.
*Nigerians have the potential to lead in various industries globally.
*Mali's aggressive tactics in mining reflect a shift in governance.
*Barrick's operations in Africa raise questions about local benefits.
*Corporate accountability is essential for ethical business practices.
*Awareness campaigns can pressure corporations to change.
*Local empowerment is key to addressing poverty and exploitation.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Context of African News Review
01:07 Judicial Challenges and Racial Disparities in Texas
03:03 Venezuela's Political Landscape and International Relations
10:09 Guinea-Bissau's Coup: Historical Context and Implications
28:04 Kidnapping Crisis in Nigeria: A Human Perspective
40:13 Learning from History: The Roots of Conflict
43:30 Multi-Pronged Approaches to Security
46:15 Mining Disputes: Mali's Gold and Global Interests
01:00:00 Corporate Accountability: Apple and Conflict Minerals

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:01.655)
Yes, greetings, greetings, and welcome to another news, African News Review. I am your host, Adesuji Iginla. And with me, as usual, are two brilliant minds regarding Africa's history, culture, and geopolitics. Ladies first: in the middle, we have Aya Fubera and Elie Esquire, author of Your Self-Love Revolution and host of Rethinking Freedom on 98.5 FM Killeen.

co-host Women and Resistance. Welcome sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli (00:35.113)
Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.

Adesoji Iginla (00:38.139)
And yes, our explorer extraordinaire, comrade Milti Alimadi, hosts Black Star News on WBAI 99.5 FM New York radio, offer of manufacturing heads. And welcome, comrade.

Milton Allimadi (00:41.58)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (00:56.43)
Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (00:59.339)
So as it's become news, news where you are, please, beginning with sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07.839)
We're putting together an interview for tomorrow since today is November 30th. On December 1st, have another, I have a radio show called Rethinking Freedom. And we're going to be speaking with Judge Amber Givens, who is in a very elite class across the country. There are very few black judges, particularly at the appellate and Supreme Court levels.

course, we saw that, you know, what it's taken to even get Katanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court. But in the state of Texas, you know, we do everything bigger in the state of Texas, there's even more of a barrier of challenges for us to get judges, black judges into certain positions. And once they get in, there really is a concerted effort to get them out. And so we're going to be talking with Judge Givens because she has a trial coming up.

December 10th and 11th and she is appealing sanctions against her that were completely contrived and politically motivated as far as I'm concerned. And we'll see what the evidence shows and Ken Paxton's office. Some of you may have heard of Ken Paxton, is going to be actually the prosecutor if you so, if you will, in this trial. And so

Adesoji Iginla (02:25.288)
Attorney General.

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:33.618)
What continues to happen in the state of Texas are all the ways that the lives and the livelihoods of people of color are being threatened. And certainly when you have less racial diversity on the courts, it continues this legacy of discrimination that has been built into the history of Texas. Yeah, so just a little bit of what's happening in our area.

Adesoji Iginla (02:58.207)
United States. Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (03:03.485)
And, comrade?

Milton Allimadi (03:04.893)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, obviously we are following Venezuela and the announcement that there's no fly zone over Venezuela. What kind of nonsense is that? So you're going to shoot down civilian planes?

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:09.991)
You

Adesoji Iginla (03:11.031)
You

Milton Allimadi (03:21.579)
It's just amazing. But also on the side of Venezuela, after you've seen Afghanistan, you saw Iran, you saw Libya. When you learn from the alliance of Sahel states, you need to have a regional pact where an attack on one of you is an attack on all of you. So why do you not have a pact like that with Brazil or some other countries, you know?

It's just amazing that after all these lessons that we should have learned by now, you know, now you're spinning their helpless, they're going to probably start dropping some bombs soon, you know? And what are you going to do? Can you survive it? I don't know. And then after Libya, you didn't learn.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:10.526)
So where is CARICOM and where is the United Nations in all of this? Because this is clearly illegal.

Milton Allimadi (04:19.998)
They were, I mean, they're all controlled by the US. So that's a sad thing. You know, I mean, the guys in Sahel states were just brilliant. They were going to go into Nizhya. The three countries came together and they said, okay, come attack all three of us at the same time. That's why they survived. And Venezuela was just watching. You didn't know with your oil, you have more oil than Saudi Arabia. You didn't think sooner or later.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:46.85)
But then the issue was who was going to come because it took certain kind of leaders to come together in the Sahel, right? Which is why we haven't seen entire African country do it. So with Venezuela, when you look at the complicity of Trinidad and Tobago, for instance, who exactly were they going to partner with?

Milton Allimadi (04:54.857)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (05:09.095)
Not those countries. Probably Brazil was their best bet. Trinidad is now serving U.S. interests with the puppet prime minister.

Adesoji Iginla (05:19.041)
Jamaica is not going to raise the eyebrow. So.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:25.054)
So the person who campaigned on, you know, I'm pulling the US out, I'm stopping all the wars, so on and so forth, is actually extending, creating new wars, extrajudicial killings. There is the issue though of the senators who've decided that they're gonna start launching investigation into Pete Hexeth and what he's doing. But then here comes in the...

Milton Allimadi (05:37.35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:56.317)
that video message that went out from the six democratic lawmakers telling the military not to follow through on any unlawful orders. Is this, will that fall in within that realm? Because what is the reason for attacking Venezuela? Will Congress speak up and say you have not come and gotten permission from us?

Adesoji Iginla (06:01.985)
to.

Adesoji Iginla (06:05.335)
to orders, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:22.588)
to start this war, although of course we've seen other presidents also circumvent that. But there's a whole lot at stake here. But will the world really just sit back, maybe this is a rhetorical question, and watch the bully, the United States of America at this time, under the leadership of the felon in chief, just go in and decimate Venezuela? Is that what we're gonna do? After Gaza?

Adesoji Iginla (06:28.033)
Mm.

Milton Allimadi (06:44.569)
zero.

Milton Allimadi (06:50.448)
Yeah, why not?

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:52.523)
what's going on in the Ukraine.

Milton Allimadi (06:54.992)
why not? I mean, unless we see, even with the massive protests we saw over, I mean, the regional countries have to do something. Brazil is the key player. know, Brazil can make a difference. Brazil is a major country. Brazil can rally other countries. I mean, look, it took South Africa to speak up on Gaza before the world just snapped out of its

Adesoji Iginla (06:57.601)
exactly all.

Milton Allimadi (07:24.229)
some ambulance and also started becoming much more critical aggressively toward the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. So it needs a spark. don't know if Brazil can provide that spark. But ultimately, of course, Rubio just wants regime change in Cuba. And he wants to first punish Venezuela for keeping Castro and his government

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:26.183)
Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (07:52.901)
alive for such a long time with the subsidized oil. He resented that tremendously. And then he thinks by taking out Venezuela, it's going to be easier to then go and take out Cuba.

Adesoji Iginla (07:58.539)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (08:04.043)
First.

Adesoji Iginla (08:08.919)
OK.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:09.086)
So I'm gonna say to US voters, especially those of you who want to keep those pesky immigrants out, those brown people, the more our country, because I am a US citizen, the more our country goes into other places and destroys their livelihood, interferes with their governments, creates chaos, the more...

pressure you are going to see put on your borders as people will seek what they think are greener pastures. I can say this as someone who's lived outside of this country. Most people, if they could live peacefully in their homelands would. I know that we have bought this sense of American exceptionalism.

Adesoji Iginla (08:54.667)
idea.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:03.332)
Most people, if they could live at peace in their homes and have a source of likelihood, would. And it's when you create all this instability that people start pouring out of their own quote unquote borders and coming into your land, not your land, it's the Native Americans land. so if you want less immigrants,

Milton Allimadi (09:12.257)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:30.916)
Stop messing with other people in their countries. Go and tell Trump to stop. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Milton Allimadi (09:34.272)
Yeah, and then look at the rational.

Adesoji Iginla (09:34.871)
Okay.

Milton Allimadi (09:38.433)
the irrational rationale. They're saying they want to stop the drug cartel from Venezuela. And at the same time, he's announcing that he's pardoning Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Colombia, who was convicted in the US court and sentenced to 45 years for drug trafficking. And Trump said, a lot of people told me I should pardon him. So I'm going to pardon him. Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (09:55.763)
of drug of

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:06.906)
Make it make sense. Make it make sense.

Adesoji Iginla (10:09.737)
Okay, so, and I think that might just tie into the next story, to the first story we are going to run on here, but it's part and parcel of the story and it comes from the BBC and it's that Guinea Bissau has decided to change government again. So the story reads, General named new BBC leader a day after coup.

And the story is filed by Nicolas Negosche, Paul Nje, Natasha Buti, and Wadile Chibuleisi. So it says, an army general has been sworn in as Guinea Bissau's new heads of state a day after an apparent coup. Is he a coup or not? Why is it apparent? Wrong choice of words there. General Hote Ntam became the transitional president for a period of one year. He took the oath on Thursday.

in a brief and muted proceedings at army headquarters. Untam Hu, until a day earlier had been head of the presidential guard, barely cracked a smile during his swearing-in ceremony while stood outside flanked by officers while for cameras. Some civil society groups in Guinea-Bissau accused the outgoing president, Omarou Sissoko Mbalou, of masterminding a simulated coup against himself with the help of the military, saying it was a ruse

to block election results from coming out in case he lost. Your first reaction to the fact that there was a coup in Guinea Bissau? Sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:49.116)
Let's start with brother.

Milton Allimadi (11:51.55)
Sure. In and of itself is not that interesting because if you remember, I said because of the general crisis that we have in Africa right now, we might actually see at least one coup every other month or so. I would not be surprised. I would not be surprised even by more. Because the general crisis, you're not producing enough

Adesoji Iginla (11:58.611)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (12:06.646)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (12:15.499)
Okay.

Milton Allimadi (12:22.462)
for the population. The population is increasingly young and restless, you see? So how are you going to maintain that? It's just not possible. Common sense and logic tells you it's not possible. So each successive government is going to be under a lot of crises. It's going to be weak and it's going to be providing excuses for military intervention.

So the only thing that might make it interesting, and just looking by the photos of the characters, I'm not that really inspired, is if they turn around and start doing the kind of things that are being done in the alliance of Sahel states. Because in those countries, people tend to forget that these are military men because of the things that they're doing, taking control of their resources and making sure that they get the maximum revenue.

Adesoji Iginla (13:08.087)
Hmm.

Milton Allimadi (13:21.946)
from their resources. And that's the significant difference. So if these guys do the same thing, he's talking about one year, if they do what is being done in the Sahel states, people might not care if it goes beyond one year and it really delivers. That's number one. Number two, it's clearly a coup which was engineered by the former incumbent president.

Adesoji Iginla (13:24.128)
Okay.

Milton Allimadi (13:50.35)
who realized he was going to lose the elections and invited these guys to take over because he's so bitter and does not want the person who likely defeated him to take over as president. So I think he invited them, you know, a prearranged coup. And I say this because I don't think it's a coincidence that the person who is the opposition candidate has been placed under arrest.

the one who was the incumbent has been allowed to so-called free the country. How do you free the country when the airport has been shot and the military is in control, right? So it was a prearranged coup and we see how it unfolds. If it just is another change of guard with no difference, then it's just a hopeless coup. But even though he's a senior officer and he was the leader of the presidential guard,

Adesoji Iginla (14:30.411)
Hmm, yeah, yeah.

Milton Allimadi (14:49.548)
That was the same case in Niger, where Chiani was also the leader of the presidential guard, and he got rid of Bazzou. And people thought, this is just a change of the guard, power struggle. But the young people took over that coup, and that's why he was forced to stop doing things like taking control of resources. He turned it into a popular coup. So this one, I don't have enough information to know if it's going to be a popular coup.

Adesoji Iginla (15:19.799)
Okay, sister.

Milton Allimadi (15:22.241)
wait, let me add one thing. The saddest thing is this is the country of Amilcar Cabral. so let me save that for you. Go ahead, let me save that for you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:29.118)
That is what I was about to say, my brother. That is what I was about to say. Like we've got to go back to the history. So people go and get Brother Adesuji's book, Africa Illuminated, so that when we're talking about these countries, you have a map, you have a sense of where these countries are located, whether the countries are next to them, a little bit of what their history was.

Adesoji Iginla (15:29.159)
I need...

Adesoji Iginla (15:34.26)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:56.703)
Is it's just a really great book to have as as a resource as you watch? African news review and of course everybody has clicked the like button and everybody who's watching has subscribed and everybody who's watching is sharing to their social media because we are on a mission to get to 2,000 subscribers by the end of this month well, not the end of this month the end of 2025 Okay, so haven't said that

Milton Allimadi (16:22.198)
Yes, sir.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:26.782)
Who are these people? This region we call Guinea-Bissau. Understand that before colonization, you had a diverse group of people living here. The Jola, the Papel, the Balante, the Mandinka, the Fulani, right? We know that they had, in terms of their structure, you had decentralized, quote unquote, village-based communities, all the way to the more hierarchical kind of Islamic.

qualities that were linked to Mali and the Caboose Fairs, right? So just a rich diversity in terms of culture, spirituality, economic traditions, all of that. Then enter the Europeans, because unfortunately at this point we can never tell the story of Africa, at least for the last 500 years, without here come the Arabs, here come the Europeans. So the Portuguese arrive in about the 15th century.

And they're using this region as their Atlantic trading networks like it's there. It's a hub for them, right? Which by the way has not changed. Okay So Portugal intensifies its its control in the late 19th and the 20th century You guys should know that this area was heavily involved in the quote-unquote slave trade. I call it the African maafa African genocide, but there were a lot of

of our ancestors that were shipped out from this area, from the ports in this area, right? And then of course, 1973, we have our great ancestor, Amilka Cabral, with the PAIGC that declared independence after a long armed struggle. Put a pin in that and go study that as well. And then finally, 1974, Portuguese give us recognition.

Adesoji Iginla (17:59.873)
Correct.

Adesoji Iginla (18:07.497)
she froze that.

Adesoji Iginla (18:17.249)
Hold on, you froze when you mentioned Amica Cabra. You froze. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:21.906)
did I'm so sorry so our great ancestor Amilka Cabral too much echo what's going on can y'all hear me okay okay

Milton Allimadi (18:26.318)
Echo. Too much echo.

Adesoji Iginla (18:32.82)
I can hear you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, go on.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:36.954)
In 1973 with the PAIGC declared independence after a very long armed struggle. They actually fought for their independence. And of course in 1974, Portugal finally recognizes them after the Carnation Revolution. So you need stuff to study during the holidays. Just giving you some things here. All right. So what has happened since then? First we had

Milton Allimadi (19:06.353)
Thank

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:06.706)
a six year rule from 1974 to 1980. It was one party rule. Then in 1980, we had a coup, Nino Vieira seizes power. Then from 1998 to 99, there's a civil war, considerable bloodshed. Then from the 2000s, we've pretty much seen multiple coups, assassinations and political instability in the area.

Adesoji Iginla (19:35.223)
Correct.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:35.804)
From 2010 to the present, Guinness-Bissau has actually been a very major player in the trafficking of cocaine.

Adesoji Iginla (19:48.413)
I can repeat that part.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:52.903)
So again, following that same slave trade, African Ma'afir trade routes, the cocaine comes in from Latin America. It is stored and repackaged in these regions, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, all of that. And then from here, it makes its way into Europe and the rest of the Western world.

There is a lot of money being made. It is not being made by the people, although there is increasing drug addiction in the area as well by the locals. What this article has left out is the deep liberation history of the PAIGC and Amilka Cabral, and just an understanding of how did we get to where we are right now.

Of course, they address the issue of there was an election. There were results about to announce to be announced when this coup takes place. Now you brought up the notion of why would they say a parent coup? I'm kind of with them on their parent coup because the person who is now the transitional president for a year served under the previous president that's been ousted.

He wasn't killed. You know, with these coups, we usually try to eliminate the person. First he flew to Senegal, and then now he's hanging out in Congo. Literally hanging out, okay. So African leaders also need to see how they are supporting each other, especially when they're supporting leaders who have not been great leaders to us. But.

in the administration of this new leader under this coup, he's put in many of the same people who served under the ousted leader. So they're not cleaning house in any way. So when the opposition is saying, huh, I think this was a simulated coup to block election results, I kind of think he might have something to say.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:00.87)
And so whether this is just and what are you going to do in one year? Usually see them announce at least two years. What kind of transition are you going to do in just one year? So I don't see much of a difference in terms of having this person in power now, brother, brother Milton. If the youth rise up and say, Hey, we're going to use this opportunity to change this from what they think it's going to be to what we need it to be.

But then again, maybe if they give all the youth cocaine, they might not rise up. I don't know. But what I'm saying is that when we read these stories, there's a deeper history. And I'm always asking, who stands to benefit? So would these opposition leaders, whoever could possibly have won, have counteracted some of the players in this area? Who are many? You have the South American drug cartels.

but you also have the Russian cartels and then you also have the African leadership, the military leaders. In fact, there was one, I don't know if I have his name, who was tried and convicted in the US courts from Guinea-Bissau for cocaine trafficking. So again, what you see with all of these players is the voicelessness, if you will, of the people.

and how they are being impacted and how leadership is actually serving the people. And it's gonna take the people to rise up, to force our leaders to truly lead in a way that benefits us all.

Adesoji Iginla (23:37.099)
Thank you, thank you for that insight. Brother Milton, you want to add something?

Milton Allimadi (23:41.684)
No.

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:43.614)
you

Adesoji Iginla (23:43.667)
Okay. With regards to, just to add, Amika Cabral, for those who are not, well, Amika Cabral believed that the culture of a people would determine its progress. And one of his classic quotes is, hide nothing from the masses of our people, which is what we try to do here. It says, tell no lies, expose lies wherever they are told, mask no difficulties, mistakes.

failure, and claim no easy victories." And the reason for that quote in this aspect is, technically, he declared that the problem with the African countries as they are so defined post-independence is that they are just set up to fail. They've not been set up for progress of the people. They've been set up as a hub, as a conduit for European exploitation. And we've seen that time and time and time again.

If you look at Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Bissau is exactly the classic example of a place set up to fail. The country broke away from Cape Verde, which was the two countries that the PAIGC helped liberate in 1973 from the Portuguese. Now, why would they break up? They break up because the PAIGC moved completely from the idealist, professed,

by Amiko Cabra, who himself was assassinated by someone who wanted to become a leader within the PAIJC. Now, what did they do after his death? They began to coalesce power to the center. And so the coup of 1980, November 15, 1980, set the motion of splitting those two countries, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. Now Guinea-Bissau,

as of today is basically nothing more than a narco state. It was declared so by the European Union, the United States, and even Africans recognize it as a narco state. So this school essentially is just a change of the guard. If you go deep into their history, there are multiple islands there. And when you were talking earlier about the drugs being repackaged,

Adesoji Iginla (26:12.799)
Some of these generals have those islands to themselves. And they basically trade access to said islands in order to allow the drug trade to flow. So the question is, how does this coup play into that dynamics? And it remains to be seen. So again, someone declared it a simulacra.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:34.814)
But it appears there's been very little bloodshed, if at all, regarding this coup.

Adesoji Iginla (26:38.955)
No, because, yeah, because it's basically a know that, okay, it's your turn. You know, what am I going to do? There is no way I'm going to capture the entire state. As long as I capture the apparatus that allows me a take of whatever comes in, I don't mind, you know. So you look at the generals in that teacher. Do they look like someone who, you know, gives you the idea that they're going to do what Traore is doing?

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:58.93)
that.

Adesoji Iginla (27:08.513)
Clearly not, do you?

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:09.638)
Yeah, you have to bring the picture down so that the audience can see it like scroll down a little bit

Adesoji Iginla (27:13.993)
Okay, let's do, let me go back down. I mean, look at them.

Where's the... There's no revolutionary zeal in this picture. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, they look to be fighting for their pensions, so...

So again, that said, mean, when I saw the fact that there was a coup, I immediately went and look at the pictures of who the major players are. And the moment I saw this, I was like, you know what? Yeah, it is what it is. So speaking of soldiers, we go to the next story, which is probably an update with regards to story from Nigeria.

And it comes from The Guardian. And it's that...

The Nigerian girls who were abducted in Kaby State have apparently all been rescued, according to the president of Nigeria. And it says a total of 25 girls were abducted on the 17th of November from government college, comprehensive secondary school in Kaby State, Magatown. While one of them was able to escape the same day, the school principal said the remaining 24 were all saved, according to a statement from the Nigerian president Bola Ahmed Tunebu.

Adesoji Iginla (28:39.317)
though no details were released after the rescue. And it goes on to say, meanwhile, 38 worshippers kidnapped during a deadly church attack in Central, it's not Central, actually, it's Western Nigeria. Quara state have regained their freedom. Quara Governor Abdurrahman Abderrazak said in a statement on Sunday, gunmen had attacked the Christ Apostolic Church in Heroku.

Milton Allimadi (28:46.979)
you

Adesoji Iginla (29:06.071)
on the 18th of November killing two people and taking the others hostage. Authorities say that the bandits were mostly former headsmen who have taken up arms against farming communities after clashing between them over strained resources. And it goes on to explain that school kidnappings have come to redefine insecurity in Africa's most populous nation and armed gangs often seen school as strategic targets to draw more attention. At least 1,500 students

have been seized in Nigeria since the infamous kidnapping of the Chibok girls more than a decade ago. And many of the children were released only after ransoms were paid. And so again, sister, what would you say your take is with regards to the updates as far as their story is concerned?

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:57.503)
For me, it's really important that we humanize these stories, that they're not just words on paper. I am a mother. I have five children. Certainly, we have our share of gun violence in the United States of America, where I currently reside. But the sense for most parents across the world is you take your children to school.

Adesoji Iginla (30:05.121)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:23.326)
for them to learn, for them to have access to a brighter future, and then they get to come home safely. What we're seeing with the situation in Nigeria, which I believe I've raised before, is that we have over 10 million children right now who are not going to school precisely because parents are too scared to send their children to school. As we previously discussed, this is more than a Christian issue.

although Christians are certainly being prosecuted and persecuted. This is just a national issue of insecurity. It's interesting what is not being covered here. First of all, the government not saying how they recovered these young people. So then you know where they're being taken. Do know where the strongholds are of these?

kidnappers and these terrorists and why is there no military effort that we are hearing of anyway to decimate these terrorists. We know that in the past at least 10 years

people have been paying ransoms for family members, for children, so on and so forth. So it's not so much anymore that like with the Chibok girl case where they took them, they raped them, they impregnated them, they took some of them on as wives and so on and so forth. In this case, it's like purely, hey, we got your kid or we got your principal or we got your parishioners pay up.

And this is basically part of the economy now in certain areas. In the North in particular, lot of young people do not get the kind of education that will open doors for them. Yes, and the article addresses, hey, these were former herdsmen, some of them. We also know that there are people coming in from other countries as well that are impacting the terrorism in this area. But for me, what I see in this article is just the...

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:25.576)
I would say willful incompetence of the Nigerian government. And I say willful because to the extent that Nigeria has sent its military to lead and be part of so many peacekeeping efforts across the continent and in other places, it befuddles my mind that we have not been able to get a better handle.

on our insecurity issues within our country. And so I'm saying people at high levels are complicit in all of this. Last notes that I want to make on this is the trauma, the enduring trauma of all of this. My sister, Sumyari Fubara, happens to be a trauma specialist.

And she worked with the chips with some of the survivors from the Chibok girl incident. She worked with them in Nigeria and she worked with some of them who came to the United States for treatment for injuries. And these traumas are deep seated. They are not going away in a hurry. But one of the things that I recall her sharing with me is how little access these girls that even the ones who were rescued.

Milton Allimadi (33:33.388)
Thank

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:39.581)
how little access they had to their families. The government was basically holding them and deciding when they could interact with their families. So I'm very concerned that these girls have been quote unquote recovered. The 25 girls who were abducted from government girls comprehensive secondary school in MAGA, Jesus MAGA have been rescued, but their parents have not seen them yet.

Adesoji Iginla (33:57.302)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:10.95)
And so I'm like, what is the government doing here? I'm needing some transparency here. If you really rescued them, let me see and let the parents come and say, yes, every one of our young girls is accounted for before the international eyes go away from this story. Because I do not believe that our government in Nigeria, and I can say our for Nigeria as well, because my family comes from there.

I don't believe they're being transparent here and I don't believe that they're ready to actually address this issue head on.

Milton Allimadi (34:46.549)
I guess so. You know, this story boils back to what I alluded to in the Guinea Bissau story as well. It all goes back to states that are not producing. And as the sister said, this is not the typical, you know, kidnapping. This is an industry. These are people who need to sustain themselves. They need a living. They don't have factory jobs to go to.

Now there's crises over the land, there's conflict over land, conflict over grazing ground, conflict over where you can grow food. So obviously they're going to look for another way to sustain themselves. And now it just happens to be this, you kidnap because they know that these children are loved by their parents and they know that they will pay to get their children back. And in this case, it's quite obvious that the Nigerian government paid the ransom.

And that is why they cannot provide details of the so-called rescue. You cannot rescue 24 captive girls from armed people without any of them being unscathed. It's just not possible that all 24 of them would be brought back alive. So this was negotiated, money was paid. The same thing with the 38 who had been kidnapped from the church. When...

Adesoji Iginla (36:05.067)
counted for you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:13.278)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (36:13.963)
the governor says they, quote unquote, regained their freedom. Of course, they regained their freedom because somebody paid for their freedom. And of course, this encourages more kidnapping. But I don't oppose it. If it's my kid, I would pay money if I had money to get my children, my loved ones back. So that's what happened clearly in this case. so long as... And our military solution is not even...

It's not even viable, really, because essentially you'll be killing your own people who are unemployed, and they will regroup. And once you withdraw the troops, they'll start doing the same thing again, unless you present them with another option, how to earn a living and how to sustain themselves. We have to tie all these things together. I mean, it's not normal for Africans to be drowning in their thousands trying to cross the Mediterranean.

to flee from a very wealthy continent resource-wide. It just shows a failure of these governments in managing the state. And so long as they think it's business as usual, we're going to have this constant, you know, back and forth change of government. You can't be doing the same thing and hope for different outcome. That is typically the definition of insanity.

And that's what all these governments are doing, except for the three, the alliance of some health states who are trying a different approach. So why not try a different approach?

Adesoji Iginla (37:55.127)
Well, so let's give it a historical angle. said, the comrade, you said you cannot try a military approach. And if we do so, they might come back and regroup. Yes, Nigeria did do a military approach in the 1980s. There was a similar group called the Mitasini. And they terrorized the state of Kano and Kaduna.

Milton Allimadi (38:09.739)
They will, they're not mine, they will.

Adesoji Iginla (38:24.803)
And the government at the time, even now, a civilian government, okay, so the debt toll at the time was about 4,200 and something odd number. And the government, you know, went, you know, send the army in and the army quashed this thing within a week. That literally there was no, but then the fallout of that was this.

And people of African descent will actually remember this. There was what was then known as Ghana must go, which was, yes, that's the fallout of it. was that it was foreigners that were causing all the trouble. As a result, all the foreigners had to leave Nigeria. And so the Ghana must go thing, that is where the fallout of it was. General J. Rowling was against it.

peak voter, declared, Shehu Shagari as Adolf Hitler of Africa. You cannot make this stuff up. So you begin to see that it's not the will. It's not that the will is not there. It's just that sometimes there is not a comprehensive approach to dealing with this such matters. And it's like, yes.

Milton Allimadi (39:40.176)
My brother, my brother, let me interrupt you. I'm sorry. Let me interrupt you. If you are a country that relies on selling cheap raw material to the West and you import manufacturers that inflated exponentially 10 to 20 times more, unless that changes is going to be Boko Haram, is going to be the lowest resistance army, is going to be what have you.

Adesoji Iginla (39:47.799)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (39:52.246)
You okay?

Adesoji Iginla (39:57.408)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (40:06.886)
You know, we have to get to the next of the crisis. Otherwise, everything else is superficial. That's all I'm saying.

Adesoji Iginla (40:12.439)
No, no, no, I get what you're saying. I'm just trying to say that, to buttress your point, which is at that time, the government thought force was the answer. Now, they quashed the entire thing in 1980, but we got Boko Haram in 2004. So clearly, it did not work. I mean, I'm just buttressing your point that sometimes if we don't learn from history, we repeat the same mistakes over again.

Milton Allimadi (40:30.599)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (40:41.067)
So if we go in again with force without going to the root cause of the problem, we are going to be kicking this problem again into the long grass for the next generation.

Aya Fubara Eneli (40:54.182)
to be a multi-pronged approach though. I do think that you have to come against with some force, you have to come against these terrorists. And certainly when you have everyday people, quote unquote, villagers informing us that there are helicopters showing up in the middle of the night in these very kind of isolated areas that they see white men or people who look white anyway.

Milton Allimadi (40:56.807)
Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (41:00.282)
or definitely.

Adesoji Iginla (41:23.447)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:23.72)
who are in charge of these helicopters and they're bringing a lot of goods and things, Nigeria should be very concerned about that. And so at the very least, figure out where are these people getting all their arms from, cut off that route, and then let's see who needs to die because they don't want to.

Adesoji Iginla (41:33.655)
Hmm.

Milton Allimadi (41:47.888)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:48.093)
become a productive citizen, even as we're creating opportunities, hopefully for people to have a way to live. I mean, the North used to produce so much food. Food items that we are now importing. I remember as a child, and I know I'm old, but I'm not that old, but I remember as a child, hills. When I say hills, I'm talking, they look like mountains of

Adesoji Iginla (42:00.715)
Yes, it's actually.

Adesoji Iginla (42:16.289)
Pyramids. Pyramids of groundnuts, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:17.506)
of groundnuts, of millet, of all of this stuff that we produced. I remember as a child, because we lived in the southeast and it was like we would take trips sometimes with my parents, sometimes with my mother, we would go up north to buy food in bulk.

Milton Allimadi (42:23.962)
Right.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:37.438)
because we had a big family, but my mother, would buy food in bulk and bring back, you know, big bags of baskets of onions and tomatoes and everything else. And so how in a generation and half a generation, we have gone from feeding ourselves to importing and being so dependent on inferior food that cost us an arm and a leg and now our people are not employed.

Milton Allimadi (42:50.383)
right.

Milton Allimadi (43:00.176)
Right.

Adesoji Iginla (43:00.385)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:04.606)
We got, it has to be a multi-pronged approach, but no, this idea of people being attacked, people being kidnapped, there was a school where they kidnapped 300 boys. It's right, it's indiscriminate at this time, but of course, as a woman, we also know that when we are kidnapped, the chances that other things are gonna be done to us exponentially higher. And I just have to raise that point as well.

Milton Allimadi (43:07.492)
Right.

Milton Allimadi (43:16.332)
Okay, so.

Milton Allimadi (43:30.923)
Okay, so the multi-pronged approach is not going to be delivered by the current government in Nigeria, as it is. So we can take it from any and every angle. We're going to come back to the same location that I'm advocating, unless we have the kind of governments that we have in the Sahel states. You know, we are practicing insanity.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:37.988)
No it won't, no it won't.

We will.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:55.176)
Brother, how do we get that government in Nigeria?

Milton Allimadi (43:57.055)
No, we need revolutions. mean, you know, we need revolutions. We need to change these types of people just coming there for the sake of changing over. No, if you change, you have to say, this is how I'm going to do it differently. I'm going to emulate these three guys. Nigeria has one of the largest armies in Africa, right?

Adesoji Iginla (44:06.807)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (44:12.119)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:14.512)
Okay, so I'm going off going off the topic right now, but so where would you put canoe? With ipod and the fact that he's now been sentenced. Is he the kind of revolutionary we're looking for?

Milton Allimadi (44:31.093)
There are many, I can't say if he's the right one, but I know there many brilliant, intelligent Nigerians who demonstrated in the past, in the 60s and 70s, Nigerians used to launch a lot of intervention all the time. And they would come out, they would articulate visions very clearly. They must still be around somewhere. We need to see that. And we're not seeing that.

Adesoji Iginla (44:57.909)
I mean, I would like to, again, buttress your point with another quote from Amiko Cabral. He said, the petty bourgeoisie of African nations must be capable of committing class suicide in order to be reborn as revolutionary workers, fully identified with the deepest aspiration of the people to whom it belonged. Otherwise, it is, yeah.

Milton Allimadi (45:10.463)
Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (45:20.138)
Yeah, this is unacceptable. Nigerians are in the leading industries in every category all over the world. They need to be setting examples for other Africans. So they need to intervene and change what is going on in Nigeria right now. It's too sophisticated for the story to be, oh, look at big Nigeria cannot secure the lives of 50 or 100 young students. Nigeria is too big for that.

Adesoji Iginla (45:29.963)
Yeah,

Adesoji Iginla (45:48.991)
Yes, yes, Yeah, speaking about too big, apparently a mighty gold company is seeking to get its claws back on Mali's gold in the next story coming to us from the Financial Times. And it's that Barrick reaches settlement in gold mining dispute with Mali.

The will allow for reclamation of Lulogolo mines and release of detained workers. Baric mining has reached a deal to end a long running dispute with Mali that led to the miners losing control of one of its most productive assets, its productive assets, not the gold mine.

Barik, one of the world's largest gold producers has been locked in a disagreement with the Malian government since the introduction of a new mining code in 2023. I'd just like to take your eyes to the last part. The Malian government is among several military regimes in the Sahel region of Africa that has turned to more aggressive tactics in order to gain more control over their domestic critical mineral supplies.

more interventionist steps taken by policy. Policymakers in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have included the rewriting of mining laws and demand for higher tax payments and larger ownership stakes in mines. Is that a bad thing?

Adesoji Iginla (47:32.939)
Go on. Sister, you want to go first?

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:36.979)
Sure It's a bad thing if the people want to have control of the over their own riches It was interesting to me as I was reading that article. I'm like, wait a second. It almost sounded like Barrick had put out a press release and Sent it to them and they just cut and pasted parts of barracks press release. I'm like

Milton Allimadi (48:03.965)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:05.316)
their assets, their this, their what, what, who owns the, what.

as my people over here would say, make it make sense. Yeah, it really did sound like they were just cutting and pasting barracks on press release. And most of the quotes in the article were from this white savior barrack, well, the new person that they have in charge of barracks. So let me just address a couple of things here.

Adesoji Iginla (48:21.345)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (48:25.195)
Baric. Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (48:35.813)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:38.194)
Barrick has been operating in Africa as far as I can figure out, at least since the 1990s. In early 2000s, they got some major acquisitions in Tanzania. Today, they are the largest gold producer in Africa.

Adesoji Iginla (48:56.599)
correct.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:59.162)
Operating major mines in Mali in DRC and in Tanzania

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:09.06)
With all of these mining operations, their focus, as is with capitalism, is straight up profit. To hell with the people, to hell with any environmental issues, to hell with the fact that the areas where this gold is being extracted from, that those areas are completely impoverished. They're not schools, they're not hospitals, there are no opportunities for the people there. Forget the labor disputes that were paying you nothing.

Adesoji Iginla (49:16.257)
Profit, yep, correct.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:36.381)
Forget that you guys don't have any benefits in the sense that you understand workers in quote unquote the Western world that will have, there are no unions, of that nature. You can go and look at their mines in Tanzania and look at the accusations of human rights violations there. And of course, it's that long-term profit extraction with limited local wealth retention, right? So how much gold is Barrick extracting from just this mine?

Adesoji Iginla (49:54.263)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:07.161)
right Approximately my people go and look at the cost of gold per ounce I was just in egypt They told me what the cost was per ounce and I minded my business and left the store because I had no business With three children going to college this fall trying to be buying any gold. Okay, but it was um, so they they extract approximately 700 000 to 723

Adesoji Iginla (50:16.661)
And you kept moving.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:33.662)
ounces of gold per year from this one mine. We're talking about over 1.4 billion.

Milton Allimadi (50:38.947)
Thank

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:46.298)
in this one area, right? And that mine accounts for about 20 % of Barrick's total global production. So you can understand why they were gonna fight tooth and nail to keep it. Now, my question is, because we've talked about the Sahel states and the innovation of the leaders there, my question is,

What is this new deal? Because this cut and paste press release did not give me any information from the standpoint of the Africans. Besides, okay, with this deal now, they're going to release their imprisoned workers and so on and so forth. How much of that 1.4 billion plus is gonna remain in Mali? How much is repatriated abroad for their shareholders?

So yeah, they've withdrawn their arbitration case. I'm not sure if Malley thought, hey, we need them to still mine this. I don't know if we're going to ensure that we learn how to do this work ourselves because for crying out loud, Africans used to mine their own gold by themselves before colonization,

Adesoji Iginla (51:59.265)
music.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:04.014)
Supposedly has agreed to operate on the Malley's new mining code. I don't know what that new mining code is Hopefully it does serve our people and Barrick in the meantime Receives a 10-year extension 10-year extension of mining rights Let's say the price of gold stays stagnant and we're just going to keep it at the 1.4 billion, right? That's how many billion

Adesoji Iginla (52:29.483)
Yeah, that's four times.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:33.214)
10 times 1.4. 14, okay. Meanwhile, Mali receives a financial settlement at about 430 million. Is that one time? Is that every year? I don't know. So I don't know who's gonna benefit from this. Certainly for Barrick, they have another 10 years of exploitation that has been cosigned.

maybe for mali government it's that cash flow but still the communities as far as I can tell are excluded the environmental or social safeguards have not been put in place But I'll withhold any further statements until until and if we ever see what these mining codes actually look like

Adesoji Iginla (53:21.141)
Hmm. Comrade?

Milton Allimadi (53:24.868)
Okay, so I don't know the details, but I'm confident that Mali is making off better than Congo is making off relative to its resources and probably even Ghana with its gold. I mean, obviously, the price of gold keeps escalating and there was no way Barik was going to sit there.

Adesoji Iginla (53:35.041)
Whoa. Shots fired.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:36.732)
We hope.

Milton Allimadi (53:52.762)
and watch money that it could be earning for its shareholders not being earned. and Mali didn't have much to lose. Mali is a country that's been exploited. And so they figured, okay, two more years of exploitation by not earning revenue, it's worth it to them. We will probably, they would probably yield before we do. And BADx shareholders

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:59.347)
That part.

Adesoji Iginla (54:16.15)
Hmm

Milton Allimadi (54:22.814)
You know, they got rid of the former CEO and brought a new one. And within months, the new CEO is like, okay, in fact, I'm going to use what he said as a headline for an article. He said, we are changing the script. And that's exactly what they did. They said, okay, what do you want, And Molly,

Adesoji Iginla (54:25.729)
CEO. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:26.108)
They did.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:39.934)
you

Adesoji Iginla (54:40.159)
You

Milton Allimadi (54:49.458)
the list that we don't have, obviously, gave them the list of things that they want. And since the price of gold is so high right now, the money is good. Baric said, okay, let's make a deal. And that's what they're doing. So I'm hoping that countries like Mali, all these countries can do what Libya did with its oil. I mean, have beef with Gaddafi in the sense that at the end of the day, he stayed for too long.

Adesoji Iginla (54:58.718)
Mm. Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:04.67)
Let's make a deal.

Milton Allimadi (55:19.717)
You I mean, even Castro stepped down at some point, right? Think about that. You you stay too long, you give them excuse to find a way to cause dissension, division, and then get rid of you. But what he did with Libya's oil, nobody can deny, even his enemies, even the Western countries, they can't compare what Libya did with his oil to transform that country compared to any other oil producing

Adesoji Iginla (55:24.149)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Milton Allimadi (55:49.468)
our nation. And if these countries could just do the same thing with their minerals and uplift the welfare of their people, you know, we are hoping that this is the kind of process we'll see more of. Draw the line and tell them enough is enough and they'll come back because if they don't come back, somebody else will come and do business with you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (56:15.132)
That's right. That's right.

Adesoji Iginla (56:18.155)
Yeah, so one final question with regards to this particular article is that

Why would you think the Financial Times would write that, would lay out this article like this, just simply taking the lines of capital as opposed to, you know, going to the people to wonder, okay, because you could clearly see there was no time that they reached out to the Malians. Well, I can probably can say, but then the article doesn't even show that, we reached out to Mali and they had no comment or anything. It was basically one sided.

Milton Allimadi (56:54.658)
no, I can answer that part of that. This was an arranged deal that the government of Mali was comfortable with because Barik, and obviously I don't have privy to it, I'm just, you know, I'm just guesstimating. Barik said, we can't look like we are surrendering totally. It would not be good for the gold market and industry. So in return for us giving you what you want,

Adesoji Iginla (56:57.585)
Go.

Adesoji Iginla (57:08.555)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (57:19.519)
You

Milton Allimadi (57:24.697)
Can we somehow massage the narrative of what transpired? And Mali Prabh said, okay, why don't you add an extra this and that and that, and then you go ahead and write what you want to do, you know? So long as you don't make us look that bad, you see? And at the end, read the very last part of the article.

Adesoji Iginla (57:30.615)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (57:46.231)
where it says

Milton Allimadi (57:47.734)
The very last paragraph, Mali probably said, I'm happy with that.

Adesoji Iginla (57:52.024)
Wait, it says, wait a second. I want to bring it up again. It goes, I'm just going to share it. One second. Okay, so we share and it goes.

So the last part says, the Malian government is a, OK, so the last, the Malian government is among several military regimes in the Sahel region of Africa that has turned to more aggressive tactics in order to gain more control over their domestic critical minerals, supplies. More intervention is taking by policymakers in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have included rewriting of mining laws and demand

Milton Allimadi (58:15.033)
The last two, right?

Adesoji Iginla (58:40.809)
for higher tax payments and larger ownership of stakes in mines.

Milton Allimadi (58:45.601)
See, so that's the lead of the article. But Barik said, we put that at the top, it's going to look like we are completely defeated. So if you don't mind, let's put that at the bottom and then we can put whatever we like in the beginning. And Mali probably said, okay, so long as you pay us enough.

Adesoji Iginla (59:01.335)
You

You can do as you want with your newspaper. OK. OK. OK. OK. And so we go to our final story. But before then, I'd like to say thank you to Anthony Kwashi and Marlon Husby for gifting the show. Thank you. It's a wonderful thing. Thank you very much. Thank you. And so to that, before we go on, we ask viewers

Milton Allimadi (59:06.57)
That's my reading of it.

Adesoji Iginla (59:34.199)
who haven't subscribed yet, you know what to do. Please subscribe, share. Yeah, it's important. We're trying to get to the 2,000 subscriber mark by the end of 2025. And hopefully we get that, with your help, of course. And so the final story comes from a familiar company.

It comes from Al Jazeera and the story is that a US group sues Apple over DR Congo's conflict minerals. International rights advocates also sued Tesla for a similar issue but the case was dismissed. so it goes a rights group has filed a lawsuit in Washington DC accusing Apple of using minerals linked to conflict and human rights

abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC, and Rwanda despite the iPhone maker's denials. The international rights advocates, IRAs advocates, previously sued Tesla, Apple, and other tech firms over cobalt sourcing, but the US courts dismissed that case last year. So the question is, why now?

Who wants to go first?

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:01.175)
Who is the Apple user in the house? Who wants to go first?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:07.847)
Let me just make this comment based on the article. First of all, I appreciate any outside groups who are agitating in any way to help impact or bring about changes in terms of what these multinational corporations are doing around the world. While we've been so focused on...

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:17.58)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (01:01:18.225)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:28.839)
these artificial borders, you know, what country is this and all that. The multinational corporations are borderless, right? You're based and corporate in one place and you're doing business all over the world and every continent and your money is flowing through all the channels. And so these borders are really to keep people in more so than in any way prevent

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:31.285)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:38.039)
True.

Milton Allimadi (01:01:43.666)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:55.976)
capitalism from doing what it does in the hands of imperialists in particular. So I'm very grateful for this group and for their advocacy because it costs money to file lawsuits, it costs money to litigate anything. And certainly to the extent that they are not directly being impacted.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:57.313)
from moving. Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:16.304)
In these countries they could they probably you know have you know somewhat privileged lives here They don't have to be bothered. So first and foremost, thank you to them for taking this on But you always also have to look at what your

your legal strategy is. You can sue for pretty much anything now. Sometimes a judge may come back and say this is a frivolous suit, but people are suing all the time. But in this case, I think that I like the shift in their strategy from saying there's a human rights violation going on or their child labor laws that are being violated. Because again, we've seen how they go back and pressure these African leaders. And they change the child labor laws to where they're, you know,

There's virtually no laws protecting young kids. But for them to change, move their tactic from, there's some violations going on in terms of ethics or human rights, and instead focus on there is defective advertising going on here. You guys are lying in your advertising, which is something that in...

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:22.391)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:28.121)
many other Western countries, not so much the United States, because we love, they lie so much on TV. And of course, the felon in chief is the chief liar here in this country. But at the same time, that I think has a much more, it has an easier route to them, quote unquote, winning.

than the first drought. Now recognize that they're not asking for any kind of monetary compensation or anything. It's really, I think, a way to gain awareness of these issues and to get the people, the masses, to put pressure on these organizations. So if you think of blood diamonds from decades ago and the idea that people started to say, hey, I want to know if the diamond I'm purchasing,

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:01.377)
No. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:19.483)
is a blood diamond or if it has been certified that it is not. And so if you get more people who use these Apple products every day, who are driving the Teslas or whatever, but have a little bit of humanity in them, who are saying, wait a second, you mean a six-year-old mined this cobalt for me?

want that, that maybe that could put pressure on these and these multinational corporations to start doing, stop doing business as usual. Now in terms of Apple denying, hello, yeah, what you expect them to come out and tell you these are all the ways that we're maximizing profits, then of course it's always the part of, hey, I just get it from my suppliers. I don't know what my suppliers are doing. Yeah, you don't know because you don't want to know.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:57.783)
But we're sorry.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:10.102)
No, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:10.591)
And so I think this is just a way and successful to get more awareness about these issues and to hopefully get the masses to put the pressure on these organizations, these corporations to change the way that they do business. But ultimately, I am not waiting on any white saviors. African countries should be protecting our wealth and our people.

And so we should not need some court in the United States of America to say Apple is violating any kind of laws when they are operating right in our countries on our own land. We should be the ones like hopefully Mali has done addressing codes and saying, either make these changes or get out.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:08.587)
Simple.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:08.635)
And like Alamadi said, there will be other people who show up. And then again, if you want to do business with us, you're going to respect our people, you're going to respect our land, and you're certainly not going to use our children. But just understanding that our leaders have to do this because there's so much poverty that parents really are willing to have six and seven and eight year olds go to help bring resources back into the family. And this is not unique to Africa.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:12.407)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:38.513)
I mean, even here in the United States, if you go back, some of you in your families, those of you who are watching, no family members, hey, a woman in resistance, we just covered this with Ms. McCarty. She dropped out of school in the sixth grade to help her family. So we know that when there are few options, children will become, know, their labor will be used like adult's labor, and we have to change those circumstances.

Milton Allimadi (01:07:08.316)
Yeah, no, that's very good. You covered pretty much all the bases. I think, obviously, young people need to be involved in campaigns, but how many young people are really willing to switch from their Apple products to some other products? You know, that's big challenge. I know some people, young people, that will die for their Apple products, you see?

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:08.343)
Milton?

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:35.425)
You

Milton Allimadi (01:07:38.224)
And that's a challenge. But if young people really got into doing some slick produced campaigns, would have instant, would have more impact than even the lawsuits really. Very much so. Because now the consumers themselves are coming out and protesting, protesting with their money by switching to other products. That would be the best and the fastest solution really.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:57.077)
be leading.

Milton Allimadi (01:08:07.292)
for this situation. But yes, at some point, and Congo needs, of course, to do this Sahelian solution as well, in terms of its minerals. And there might be something, I think Kagame and Shekere are supposed to finally sign that agreement in the White House. I think it's probably this coming week, actually. So that could also

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:29.473)
Washington.

Milton Allimadi (01:08:37.947)
be an issue. I don't know if it's an issue in terms of the timing of this. But I see in the article that even with the story about the lawsuit, Apple shares did not go down, they went up, actually. So it means it seems that the market is anticipating that this thing is not going to be a major thing. Maybe they're reading that, okay, now you have these two presidents coming to the White House. You know, that perhaps...

means the US is going to be much more involved in this process. Maybe the multiple invasions from Rwanda, if it doesn't end, maybe at least it's going to be tapering off for a bit. So it seems like that's how the market is reading it, at least, because the article said the shares went up. I think that's the only thing I can add. I think the sister covered a lot of ground. Yes, six and so many of y'alls.

work in these mines because if they're not working there, they're either going to be fetching water or they're going to be working on farms, you know? And then in terms of the corporation, Krumah warned about the powers of the multinational. Krumah said in the introduction to neo-colonialism, the last year during imperialism, that the corporation and its power and what it can do to undermine Africa is now going to be replacing what

foreign governments used to do, you see? And that's what he said, and that's exactly what is happening today.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:13.737)
So, so, Again, I think we fight on all fronts. I appreciate what jenny in the chat is saying She's saying there are tons of no brand name smart watches that do all the things. She says i'm wearing one. jenny i'm wearing one too. I think I paid 24.99 for mine I've had it for a couple years. Thank you. Yes under 25 dollars I get made fun of by those who feel like should have a

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:13.74)
Wow.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:42.495)
An Apple watch it shows a certain level of pedigree. I want the pedigree. So make fun all you want But no, but you're right we have to make we have to make changes and how we shop how we show up I was reading something earlier today that said even though they were supposed to be this blackout That yes that during this whole thanks black Friday that Americans actually spent 10 % more

than they did at the same time last year. You all are. Not you all, not the people watching here. Just you all get this. But we are crazy. We are insane. The way we participate in our own oppression. Really? Like, what else are you buying? Seriously? Okay. All right.

Milton Allimadi (01:11:22.88)
Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (01:11:31.766)
Yeah. Yeah, no, 100%. I agree.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:38.771)
They didn't see a penny of my money. Not at all. No.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:41.791)
OK. OK. Thank you. Thank you both for coming through today. We've come to the end of another episode of African News Review. on that very chat food. Yeah, one more reminder, actually. We're going to be speaking on women and resistance this Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. We're going to be

looking at the lives and times of Brave Fu, the Queen of St. John. It promises to be as explosive as the sister just rounded up just now. And so with that said, any final thoughts? Comrade.

Milton Allimadi (01:12:27.97)
All the best and continue on.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:29.761)
Fiction setter. And sister?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:32.767)
Share, share, share, share, share the platform. I think most of you agree we are here working and trying to do our best and giving information that's really helpful. Lots of nonsense gets shared. Please share this and let's grow our viewership so that we have more people taking informed action.

Milton Allimadi (01:12:42.37)
Definitely.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:52.919)
Yes. And before we go, I must share this quote from again, Amiko Cabra. He says, we must act as if our answer to and only answer to our ancestors and our children and the yet unborn. Whatever it is we do now, it is for them, for those who have come before us, for those who are with us, and for those who are yet to come. And that's very

Milton Allimadi (01:13:14.356)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:21.943)
powerful note. I would like to thank everyone who has given, who has liked, shared, subscribed. Until next week, it's good night and God bless.