Slavery In Mauritania And The Shame Of A Continent

 By Osmund Agbo

In November 2017, the world watched in utter disbelief, some cringed-worthy footage aired by CNN where dozens of men in detention facilities were being auctioned off for as little as $400 each in Libya. If you think that was a fluke, the crew was also told of the existence of similar auctions taking place at nine other locations in the country.

The victims? People that look like me that belong in the melanin-rich subset of Africans. The traffickers were our brothers, a shade or two lighter from the north. But that’s just a tip of the proverbial iceberg. Slavery is alive and thriving in Africa by Africans.

What if I tell you that the last country in the whole wide world to outlaw slavery is a country in the continent of Africa. Yes, that is Mauritania, in 1981. To put it in perspective, that was some 116 years after the US Congress ratified the 13th amendment which stated that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”

Heavens Will Fall If A Northerner Succeeds Buhari

 By Charles Okoh

You probably would have read or listened to a rabble-rouser who goes by the name Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, spokesman of the Northern Elders’ Forum, when he spoke recently, as he always does, as though he has authority to speak on behalf of a superficial monolithic north, that heavens would not fall if the presidency remains in the north after President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

*Sultan of Sokoto, Buhari and others

To be sure, I am not particularly interested in where the president comes from, what religion he practises or the language he speaks. This divisive and base level politicking is engineered by those who have continued to impede the growth and development of the nation for their selfish interests alone.

However, you cannot be in the Nigeria of today and pretend not to know that with the precarious situation the nation is now, what has now come to be known as rotational presidency remains the only way this nation can survive. It is the only way to give all the sense of belonging, fairness, equity and justice. Tempers have risen; the mutual suspicion in the air is so thick you can literally slice it with a knife. It is that bad. In a normal clime; merit should be the watchword; but ours is anything but normal.