ATTENCAO

By Olusegun Adeniyi From the Gayawa Fulani settlement in Birnin Kebbi local government where I encountered more than 200 children of school age whose parents are desirous that they be educated but seem helpless; to Ruggar-Era, another Fulani town in Argungu local government—where more than a hundred women gathered to receive me along with their young children who also have no school to attend—I came face to face with the contradictions of the Nigerian condition on Monday in Kebbi State. The visit also opened my eyes to the danger that confronts our nation if we continue to ignore what has become the class dimension to the ‘Fulani crisis’ as well as the endless possibilities of what can be gained if we do the right thing. The Permanent Secretary, Kebbi State Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Alhaji Usman Umar Dakingari, who served as my tour guide and interpreter, had with him a few other government officials as well as the Financial Secretary of the Kebbi State Miyyetti...

In Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther,” the hero and his antagonist are essentially duelling responses to five centuries of African exploitation at the hands of the West. By Jelani Cobb The Maison des Esclaves stands on the rocky shore of Gorée Island, off the coast of Senegal, like a great red tomb. During the years of its operation, the building served as a rendezvous point for slavers trafficking in a seemingly inexhaustible resource: Africans, whose very bodies became the wealth of white men. A portal known as the “Door of No Return,” leading to the slave ships, offered the forlorn captives a last glimpse of home, before they were sown to the wind and sold in the West. For nearly four centuries, this traffic continued, seeding the populations of the Caribbean, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Central and North America, and draining societies of their prime populations while fomenting civil conflict among them in order to more effectively cull their people. On the high seas, the ve...