“You kept your knee on our neck. We had creative skills, but we couldn’t get your knee off our neck. It’s time for us in George’s name to stand up and say, ‘Get your knee off our necks.’” – Rev. Al Sharpton
Even the dead knows what is going on right now, that the world has been busy, taking the knee for George Floyd. From the streets, states, and counties, to nation-states, and at the global level, individuals, families, organizations, and governments are rethinking their values and structures, to eliminate discrimination at all levels.
Unfortunately, some are making a mockery of this movement to appease specific interests.
They ignore the actual subject and mischievously compose some trivial storylines to vindictively suppress the blows of this historic movement. Of course, in any political arena, oppositions or dissenting views are expected. Yet racism in today’s world is unanimously a taboo!
Ever since the revelation of Floyd’s incident, the Trump campaign has put her on a hit job – a paid mission to demonize and exacerbate everything bedeviling the Black race.
So, let me go straight and present my first exhibit – a troubled Black pro-Trump conservative activist, Candace Owens. Candace is a University of Rhode Island dropout often used by the Tea-Party Republican sect to promote a very extreme racist agenda. She is Black. Ever since the revelation of Floyd’s incident, the Trump campaign has put her on a hit job – a paid mission to demonize and exacerbate everything bedeviling the Black race. Evidently, she is giving them their money’s worth, spewing some horrible anti-Floyd rhetoric all over the social media.
But I am not worried about Candace just the same way I was never worried about Omarosa. My major concern is when my Nigerian brethren, who are indeed going through similar severe injustice back home begin to thoughtlessly sound like Candace. This brings me to my second exhibit, Reno Omokri, who by the way, did a good piece, titled “George Floyd, The Black Race, and The Greatest Love of All.”
Omokri is also a black man who hails from a country described by President Donald Trump as a “shithole country.” Also, he was the Special Assistant to Nigeria’s former President, Goodluck Jonathan who consequently became a diehard critic of the current regime. This is understandable because it was this regime that ousted Jonathan.
Omokri followers, or perhaps, many others may not see anything wrong with his “Greatest Love of All” article because he started by denouncing racism. Yet, there is everything wrong with it. We must not be deceived by every racist, supremacist, and even enablers of racism, including Candace, who would tell you that they do not tolerate racism because that is usually their way to woo your attention. Unfortunately, they also carry the Bible and could recite any verse to camouflage their wickedness and acts of deception.
Clearly, Omokri cannot hide his support for Donald Trump after lying to Nigerians that former President Barack Obama orchestrated Goodluck Jonathan’s removal from office.
Clearly, Omokri cannot hide his support for Donald Trump after lying to Nigerians that former President Barack Obama orchestrated Goodluck Jonathan’s removal from office. This was an incumbent president who led his country for 6 years, had total control of power, including security and the electoral process – but lost flat-out and conceded without incidents. Thus, Omokri and his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) championed the racist agenda of the Trump regime, even as this President has never hidden his hatred for Nigerians.
Rather than join the global condemnation of racism, this group of Nigerians chooses to reroute their narratives about how Blacks are their victim. And here is Omokri in his own words:
“Look at the knife crimes in London. Who is killing who? Look at the murders in Chicago. Who is killing who? Even look at the abortion rate per race. Who is killing their unborn children?”
Well, these are not new because we have already heard them on Fox TV. They are campaign catchphrases circulating among the extreme conservative base and media space. Ill-advisedly, Omokri was not done with his preaching of love as he goes on to tell us that in America…
“many East Coast Blacks don’t like West Coast Blacks.
And many Blacks on both American coasts don’t like African Blacks.
Caribbean Blacks don’t like African Blacks.”
To cap it up, he dug his own grave with a bombshell:
“We cannot behave as if #BlackLivesMatter only when a White person does the killing.
If Black lives matter, it should matter above board.
It should matter when Blacks kill Blacks and when Blacks hate Blacks and when Blacks discriminate Blacks.”
The irony about these trash-phrases is that Omokri comes from a Nigerian minority underdeveloped community crying for years about the domination and degradation of their territory by the Hausa/Fulani controlled Federal Government. He has actually made a career opposing the current Nigerian regime as ethnic racists, equally accusing them of tribalism and socio-economic injustice – and he wanted the world to listen!
In January, Omokri’s PDP members stormed the embassy of the United States of America and the United Kingdom High Commission in Abuja to protest what it called a perversion of justice in Nigeria. Really? So where was Omokri’s greatest love of all because in Nigeria, Nigerians also perpetrate crime and fraud against each other? Does he want me to veer to that angle and unseal the can? I will resist the urge to do that now to mitigate against opening the proverbial pandora’s box –because heads might roll.
The inanity around Omoki’s article is that George Floyd’s issue is not necessarily a campaign to publicize the horrible incident involving the police or “how Blacks kill Blacks”, but a movement borne out of the severity of his ordeal to confront head-on, the devastations of racial discrimination systematically condoned by the system.
The inanity around Omoki’s article is that George Floyd’s issue is not necessarily a campaign to publicize the horrible incident involving the police or “how Blacks kill Blacks”, but a movement borne out of the severity of his ordeal to confront head-on, the devastations of racial discrimination systematically condoned by the system. You may call it systemic racism, but smart leaders around the world have used this movement to propose an overhaul of their law enforcement system. As Reverend Al Sharpton rightly put it, “George Floyd’s story is the story of black folks,” which recurs because the system has refused to “Get ‘their’ Knee Off Our Necks.”
So, for dumb skulls who do not know, the current global movement against racism is the diktat of a new paradigm. It is an agent of transformation ─ the most fundamental stage of informal governance reformation pattern strategically facilitated by the people to summon a new framework of thinking. Organizational paradigm is reinforced by the people and it outlines how individuals perceive the world.
It is pertinent to note that the central point of value-based leadership is emphasizing and implementing values for the success and resilience of a people or nation. The value covenant of any administration will ensure unity, stability, policy conformance, and behavioral leadership by example. These principles are like the yeast that leavens the whole dough. Change and redirection towards value-based leadership begin with the realization and determination to change faulty processes in the system that clogs it from the path of integrity leadership.
So, rather than a crooked composition of “Greatest Love”, Omokri could have led his oppressed people of the South-South to the streets of his country’s capital city, take the knee for George Floyd so the World would turn to their side; then make their case about injustice.
Thus, just within one week, governments all over the world are strategizing system reformation. In Ghana, one of Nigeria’s neighbor, the people and government joined by the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and former presidents Jerry John Rawlings and John Dramani Mahama, organized a memorial ceremony last week and honored George with a resolve to support blacks all over the world to break from racism. In Minneapolis where George was murdered, the City has proposed dismantling of its police force because the existing Police Department cannot be reformed. A majority of the City Council are currently rethinking public safety from the ground up in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. No, they are no banning the Police. They are taking it from the current dysfunctional structure to a higher development echelon relevant to justice and fairness.
So, rather than a crooked composition of “Greatest Love”, Omokri could have led his oppressed people of the South-South to the streets of his country’s capital city, take the knee for George Floyd so the World would turn to their side; then make their case about injustice. The last time I checked, social media rantings do not make policies or drive reformatory actions.
And let me strongly advise: As long as Nigerians remain unsympathetic and irrational about ordeals of other nations, the world would always overlook their sufferings. This is a sad reality!
♦ Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D. is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News.
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