Udora Orizu in Abuja
The House of Representatives at the plenary yesterday mandated its Committees on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora to collaborate between themselves and organise a conference of local and international stakeholders towards fashioning comprehensive approaches to the festering challenge of discrimination, annihilation and racial cleansing, being perpetrated against Nigerians and black people all over the world.
The resolution was sequel to the adoption of a motion entitled: ‘Urgent need for a review of Nigeria’s foreign policy towards liberating the black man from racial oppression and discrimination across the world’, sponsored by Hon. Garba Datti Muhammad.
Moving the motion, Muhammad recalls that Nigeria attained independence in October 1960 after the British colonial rule that spanned over a century, and only after a bitter struggle lasting decades, made possible by the contributions of nationalists like Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello among others.
The lawmaker also recalled that the dehumanisation to which the Nigerian people were subjugated to left an indelible yearning to confront denial, discrimination and oppression of any form but particularly on account of the colour of their skin.
He said the House is aware that for the aforementioned reasons, on attainment of independence, Africa became the centerpiece of Nigeria’s foreign policy.
Muhammad expressed concerns on the continuing and increasing dehumanisation of Nigerians, Africans and black people across the world particularly in the United States, Europe and Asia.
He lamented that political independence and civil rights legislation do not mean anything for black people who continue to live in bondage.
The House member raised the alarm that if this trend of discrimination, annihilation, genocide and ‘racial cleansing’ being perpetrated against black people all over the world is not halted, there will cease to be a black population on earth in due course.
According to him, ‘’We are distressed that daily reports are coming in of the endless dehumanisation of black people across the world, including being indiscriminately shot, dismembered and maimed in places like the United States by none other than agents of the state.
‘’Being mauled, maimed and lynched by dogs being set upon them by private individuals and agents of the state in Asia, particularly China; being subjected to monkey chants in stadia and other arena around Europe; humiliations, dehumanisation and killings that neither time, money nor material can erase.”
