EP 2 Gold, Garbage and Geopolitics I African News Review 🌍

In this episode, Adesoji Iginla and Milton Allimadi discuss various pressing issues affecting Africa, including the recent peace negotiations between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the role of African institutions in conflict resolution, and the implications of mineral resources in peacebuilding tactics. 

They also delve into the environmental crisis caused by Western waste in Africa, media control in Togo, and the media's role in shaping narratives around global conflicts. 

The conversation emphasises the need for proactive leadership and the importance of citizen journalism in the face of propaganda.

Takeaways

*Congo's political leadership is weak, leading to external manipulation.
*Rwanda's aggression in the DRC is a significant concern.
*Mineral resources are often leveraged in peace negotiations.
*Sudan's gold smuggling finances ongoing conflicts.
*Africa is being used as a dumping ground for Western waste.
*Media control in Togo reflects broader issues of press freedom.
*The New York Times has been criticised for its warmongering narratives.
*Social media plays a crucial role in shaping public opinion.
*Proactive leadership is essential for Africa's development.
*Citizen journalism is vital in combating media propaganda.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Overview of Current Events
01:12 Congo and Rwanda Peace Deal: A Complex Situation
06:26 The Role of African Institutions in Conflict Resolution
08:48 Mineral Wealth as a Tool for Peace or Chaos?
10:44 Sudan's Gold Smuggling and Conflict Financing
16:40 Environmental Crisis: The Impact of Western Waste on Africa
22:52 The Impact of Fast Fashion on African Economies
26:00 Colonial Logic and Economic Exploitation
30:35 Media Bias and the Role of Journalism
35:57 The Propaganda Machine: Understanding Media Narratives

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:07.678)
Yes, greetings, greetings, and welcome to another episode of African News Review. Your host, as usual, Adeesoji Iginla. With me is comrade Inayamza, comrade Milton Alimadi, host of Black Star News on WBAI, author of the book, Manufacturing Hate. And we...

Milton Allimadi (00:32.333)
Thank you, sir.

Adesoji Iginla (00:35.614)
We bring you our normal news review, although in a very unusual week, but we'll get into the crux of the matter. How are you, sir? How are you, sir?

Milton Allimadi (00:45.825)
Very good, excellent, excellent. Good to see you, Conrad.

Adesoji Iginla (00:49.384)
Yeah, as always. So without further ado, let's go into the first story, which comes from the Financial Times. And in any other circumstances, it should be good news. owing to not just the platform it's written on, but also the circumstances of the new story, you will see what I am alluding to. And so the story goes, Congo and Rwanda near truce after Donald Trump's push.

countries agreed draft peace deal after White House initiates negotiation. We've talked about this story in the past, the fact that the parties, the aggrieved parties were pulled to the table and asked to negotiate a deal because the man occupying the White House decided that was the best way to go. And so the crux of the matter is the US State Department said technical teams

have initialed the agreement on Wednesday ahead of a formal signing ceremony on June 27 in Washington, DC, and hope for a summit between President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Felix Tishikedi of the DRC Congo. When you read the story, what jumped out at you? Or basically, do you want to first of all comment on the story itself and then give us your take?

Milton Allimadi (02:17.452)
Well, you know, I think Congo has such a army and such a weak political leadership that there were only two choices. Be defeated by Rwanda and Rwanda would then install a puppet regime, somebody they would probably extract from M23, which is this,

Adesoji Iginla (02:20.543)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Hmm. Okay.

Milton Allimadi (02:46.162)
random creation or

Now run for help. And he ran to help, for help to the United States. And he offered mineral, access to minerals. And as you know, Donald Trump likes quid pro quo, or Senate for me. And he saw something in it for him.

Adesoji Iginla (03:00.34)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (03:05.734)
Access to minerals, yep.

Milton Allimadi (03:21.13)
gave the nod to his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Let's go ahead with this, see where it ends.

And of course, as Pan-Africans, this is just another and, every week we discuss the manifestation of African weakness, you know, political weakness, primarily political weakness. It starts with the bad politics because then that translates into everything else. So ordinarily, you would hope that Congo, for whatever issues it has, can rely on

Adesoji Iginla (03:41.098)
Hmm.

Milton Allimadi (04:00.564)
fellow African countries, neighboring countries. But in this case, of course, Rwanda is the aggressor.

Uganda is another aggressor that's stealing Congo's resources. In the case of Rwanda, whole set of minerals, in the case of Uganda, primarily gold. Both countries export minerals, resources in excess, particularly last year, in excess of $1 billion, stolen from Congo.

Adesoji Iginla (04:13.226)
Hmm. But just,

Milton Allimadi (04:39.785)
So of course, Uganda is an aggressor. Uganda is another aggressor. Uganda is not going to help mediate, you know, since it's an interested party with blood on its hands as well under dictator Museveni. They tried at one point to bring in Kenya. And then there are all these reports that the Kenyan president or his associates are also wheeling and dealing because there a lot of minerals.

opportunity to make a lot of money as individuals, even though the money should benefit the people of the Congo. Tanzania is another major country in the region. And of course, Tanzania, relatively much more politically stable compared to all the rest. But Tanzania has not shown a lot, much interest.

Adesoji Iginla (05:15.113)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (05:29.342)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (05:37.012)
So.

Milton Allimadi (05:37.864)
I think it's so messy Tanzania is like, know what? Tanzania intervened once. I think it was 2012 or 2013 when the UN authorized an intervention force to push out M23. And some of the soldiers came from Tanzania and they helped to drive. They routed M23, they dispersed them back into Uganda and Rwanda.

Adesoji Iginla (05:44.798)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (05:55.924)
That was 2013.

Milton Allimadi (06:07.364)
Since then, Tanzania has not shown much interest. And that is where I ultimately, at Shikheti, ran all the way to the United States, to Washington. So this is the outcome now. It looks like it will materialize. It looks like the US has inserted itself to such an extent that Rwanda has no choice. It's not a question of whether.

Kagame will allow it to happen. When the intervention was involving the East African community nations, involving some of the Sadak nations at one point, even the African Union, Kagame would afford to embarrass those organizations and do what he thought was in the interest of his regime.

in Rwanda. But now when you have a major country like the United States involved, he has to be much more careful. It's difficult for him to maneuver himself out of this deal. think it came to the extent and offer that none of the parties could refuse. Now there's one other observation I would like to make.

Adesoji Iginla (07:26.654)
Hmm.

Milton Allimadi (07:32.738)
I don't know what role Uganda is going to be playing in this. Kagame and Museveni are bitter enemies. I think each of them does not believe both of them can survive at the same time, you see? So I think Rwanda would do everything to exclude Uganda from benefiting from this kind of arrangement.

Adesoji Iginla (07:43.187)
Okay.

Milton Allimadi (08:02.146)
So that's what I'm going to keep my eyes on. Uganda is not a signatory to the deal. You know, it's the foreign minister of Rwanda and of Congo who were signing initially. And then it's going to be Kagame and Shikedi. There's no mention of Museveni in this arrangement. So let's wait and see how this unfolds.

Adesoji Iginla (08:06.634)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (08:22.355)
Hmm

Adesoji Iginla (08:27.242)
OK, so I've got three questions related to this news article. So the first would be, you named a couple of countries there, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania. So I suppose the question from the outside looking in would be, what role should the financial institutions, or is the fact that such a deal is going ahead not an indictment on the

Milton Allimadi (08:30.839)
Yes, sir.

Adesoji Iginla (08:56.454)
African institutions, and specifically the regional bodies.

Milton Allimadi (09:03.387)
in terms of what could they have done?

Adesoji Iginla (09:08.324)
Yes, in terms of what they could have done that's to the point where now you have an outsider. Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (09:13.282)
They can't, you see? They think there's a problem. The East African community cannot function normally. mean, for example, Eko-Wars has its major problems. It's in a crisis now, right? With these countries moving away. But believe me, it's accomplished recently much more than the East African community has, you see?

Adesoji Iginla (09:30.302)
Yep, yep, yep.

Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (09:43.455)
You can point to some of the accomplishments. You can say played an important role in the Gambia, in Sierra Leone, in Liberia, right? You can say that, but you can't say much for these African communities because it's distorted by the personal interest of the individual leaders.

Adesoji Iginla (09:44.266)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (09:55.559)
in Côte d'Ivoire.

Adesoji Iginla (10:08.936)
Mmm

Milton Allimadi (10:10.738)
So you have most many of the countries in West Africa. There are a few outliers, but many of them are now adopting term limits, at least a few of them, you know, including Nigeria, of course. So we don't have that in Uganda. We have it in Tanzania and in Kenya. That's why those two countries are relatively much more stable. We don't have that in Rwanda. So you cannot have

Adesoji Iginla (10:22.696)
OK? Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (10:28.202)
Mmm.

Milton Allimadi (10:38.961)
institutions functioning effectively when individuals are more powerful than the institutions. In the case of Uganda, with 7, in the case of Rwanda, with Kagam, then therein lies the problem. You know, that's why I said in the beginning, it starts with the leadership. You know, when we have bad leadership, bad politics, it just affects everything else, you know.

Adesoji Iginla (10:49.118)
done.

Adesoji Iginla (11:07.178)
Okay, so final question would be, we've seen how the use of minerals is being used as a peace tactic. Would that be the modus operandi going forward now? Depending on what you have would determine whether you get peace or imposed chaos as it were.

Milton Allimadi (11:17.779)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (11:32.445)
Absolutely. No, no, you have answered the question. Absolutely without without a doubt and because

Adesoji Iginla (11:39.199)
Hmm.

Milton Allimadi (11:41.661)
First of all, we shouldn't be leveraging our minerals for any reason. We should be using it to produce manufactured products, you see? But in the absence of that, you are seen as resource-rich real estate. And the attitude that the outside world, that the way they relate

to African countries, just as you would relate to plantation back in the days of plantation slavery, where you have enslaved Africans producing cotton or tobacco or sugar. In this case, you have Africans who are literally enslaved by their own so-called African rulers. They're producing all these resources.

whether it's tea, whether it's still cotton, whether it's coffee, whether it's cocoa, whether it's the minerals in these mines. There's no difference between that if you look at it realistically, you see? So our struggle remains the same, to remove neo-colonial leadership that is selling out Africa so that we can have leaders that care.

Adesoji Iginla (12:55.818)
Hmm.

Milton Allimadi (13:08.614)
for the welfare of Africans and use our resources to create prosperity in Africa. We see some signs in the Sahel states. That's the argument that they're pitching. We see even countries like Senegal has young, enlightened leadership right now. Those are the kind of trends we need to see in all African countries.

Either the Sahel model or either the Senegal model.

Adesoji Iginla (13:37.811)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (13:44.362)
Okay, so for our next story, we still stay with the Financial Times, but this time it highlights the curse of mineral wealth, and it's Sudan. And so it says Sudan record prices fuel surge in Sudan's conflict gold smuggling. And the lead say much of these precious minerals is transported through the UAE and used to finance warring parties.

It says record high gold prices are following a surge in mining in Sudan, unlocking a crucial source of revenue for the country's warring parties and allowing them to finance the conflict. We ran this story a couple of weeks ago with regards to the government and the side of HMETI, the RSF.

funneling the gold through South Sudan and flying it off into the UAE. And the question I broached then was, if the world knows that this is essentially conflict minerals, why is it that they've not done what they did in Sierra Leone and placed sanctions on the gold emanating from Sudan?

Milton Allimadi (15:04.487)
Okay, that's a good question. Well, first of all,

When we say the world, we are talking about the non-African world, primarily the European world, but not only the European world. When we say they really don't care for the human beings.

Adesoji Iginla (15:20.927)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (15:26.09)
Mmm.

Milton Allimadi (15:27.633)
and which connects to the comment I just made a few minutes ago. The human beings sort of are like the backdrop, you see? The most important thing are the minerals, the resources. So the people are just the backdrop. So right now,

what is much more valuable, the lives of Africans in Sudan or the gold?

Obviously to Africans, the lives of Africans, but to the countries, the people that are benefiting from the gold, obviously to them the gold is much more important. Otherwise, how do you keep engaging with these individuals to extract gold after more than 100,000 people have been killed in this war?

Adesoji Iginla (15:58.867)
Mmm.

Milton Allimadi (16:26.29)
More than 10 million have been displaced from their homes in this war. But this is not that much different from the situation with the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well. It's actually very similar. You know, in the case of the Congo, the official president of the country, Chukwedi, went to the United States and he pitched this deal.

Adesoji Iginla (16:34.239)
Mm.

Milton Allimadi (16:55.405)
and because he saw that as critical to his survival, right? So in Sudan, we have two generals fighting. General Burhan, who is the leader of the official national army in Khartoum, which was contested a few weeks ago. His forces captured the whole of Khartoum. On the other hand, we have the other general, Hemeti.

who is the leader of the rapid, is it response forces or something like that thing.

Adesoji Iginla (17:32.458)
Yeah, response first. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Milton Allimadi (17:34.802)
and they're fighting for control of the country. And each one of them, the leader of the official army, who of course is not really an elected or legitimate president, right? But the two, the two most powerful forces right now in the country are not the political institutions, but the military. The one led by Burhan and the one in Hamedi and the ones

Adesoji Iginla (17:50.89)
True.

Milton Allimadi (18:03.482)
and they involve in this really awful bloody war. I hate to call it civil war because there's nothing civil about these internal conflicts, right? And each of them are going around the world making a pitch that in return for gold, you know, this is what I need. So there's no difference between what they're doing and what Shekedi did.

Adesoji Iginla (18:12.735)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (18:16.702)
and single about it, correct? Yes, yes, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (18:26.954)
For the rest of...

Milton Allimadi (18:33.572)
You see, if you analyze it carefully, what's the difference? Resources, I give you access. You know, in this case, it's not really access. In this case, the physical gold is being flown out of the country from the part which is controlled by General Burhan with the National Army and by the part that is under the control of General Hamedi.

Adesoji Iginla (18:34.622)
Hm. Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (18:50.258)
out of the country.

Milton Allimadi (19:06.327)
And to be honest,

The global politics is very different right now. Right now, when you have Africans, when you have everybody, not just Africans being expelled, deported from the United States, you have anti-African sentiment widespread in European countries, you know? So you have a phase of demonization.

of blackness and Africans and Africaness. So it's going to be very difficult to make a pitch that, you know, if we don't buy conflict minerals, it's really going to elevate or help the quality of life of Africans. Why would you make a pitch like that when you really don't care about the quality of life of Africans, you see?

Adesoji Iginla (20:02.874)
Mmm. Mmm.

Milton Allimadi (20:10.294)
I think at that time, no really, when that whole gold campaign came, know, celebrities were involved in it, Celebrities were involved, so it got global traction. Right now, there's a whole mess of things going on. How do you get the interest of a celebrity to be interested in Sudan when you have people

Adesoji Iginla (20:11.057)
You

Adesoji Iginla (20:15.059)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (20:21.076)
Yep, yep.

Milton Allimadi (20:38.658)
being locked up right here in the United States. If I'm a celebrity, I would rather lend my energy to a cause like getting the release of Mahmoud Khalil, right? Or stopping the deportation. Absolutely, stopping the deportation of Haitians or Africans, you see?

Adesoji Iginla (20:43.207)
You

Adesoji Iginla (20:57.886)
He has been released, he has been released by the way.

Milton Allimadi (21:07.115)
So the timing is going to be very difficult to get that kind of campaign. And of course, we need to find solutions. At the end of the day, what the people in Sudan were doing was tremendous. You know, was the ordinary people, students, professionals, factory workers who went to the streets and

forced out the dictatorship of Muhammad Bashir, yeah, who had been there almost, you know, going on three decades. They removed him. But then the generals, the two generals have hijacked that transition that had been led by the Syrians. How can we reignite that? Obviously, right now, it's not possible when you open total war ongoing.

Adesoji Iginla (21:40.466)
Om Abash.

Adesoji Iginla (21:55.082)
Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (22:07.133)
You know, unfortunately, the fighting will have to die down before that process can be resumed. And who knows how long that will last since both of them have access to gold, to sell, to get weapons, and to continue fighting. You know?

Adesoji Iginla (22:08.137)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (22:27.689)
Yes, the motivation, as long as the motivation is there, it's very unlikely that, yeah, there will be a lull in the fight.

Milton Allimadi (22:31.572)
Right. Right. And now let me see if I'm an African president, right? Obviously, there are presidents and then there presidents. Saudi, I think you call it takataka or rubbish, We have many takataka leaders. But let's say I'm the president of Senegal, you know.

and I pick up the phone and I call the president of South Africa.

I call the president of Namibia. I call the president of Ghanaian president. Right?

Adesoji Iginla (23:07.124)
for that.

Milton Allimadi (23:15.08)
but suana so now you have five You're five five, you know, maybe You know, I would have said tanzania, but now President suzulu are just gone crazy lately locking up the opposition leader Absolutely determined to cling to power But let's say you find five or six respectable african leaders And you say you know what? Let's go and meet

Adesoji Iginla (23:20.81)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (23:30.65)
She's gone rogue, guys.

Milton Allimadi (23:44.755)
with Burhan. And then let's go and meet with Hamati.

Milton Allimadi (23:51.628)
Will they reject a meeting of that sort? I don't know.

Milton Allimadi (23:58.483)
I don't know, because how can we just stand and watch this kind of, you know, genocidal war in an African country? So those are just some thoughts. I'm just trying to think outside the box. Where could a new initiative and how can it materialize? I'm thinking outside the box. I'm thinking loudly, so to speak.

Adesoji Iginla (24:00.35)
The question.

Adesoji Iginla (24:11.242)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (24:23.85)
mean, there's nothing one cannot fault you for doing that. The question is, what would be the motivation for them to do that based on the fact that the recently elected

Milton Allimadi (24:35.144)
Well, I mentioned these, I mentioned them because these are the ones who, I get the sense that they still have some moral conscience, know? Based on their statements, based on how they came into leadership, based on how they've conducted themselves. And it's very sad that I could only find, barely find 506.

Adesoji Iginla (24:46.492)
Okay, okay, okay.

Adesoji Iginla (24:59.306)
you

Milton Allimadi (25:01.364)
To mention, we showed you the kind of crisis we really are in right now.

Adesoji Iginla (25:02.663)
Okay.

in it.

Yeah, we do have a crisis. We have a crisis of leadership. do have a

Milton Allimadi (25:11.018)
I didn't mention the name of a major country, president of a major country like Nigeria. Think about that. Because obviously, who would take him seriously, you see?

Adesoji Iginla (25:21.322)
Mmm

Milton Allimadi (25:29.361)
You know? So we have a deep crisis. We have a crisis. We have crises upon crises upon crises. At the same time, as I said, there's some movement in places like the Sahel countries and of course in Senegal. You hope that spreads to more African countries.

Adesoji Iginla (25:56.754)
Yes, yes. Thinking of, yes, spread and thinking of spread, spread is not the word we want to use in the next story we go to, which is coming from The Guardian. And it reads discarded clothes from UK brands dumped in protected Ghana wetlands. Garments thrown.

Adesoji Iginla (26:23.7)
Garments thrown out by consumers from Next and George have found their way into Ghanaian wasteland. This is an environmental crisis without saying it, as if it's not obvious. But the fact that it's Africa that is bearing the brunt off

the so-called cheaper lifestyle in the West and globalization. How do you think we can get out of this? We seem to be the clearly dumping ground in this case, but we seem to be just.

Milton Allimadi (27:10.544)
Yes, not at this case alone. Mind you, we have electronic junk, we have toxic waste. This is just one example. In fact, this one is probably not even the worst, even though it's terrible, you know?

Adesoji Iginla (27:15.636)
Hmm. Gone.

I'm out. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (27:27.374)
Mm-hmm. The fact that...

Milton Allimadi (27:28.111)
We have expired pharmaceuticals that they sell to us. We have expired food products that they sell to the African continent. So this is one terrible example. And it comes down to you buying the products that you should be producing. You see?

Adesoji Iginla (27:53.596)
Mmm, yes, yes, yes.

Milton Allimadi (27:55.303)
you were producing, there would be no market for these garbage outfits that they dump in Africa. So in fact, what they're doing is they're transferring their waste disposal, as you said, to third parties. They're not bearing the cost of their production, you see.

Adesoji Iginla (28:13.386)
Mmm.

Milton Allimadi (28:21.958)
They're outsourcing that to Africa.

Adesoji Iginla (28:22.949)
It's

Adesoji Iginla (28:28.176)
It's really disturbing that here in the West you have protected lands and your birds are taken care of. OK, so the birds fly north in summer. In winter, they fly down south. Where are they coming to?

Milton Allimadi (28:51.801)
Well, you know, mean...

Adesoji Iginla (28:53.104)
If this is if you know if it's yeah.

Milton Allimadi (28:56.963)
No, but you see the guardian.

But look beyond the guardian human. What about the Africans themselves, the inhabitants, the human beings, you see?

Adesoji Iginla (29:05.119)
Mm.

Milton Allimadi (29:10.277)
So it's a double destruction, destruction of ecosystem, destruction of the animal world, the destruction of human beings. It's catastrophic really. And...

Adesoji Iginla (29:10.396)
Hmm. So you think we're, we're a couple of people as well.

Milton Allimadi (29:28.1)
I don't have the evidence, but Ghana, compared to many African countries, I'm sure, has a system, has a government that functions better than in many other African countries. So if Ghana is having this crisis, what about the other countries, right? Just imagine.

Adesoji Iginla (29:55.786)
Yes.

Milton Allimadi (29:57.259)
Of course in Ghana it's a major crisis because you have major urban areas in Ghana now that get white coverage and now this is affecting the water system. In fact, in many of the countries, not only the clothes, even the plastic products that they also dump in Africa.

Adesoji Iginla (30:21.522)
Yeah, use, use gauze.

Milton Allimadi (30:24.713)
Exactly, it's clogging up the drainage system. know? Yeah, but thankfully...

Adesoji Iginla (30:33.45)
It's.

Milton Allimadi (30:36.961)
You know, something like this, you can launch an effective campaign because the clothing industry with the brand names recognition, you can focus on them and they don't like bad publicity, you see? So this is something you can fight much more than you can fight, much more effectively than you can fight, at least for right now, the gold, the gold from Sudan, you know?

Adesoji Iginla (30:54.698)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (30:59.85)
How

Adesoji Iginla (31:04.754)
Yeah, yeah. From Sudan, yeah.

Milton Allimadi (31:08.072)
Exactly, because this one you can isolate some brand names and put pressure on them.

Adesoji Iginla (31:10.1)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (31:16.03)
So you said, I mean, you said we can hold them to account in terms of brand names and what have

Milton Allimadi (31:22.626)
Right.

Adesoji Iginla (31:25.214)
Would you say this constitutes or reflects a colonial logic of extraction and simply dumping? Because I mean, you alluded to it in the first place that this is stuff that we're supposed to be producing. But in this case, now you've got in the dye, you've got in the plants, you've got in everything. Now you're dumping your used or excess stock into the African market.

Milton Allimadi (31:34.806)
Mm-hmm.

You know.

Milton Allimadi (31:50.454)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (31:51.828)
to the detriment of our industries. I know there used to be a huge textile plant in Kaduna in the northern part of Nigeria that shuttered years ago simply because of cheap Chinese imports. And this is only contributing more to the problem, not just in terms of lack of opportunities in terms of employment, but also now detrimental to the place where the same people live.

Milton Allimadi (32:21.504)
Yeah, it's a double destruction. They destroyed your indigenous industries and then they burden you with the cost of cleaning up this waste that they should be dealing with in their own countries where they are manufacturing it, you know? Absolutely. And you know, the countries that manufacture, Industrialize. All of them.

When they started out, it's like when you have a child, right, you need to support that child until the child can stand on its own feet. You have to feed that child. You have to protect the child from intervention, anyone or anything that might harm that child. Then that child is ready. And that's how all of them create a...

Adesoji Iginla (33:02.282)
of age.

Milton Allimadi (33:19.748)
treated their industries when they started. They gave them that nurturing, that protection. They did not allow outsiders to interfere with their new child. They used tax tariff systems and then they lifted it once their child was also ready to compete. But with African countries, they won't let you do that.

Adesoji Iginla (33:31.956)
Compete. Yep.

you

Protection.

Milton Allimadi (33:49.918)
If you do that, they'll cut you off from World Bank and IMF financing. So it's like a double whammy. You need finance to build your industries. And the people who have the money to finance you give you conditions that prevent you from building these industries.

Adesoji Iginla (33:57.0)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (34:14.355)
Mmm.

That's a painful.

Milton Allimadi (34:20.989)
Yeah, but you know, we can't rely on the politics of victimhood as well. That will not take us anywhere. We need to be proactive like the Sahel countries. They're saying, okay, we have the gold.

Let's do business, but on our terms, you see? They're setting the terms. You don't like it too bad. You see? They're setting the terms and they're using the revenue to build their countries, unlike those two killer generals in Sudan, you see?

Adesoji Iginla (34:46.314)
You

Adesoji Iginla (34:57.328)
And yes, yes, yes.

Milton Allimadi (34:58.224)
If they were getting that money, they were getting those billions of dollars. The export, they said, I think it was worth $6 billion last year. Okay, so you're getting revenue of $6 billion. You're buying weapons, including bombs, and you're using the weapons to destroy, like cartoon, the buildings are leveled, right?

So you're better off not even having gold in a situation like that.

Adesoji Iginla (35:34.122)
It's really mind boggling the way some of our generals think. I suppose, well, if you're good at following orders, sometimes thinking is not second nature to you. Well, for our next story, we go to the Radio France International. And it's news that Togo has suspended

Milton Allimadi (35:35.4)
If

Adesoji Iginla (36:02.356)
French broadcaster Radio France International in France 24 for three months. The lead says, Togo late Monday announced it was suspending French public broadcasters Radio France International in France, France 24 for three months for an alleged lack of impartiality in their reporting. Well, they probably should come here and see what we do. And it says the measure follows repeated failings already reported and formally recalled.

in matters of impartiality, rigor, and fact checking according to a statement from Togo's high authority for audiovisual communications. What would you say? I mean, for me, this is a double-edged sword. There are two things here. One is modeling the press. One is modeling the free press. And another thing is the legacy of these so-called public broadcasters.

Milton Allimadi (36:47.772)
Right.

Adesoji Iginla (36:59.688)
leaves much to be desired. So I would go.

Milton Allimadi (37:00.121)
No, agree with you. It's double-edged sword. I think my sympathy or my, I guess my bias is looking at what is happening on the ground, you know, at that time. So for example, when I look at the Sahel states, they were being demonized as the cool belt. And then I would say, why are they being referred to as a cool belt?

with a negative connotation, right? And the connotation is that if they were not equal, somehow things would be better in those countries. And then I look at what they're doing. They're trying to take control of their economies, right? They're trying to build factories so they can produce internally. They're trying to control their currency. Yes, they're kicking out their French

Adesoji Iginla (37:32.286)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (37:47.21)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (37:53.274)
using their resources. Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (37:58.57)
Imperial, you know influence So when they say there's a media bias In demonizing them as just a cool belt I can understand that and relate to that you see but then but even then it doesn't mean I would give them a blanket pass, right? You know, I would look at things in that context But when they commit like egregious, you know

incidents, of course you need to call that out. But then when I look at Togo, I see you have a leader who wants to perpetuate, know, roots perpetually, you see? Yeah, Nasingbe. He wants to continue the legacy of his father who had ruled. Now he was president.

Adesoji Iginla (38:41.446)
extend his himself in power. Yes.

Milton Allimadi (38:58.804)
but he's bringing a new system where he would become prime minister and effectively continue ruling the country. see? So obviously when he's trying to muzzle media, in that case, I don't have sympathy, you see? I don't have sympathy. So I think we have to see it as a case by case situation. And in this case, I believe something tells me

Adesoji Iginla (39:14.794)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (39:23.818)
Correct.

Milton Allimadi (39:27.442)
that he does not want the coverage of the protests because there's resistance against what he's trying to do. opposition groups have come together to resist this power grab by him. So if his government is complaining about media, I'm sorry, I'm not sympathetic with him. I think he has much to hide because what he's trying to do, which is to prolong his rule.

Adesoji Iginla (39:50.493)
You

Milton Allimadi (39:57.372)
I agree with you, double-edged, so it's hard to just have a blanket position on these issues.

Adesoji Iginla (40:06.644)
So I mean, using the media in this case, I would want your take on the larger globe.

Milton Allimadi (40:12.723)
For example, what specifically do they have beef with? What was covered in a way that was egregious? So if there are specific examples of what they pointed out, we could discuss that and analyze that, But just to give a vague explanation, you know.

Adesoji Iginla (40:30.132)
Correct. Correct.

Milton Allimadi (40:37.831)
You know, if you give a vague explanation, that just confirms my suspicion. But here you are trying to suppress the protest against your attempt to prolong yourself in power, you know.

Adesoji Iginla (40:42.974)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (40:53.372)
of empower, yeah. Okay, so based on the take off that press, I won't say debacle anyway, being maligned by the government in charge, I want you to sort of extend that lens to the global atmosphere at the moment, which regards to the role that the press is playing in drum.

beaten for war because I follow you on social media and I saw you posted a post by the New York Times, headlined something to the effect of why I'm paraphrasing now that the case for war has been made, that kind of thing. Would you?

Milton Allimadi (41:32.211)
Right.

Milton Allimadi (41:42.829)
Right. Right. no, I mean, okay, so yeah, thank you for that. That's a good question. I like that because that reinforces the importance of our weekly conversation, which is to enlighten our people in terms of how to read the corporate media because they play a dominant role.

in global politics, economics, war and peace. So we have a situation, we have the Ukraine-Russia war, right? So the New York Times has not touched an inch in terms of condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Whether

Adesoji Iginla (42:27.274)
Yes, correct.

Adesoji Iginla (42:36.53)
Okay. Okay.

Milton Allimadi (42:40.685)
in terms of the slant of the news stories, whether in terms of the editorials published on the editorial page. It's unacceptable. Russia invaded. That's their line. Russia says, NATO was expanding using Ukraine as a Trojan horse, right, to penetrate closer to Russia.

Adesoji Iginla (42:56.778)
Hmm.

Milton Allimadi (43:10.242)
The New York Times would say, none of that. We're not going to hear any of that. You invaded another country, finish. End of discussion. So now when they started publishing articles with headlines such as, whether, this is before Israel attacked, you're right.

Adesoji Iginla (43:19.667)
No context.

Adesoji Iginla (43:32.308)
Yeah, June 13.

Milton Allimadi (43:36.481)
would the strikes, after they started their strikes, started hitting Iran, Israel.

Adesoji Iginla (43:47.945)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (43:48.365)
You had headlines about...

Could this be seen as legal? And then they say, you know, sub headline, analysts divided. Just think about that. Why don't you have a spinbala headline for an article about Russia's invasion of Ukraine? And you know, papers like the New York Times are very well connected to the establishment, the political establishment. So that told me where this thing was heading, right?

Adesoji Iginla (44:14.792)
established. Correct.

Adesoji Iginla (44:21.449)
Mm.

Milton Allimadi (44:22.567)
Yeah. And then when Trump said Iran must surrender unconditionally, immediately, and the Times made that a front page headline dominating the talk, you know, literally egging the guy on, warmongering. And obviously you have to look at the history. You know, on Iraq, they published

Adesoji Iginla (44:32.114)
unconditional.

Adesoji Iginla (44:41.29)
You

Adesoji Iginla (44:49.823)
Yep.

Milton Allimadi (44:52.521)
a series of articles about weapons of mass destruction, turned out to be false, of course, but they helped create that narrative, know, that news media narrative that of course influences the politics, right? On Libya, they were very shameful on Libya. In fact, there's one editorial they wrote

Adesoji Iginla (44:55.22)
Hmm.

Yeah, yeah, Yep. Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (45:05.866)
Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (45:20.944)
admonishing NATO for not bombing Libya sufficiently. These are ghoulish, demonic. And what was the rationale behind that? That if they bombed much more, they would be able to destroy Qadhafi's army much more swiftly and end the war and the suffering.

Adesoji Iginla (45:46.858)
So bomb them into pits.

Milton Allimadi (45:50.088)
Would they advocate for the bombing of any European country in order to end the war? So I knew where this was heading. So I must say it was not particularly sharp. Where the headline yesterday was, you know, you know, United States, United States joins war against Iran. But here's the bigger problem.

Adesoji Iginla (46:09.288)
the guillotine.

Adesoji Iginla (46:17.098)
Mmm.

Milton Allimadi (46:20.264)
And it's our problem. This is our problem. It's not their problem.

The New York Times, as you know, my focus of my book, I paid a lot of attention to them. I did significant research on them. One of the earliest headlines, which is in one of the chapters in the book, what year was it from? It's from 18 something, I think it's 1876. And the headline was just Africa.

And it was making the argument for England to go and colonize Africa. Right?

Adesoji Iginla (47:04.914)
Mm. Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (47:06.533)
said because the people were so backward, part of them, they had human instincts, but part of them were related to crocodile and hippopotamus. So in order to take them away from their misery, England should go and civilize them and colonize Africa. So that was their argument then. The times.

can make a case and argument for anything, regardless of the contradiction. So you are essentially approving Israel launching a war of aggression against Iran, and now the United States joining it.

Milton Allimadi (48:04.995)
You're saying not for Russia. That is a war of aggression. You invade in another country. You violate his sovereignty. End of story.

No sovereignty for Iran.

no right of self-defense for Iran. You see? But you know what? But here's the worst thing, my friend. Here's the worst thing.

Adesoji Iginla (48:21.258)
Amen.

while the world is

Milton Allimadi (48:30.452)
And many of our people won't even see this contradiction.

that why is it not right for Russia to invade Ukraine?

Adesoji Iginla (48:38.855)
Mmm.

Milton Allimadi (48:43.224)
That was the position you took. But why is it okay for Israel and now the US to invade Iran? Because Iran has also been very demonized, right? Non-European people, Muslims, you know, and the T-word, terrorists, right? Yeah. So even many, you know, fellow Africans, you see them.

Adesoji Iginla (49:02.535)
Arabs.

Yeah, terrorist. Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (49:11.947)
you know, cheering for Israel and the United States on this war of aggression, you know, not realizing that tomorrow they could be the next victims.

Adesoji Iginla (49:14.941)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Milton Allimadi (49:26.517)
yet.

Adesoji Iginla (49:27.004)
a bit sad. There was an aspect, there was this week we had some sort of introspection. Close to an introspection there was a report released by the Center for Media Monitoring and the title of the report if people want to read is Palestine, a land, BBC on Gaza Israel, one story double standard.

Milton Allimadi (49:55.635)
Mm-hmm. There you go.

Adesoji Iginla (49:56.682)
It is one of the best reports you can read on any news organization. Side by side, basically how the headlines are placed on the website, the radio, on the TV news, how it is announced to the people, it is, and it was mind boggling. The fact that,

Milton Allimadi (50:07.734)
Yes.

Milton Allimadi (50:11.222)
Yes.

Milton Allimadi (50:21.203)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (50:24.478)
This is a publicly funded broadcast and perpetuating propaganda. I mean, we know the BBC for what it is. Those of us that grew up in Africa have been at the brunt of it. was joking with my brother the other day that his generation grew up on being spawn fed that level of propaganda. was, but you know, I say that

I see all of that to say this.

If the media that is supposed to be the 50th state, in the case of the United States, I mean, the media is actually mentioned in your constitution. And for some reason, they're compromised.

Would you give citizen journalism?

the baton to make sure that the people are informed and also that the people now have to do. And when I say research, I don't just mean Google and just, know, as in read, connect dots that will lead you to something. And sometimes the result in itself might not be palatable to you, but at least be well aware that this information has basis in fact, reason and logic.

Milton Allimadi (51:50.807)
Absolutely, but that's you know, social media has become much more powerful. Extremely powerful. In fact, if had it not been for social media, I think the US would have joined this war on Israel, I mean, on Iran much, much sooner. Much more massively, by the way, because we would not be able to see

Adesoji Iginla (51:57.919)
Mm.

Milton Allimadi (52:20.316)
the damage effectively.

And if there's going to be pushback to limit the US involvement, it's going to be on because of social media, not because of the establishment, so-called legacy media. You know, they are part of the problem.

Adesoji Iginla (52:39.732)
media.

Milton Allimadi (52:55.259)
They like regurgitating official narrative. Yeah. And that's why we have this type of conversation on our platform. know, social media. As you said, you have to be careful though, because there's a lot of garbage out there.

Adesoji Iginla (52:56.874)
We lost you there.

Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (53:08.817)
And you know.

Adesoji Iginla (53:15.346)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my god. A whole lot of drivel. So here is usually my take on things when it comes to conflicts like that. There's usually a backstory. In the case of Iran, it's clear. It might not be clear to everyone, but there is a backstory. In 1953, this same Iran that the United States now considers to be a rogue regime

Milton Allimadi (53:16.625)
Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (53:44.574)
had a democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. But in 1953, the CIA, working in tandem with MI6, pushed by Winston Churchill at the time, who was the prime minister of Britain, because Mossadegh nationalized British petroleum, Iranian petroleum that was mined by British petroleum.

Milton Allimadi (54:12.507)
Thank

Adesoji Iginla (54:15.134)
They pushed for a coup and they got the coup. They got the coup carried out. The fallout of the coup was they installed Shah Pahlavi as the Shah of Iran. He ruled the country dictatorially up till 1979 when you had the Iranian Revolution. Now the Iranian Revolution tossed out Pahlavi, gave us Ruhola Ayatollah Khomeini.

Atollah Khomeini would lead the Iranians for a while. The West, still not satisfied with the fallout of the overthrow of Tel Aviv, would push Saddam Hussein to attack Iraq that ended in an eight-year battle 1981 to 1988. They fought themselves to a stalemate.

And ever since, Iran has been knocked off because, sorry, Iraq became a problem to their darling in the West, Israel, and now it's the choice of Iran. And again, how do you know all of this? The reason we know all of this is, like I said, the CIA has a way of dumping their archives. And India archives are facts. So the book you want is this.

Milton Allimadi (55:38.919)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (55:44.774)
It's titled All the Char Men, and it's An American Coup and the Root of Middle East Terror. So this is based on the CIA archives. Another one that you might want, although this goes across the Middle East, tells you about the machinations of the Central Intelligence Agency is from, what's it called, Pluto Press on holy wars.

You can see the dude in front of it. So again, and all of this is, this again is based on the CIA archives. And the reason I say all of that is if you just listen to the media, the news and everything, without going back to their own very records, you'll be forgiven for thinking everything you hear is truthful. But most of them are just based on the figment of somebody's imagination.

Milton Allimadi (56:32.577)
All right.

Adesoji Iginla (56:43.59)
And because, to quote Noam Chomsky and Edward Bergen, they want to do what? Manufacture your concert. Because the moment you are OK with it, that's the license for them to thrill. And last word on that is we had the same playbook used in 2003. I mean, that's just how many years ago? That's nothing more than 20...

Milton Allimadi (56:58.044)
Second.

Adesoji Iginla (57:13.066)
22 years ago, 23 years ago, in 2003, the same premise, we believe they have something and then we found out they didn't have anything, no repercussion. And then we're going back to the same playbook, to the same playbook. So we do this conversation every week in order to understand how the press works. And for some reason,

Milton Allimadi (57:15.841)
there.

Milton Allimadi (57:32.609)
Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (57:42.27)
The press just played out his hand this week that it was just difficult to avoid that, you I just had to ask the good comrade that question. Any final thoughts?

Milton Allimadi (57:52.031)
Yes, sir.

Milton Allimadi (57:58.561)
I hope our people become much more enlightened in terms of how to read.

In fact, it's propaganda. It's propaganda, but it's couched as objective journalism. And that's why it becomes very misleading. But I think the more we point out the propaganda, the more people become equipped to analyze for themselves.

Adesoji Iginla (58:29.726)
Hmm. Yes.

Milton Allimadi (58:31.841)
So I do to continue as always.

Adesoji Iginla (58:36.176)
and victory, etc. And yes, if you do like, do like, share, subscribe, and all the other good stuff, each one bring one. We hope to grow. one other sad, sad, sad tale with regards to what we do here. I was reading today that African stream is no longer is going out of operation. Again, that's a casualty of bringing the truth to the people.

once you get too powerful, the powers that be come after you and yeah, and they shut it down. So unfortunately that has run its course, but then as citizen journalists, we continue and we continue to do the thing. yes. And so until next week, when we bring you another episode, by next week, we are actually reviewing the soundtrack to a cool data.

Milton Allimadi (59:10.667)
the shot you done.

Milton Allimadi (59:36.347)
Yes, I look forward to that.

Adesoji Iginla (59:36.424)
which is a movie that looked about, that looked into, a documentary that looked into the coup that transpired that upended the life and times of Patrice Lumumba. So join us next week for a review of the coup d'etat. It promises to be a rewarding experience.

Again, do like, share, and subscribe. And thank you all for coming through. Until next week, it's good night for now. Good bye.