EP 4 Coup in Benin, Trump Attacks Somalis And More...I African News Review 🌍

In this episode of African News Review, host Adesoji Iginla and guests Milton Allimadi and Aya Fubara Eneli Esq. discuss pressing issues affecting the African diaspora, including racial gerrymandering in Texas, xenophobia towards the Somali community, and the implications of Trump's derogatory comments about immigrants. They explore the historical context of U.S. immigration policies, the media's role in shaping narratives, and the impact of U.S. foreign policy on Somalia. 

The conversation also touches on a recent coup attempt in Benin, highlighting concerns about regional stability and the ongoing struggle for political representation among marginalised communities. The conversation delves into the pressing issues facing African nations, particularly focusing on resource control, political instability, and the implications of foreign agreements. 

The speakers discuss the need for African countries to industrialise and control their resources, the human cost of political turmoil, and the challenges faced by nations like Benin and the DRC in navigating their political landscapes and foreign relations. The dialogue emphasises the importance of understanding the historical and geopolitical context of these issues, as well as the need for African leaders to prioritise the welfare of their citizens over foreign interests. 

In this conversation, the speakers delve into the complexities of African leadership, the role of the diaspora in social justice, and the implications of healthcare agreements with the U.S. They discuss the importance of unity among Africans and the need to return to indigenous solutions for self-sufficiency. The conversation highlights the historical context of neocolonialism and the ongoing struggle for empowerment and political awareness within the African community.

Takeaways

*The Supreme Court upheld racially gerrymandered maps in Texas.
*Trump's comments reflect ongoing xenophobia against immigrants.
*The media often fails to hold power accountable, especially regarding marginalised communities.
*Historical immigration policies have targeted specific groups as 'undesirable.'
*The Somali community faces scapegoating in political discourse.
*U.S. foreign policy has contributed to instability in Somalia.
*The recent coup in Benin highlights regional security concerns.
*African countries must control their resources to effect change.
*Political instability often stems from deeper economic issues.
*Benin's political landscape is fraught with challenges.
*The Gulf of Guinea is a critical geopolitical area.
*Foreign agreements can undermine national sovereignty.
*The DRC's deal with the U.S. raises concerns about exploitation.
*The sacrifices made by previous African American generations must be acknowledged and respected.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Guest Introductions
02:10 Racial Gerrymandering and Political Representation
04:20 Xenophobia and the Somali Community
08:04 Trump's Comments on Immigrants
12:25 Historical Context of Immigration Policies
16:04 Media's Role in Shaping Narratives
21:56 The Impact of U.S. Foreign Policy on Somalia
26:46 Coup Attempt in Benin and Regional Stability
29:10 The Quest for Resource Control in Africa
32:42 The Human Cost of Political Instability
34:10 Benin's Political Landscape and Its Challenges
38:14 Geopolitical Dynamics in the Gulf of Guinea
44:00 The DRC's New Deal with the U.S.
52:03 The Consequences of Foreign Agreements on Sovereignty
01:00:02 The Complexity of African Leadership and History
01:02:54 The Role of African Diaspora in Social Justice
01:06:03 Healthcare Agreements

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:01.911)
Yes, welcome, welcome again to this week's episode of African News Review. I am your host, Adesaji Ginla, and with me, as usual, two brilliant minds who have joined me to help pass through some of the stories that have been running through Western media and in the course of the week. The gentleman needs no introduction, but introduced we shall. He is

Comrade Milton Alimadi here is a broadcast star, WBAI Black Star News is the author of Manufacturing Hate, a long overdue. We're waiting for the revamp. So we'll continue to remind him and welcome brother.

Milton Allimadi (00:45.196)
Thank you.

Milton Allimadi (00:50.54)
Thank you. Thank you. Santisana.

Adesoji Iginla (00:52.855)
Yes, and the sister is my co-host from Women and Resistance, host of Rethinking Freedom. She is Ayah Fubara Eneli Esquire, also the new author of Amazon's bestseller, Kwanzaa, a celebration guide for home and community. So welcome sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:18.147)
Thank you. Wish it wasn't Amazon. We need to build our own systems because that pains my heart. I mean, I'm grateful to have some sales to at least recoup. I hope you guys know when people publish books, there's an investment. I mean, I'm not covered by Schuster, Simon and Schuster, things like that. So there's a personal investment. And so at least you want to be able to recoup what you.

Milton Allimadi (01:21.899)
Yes.

No, no, true.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:45.977)
put in and so I'm definitely grateful for the sales on Amazon but it also simultaneously makes me sick to my stomach. So yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:46.201)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:56.451)
Wow. OK. That's it. Let's begin the normal ritual. News from where you're at in reverse order. Let's begin with the sister. What's the news making rounds where you are?

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:10.531)
Well, the big news in my area in Texas is that the Supreme Court right before the December 8th filing deadline for Texas basically ruled that their racially gerrymandered maps will stand. So the racist maps that were drawn after Trump, has for all intents and purposes crowned himself king of the universe.

He called Abbott, it's no Hot Wheels Abbott, it's no secret and said, hey, give me five seats in Texas. And of course, one of the seats that they targeted was Jasmine Crockett's seat, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, which is reminiscent of what has been done before. So if you recall in Women in Resistance when we covered Shirley Chisholm, they also redistricted her area, redrew the lines,

And suddenly her house was one block outside of the district that she represented. So these tactics have been used again and again. But for all intents and purposes, the district that Jasmine Crockett represented, they basically farmed those predominantly Black people into, I think, four or five other areas.

Adesoji Iginla (03:15.011)
she was supposed to represent, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:31.278)
So diluting their voice, diluting their vote and thereby affecting who gets to represent them, In sense, no representation. So Jasmine Crockett, the big news is that Jasmine Crockett filed to run for US Senate. And that means that there will be a primary between her and I think his first name is James Tallarico.

Adesoji Iginla (03:39.021)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:57.22)
who is a white male who is quote unquote a progressive Democrat, but also, you know, speaks the, I'm Christian, you know, and I'm white male language as well. I don't have any specific issues with him, but definitely Jasmine Crockett is going to my vote.

Adesoji Iginla (04:13.081)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (04:17.003)
Okay. Greta Milton.

Milton Allimadi (04:20.238)
Yeah. So we're still seeing the ramifications of the racist outburst against Somalis in Minnesota by Donald Trump. So I've been talking with some Somali comrades in Minnesota and giving them some suggestions how to counter

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:32.633)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (04:32.697)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (04:47.929)
And of course, this is important because it affects all of us, every African immigrant and every African, period. So we are mulling over some ideas, nothing has concretized yet. Hopefully when I come back by next week's episode, there will be some solid ideas, know. Definitely you can demonize the entire Somali population.

Adesoji Iginla (05:02.904)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (05:17.881)
it.

Milton Allimadi (05:18.41)
not even here, just in the United States. But he said, he really said, he said they're useless even in their country. know? And the country stinks, they're garbage. Ilhan Omar's friends are garbage. Your friend was Jeffrey.

Adesoji Iginla (05:21.315)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:25.133)
Yes, their country stinks.

Milton Allimadi (05:42.111)
You don't even want all the details of your friendship to be released. So you're telling us, so in effect you're saying Jeffrey was not garbage then, that's what you're saying. It's unbelievable. But anyway, by next week, I'll have an update on some possible ways to counter.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:02.531)
May I just add really quickly here? It's the projection for me. You are literally the one stinking. You are the one when you stand next to world leaders, they're holding their noses, they're turning, they're trying to breathe anywhere but in your direction. You are literally the stink bomb. You are the piece of walking garbage. And then you're going to deflect and project that on someone else.

Adesoji Iginla (06:04.697)
Good, good, good.

Milton Allimadi (06:14.176)
So, bye.

Milton Allimadi (06:19.52)
Yeah, it's interesting you're saying that.

Okay, you know why?

Adesoji Iginla (06:28.227)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:32.045)
What you feel about yourself on the inside. Let's just keep this real.

Milton Allimadi (06:32.213)
Very good.

Milton Allimadi (06:35.872)
Okay, fine. You you took every word I had contemplated saying, and then I said, let me leave that off the table for now. But it turns out...

Adesoji Iginla (06:40.953)
.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:49.059)
Well, I feel I can say it since I was born in the US, but I guess they deport US citizens too.

Milton Allimadi (06:53.233)
you are reading my brain and you deciphered it and just pulled it out. Absolutely, of course, everything he said is what he's predicting.

Adesoji Iginla (06:56.057)
Thank

Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (07:07.437)
Well.

That's it.

Milton Allimadi (07:12.384)
And then the worst blur, Somalis are notoriously known throughout East Africa as people who don't sleep because they're working 24-7. Right? So to say they don't want to do anything but just complain, you know, pick somebody else, not Somalis, I guarantee you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:24.278)
Exactly.

Adesoji Iginla (07:24.419)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (07:34.146)
You

So, well, you guys have given me a perfect segue into our first story for today, and it comes from the New York Times, and it reads, surprise, surprise, Trump calls Somali, he calls Somali garbage. He doesn't want them, he doesn't want in the country. The president delivered xenophobic comments during a publicly broadcast cabinet meeting. But there's a key part here.

It reads, there was a part here. Yeah. Even for the president, okay, so it says there are people, even for a president who has frequently made derogatory comments about immigrants, the rant about Somalis was an alarming use of vulgarity from the White House against an entire community. But let's not dig this part. When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we do not want them in our country.

Let them go back to where they came from and fix it. Mr. Trump added, as Vice President JD Vance banged the table in encouragement.

What do you want to say to that?

Milton Allimadi (08:46.313)
Right. All right. So he's campaigning, of course. He's opening the salvo for the 2026 midterms. So he knows this is, he has that reliable base of the xenophobic folks. He wants to get them revved up early. And then there those who also claim to be progressives, but they also reveal their true nature.

Adesoji Iginla (09:11.672)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (09:16.275)
when it comes to voting time. Although there are so many other issues that he's going to have to contend with. The Jeffrey Epstein thing is just going to get bigger, going toward the election, the issue of affordability. You know, it's funny. People interviewed are being saying the cost of living, the cost of living, right? Groceries, you know. And you have this guy saying, no, everybody's fine.

Adesoji Iginla (09:27.225)
Sure.

Milton Allimadi (09:44.894)
including the people who are saying, we are not fine. Okay. So that's going to be a tough challenge to counter that in 2026. And then the final point I want to make on this whole issue is what I think I mentioned either last week or the week before. The establishment in Minnesota demonized the Somalis, thinking they could keep it exclusive, throw them under the bus.

Adesoji Iginla (09:53.529)
You're over gone. Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (10:12.594)
because of the federal food scandal, the USDA federal food scandal, where people were inflating the numbers of meals they served and they were billing in excess of what they should have been billed, millions of dollars went bezel. So let's throw the Somalis and let's skip go down. But as I said, I wrote, and I was the only one that wrote this column. And for our viewers and listeners who are interested, go online and search research.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:17.625)
Yep.

Milton Allimadi (10:42.873)
Minnesota Department of Education and Milton Alimati or and Black Star News. And you'll see my column. My column discusses a report that was done by an auditing committee in the state legislator in Minnesota and found that had the Minnesota Department of Education done its job of monitoring this program, the corruption would not have occurred.

Adesoji Iginla (10:59.545)
Okay. Okay.

Milton Allimadi (11:12.1)
Number one. Number two, no one has reported, but I did, that the Minnesota Department Education also gets to retain an administrative fee. Each year, they retained on average eight to nine million dollars. Over the four-year period, they earned more than $35 million. So they had an incentive for this program to just keep going on. You see? They had a built-in incentive.

Adesoji Iginla (11:33.977)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (11:38.7)
Okay.

Milton Allimadi (11:40.762)
In fact, not to monitor this program. So why is the governor not firing the commissioner of education and other staff people at the Minnesota Department of Education? Why? Because the Somalis became the convenient scapegoat. So I'm just hoping more of this story eventually gets out now that they're looking further into it, thanks to Donald Trump. So in fact, the Somalis could use this attack to turn the situation in their favor.

and saying, here's the truth of what really happened. And you're finally paying attention to it because the president himself is maligning us.

Adesoji Iginla (12:20.875)
OK, sister, your take.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:25.549)
I guess I would be, if any good comes out of this and the truth of that situation that you're referring to, comrade, comes out, that would be wonderful and a blessing. But let's just be very clear. These people are not concerned about the truth. And it doesn't matter if we had absolutely nothing to do with this. They are always going to find a way to taint us. And let's understand what the history is here and what.

Milton Allimadi (12:50.682)
Good.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:53.305)
Donald Trump is doing and his handlers in weaponizing this kind of language. So understand that first of all, you can go back as far as I believe it was 1798, they had the Alien Friends Act. And it was an act basically that allowed certain colonies to exclude people that they felt were paupers or were drains on the system.

So US law has repeatedly removed people who are deemed undesirable. Some they've called paupers. There was another act in the 1800s. I don't have the exact information on it now, but people can look it up that talked about they can remove any foreign legal migrants if they are considered a threat to national security.

Adesoji Iginla (13:23.469)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (13:52.161)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:53.104)
So these people know their, they know enough of US history, the history that they can use to weaponize, to understand that all they need to do is to start using this kind of terminology again. And then it's easy to say, hey, we've done it before, we can do it again. So we also see the list of 19 countries, right? Where they're saying no immigration, or if you already are going through the process. So it just happened this past week.

where there were people who had already been cleared and they were in line to swear. There's an echo.

Milton Allimadi (14:27.448)
Echo Echo Echo

Yes. No, it just started like a minute ago.

Adesoji Iginla (14:31.895)
No, I can hear one.

got him.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:37.135)
Okay, so they were getting ready to, they were in line to be sworn in as US citizens when ICE agents came and pulled them out of the line. They've cleared all of the hurdles. They followed all of the legal requirements and met them, but nonetheless, they're finding these different ways to pull them out. Now, who are the people? Who are the undesirables? Who are the ones who are?

Milton Allimadi (14:37.186)
Go ahead, sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:04.567)
going to be national security threats. Not Melania Trump, who came in through Epstein and his folk and somehow selling your body. Hey, it's not even a legend. This is out there becomes, I'm sorry. Modeling becomes a pathway to get an Einstein visa, which then allowed her to bring her family.

Adesoji Iginla (15:28.867)
He's done.

Milton Allimadi (15:30.807)
Stop hating on Melania.

Adesoji Iginla (15:35.116)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:35.184)
And she's been a citizen for less than the number of years that Ilhan Omar has been a citizen. Ilhan Omar is serving her community, is now a congresswoman, but this human being who flashes body parts and, I have nothing, no issues with body parts, but this is her claim to fame, is somehow more deserving of American citizenship. And we understand that the issue is whiteness.

Adesoji Iginla (15:43.353)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:04.507)
And so when we look at this xenophobic rage, mean, yes, he's showing exactly who he is. And many of us have friends who are also standing up and showing exactly who they are. And perhaps this is yet another wake up call. Maybe we would really be woke at this time to understand that these people never mean us well. They don't want peace. And as more of our stories today are going to show.

We are always in their eyes going to be the thing that they can use and discard and we need to start acting differently, know, the quanta is coming up I'm going to be having some very serious conversations with my children because this is no longer about let me get a degree and get a good job You've got to understand that there are people at war with us whether we are acknowledging it or not And we need to have a very different mindset on how we move

Adesoji Iginla (16:37.145)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:00.697)
day to day in everything that we do. So today it's Somalians, yesterday it was Haitians, tomorrow it's going to be another group and all of those groups are gonna be black and brown. And eventually for my African American brothers and sisters, we are not exempt. We are simply not exempt.

It's coming because that's what it does. So you look at Nazi Germany, you look at any group, any time that they are going to start, really killing off people, you start off first by dehumanizing them. Well, shoot, look at Gaza. What were the Palestinians called? What are they still called? So garbage, vermin, rats, all of those cockroaches. That's what was used in Rwanda, right?

We need to pay attention to this language. And by the way, absolute shame on the U.S. press, absolute shame on the media who just glossed over this like, nothing to see here. This is not absurd. This is not dangerous. They just went along with it and could not have the, did not have the guts to roundly condemn this as absolutely unacceptable.

Adesoji Iginla (17:52.771)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:21.571)
for a country that calls itself the leader of democracy. Shame on the press.

Milton Allimadi (18:26.97)
Right. the press, yes, of course, the press is reflective of the society that it serves. So it means that the editors and the reporters of the large institutional Eurocentric media, they believe they are being reflective of what the Euro society is also thinking. That yes, there goes Trump again.

Adesoji Iginla (18:28.056)
Okay. You want to say.

Milton Allimadi (18:57.075)
And that goes back to my critique that I've made very often, that we should not think the problem is coming just from the Republicans, really. I make minor distinctions. Yes, the verbiology is outright explicit racist when it comes to the Republicans, but at the end of the day, parties that are dependent on large corporate donations.

and corporate donations come from the system that it is sustaining, which is monopoly capital. And that's the problem. Right now, to be straightforward and blunt, there's no political party that is representative of the marginalized communities. And by the way, there are many millions and millions of marginalized Europeans as well. But then,

when the enemy is depicted as these garbage Somalis, then even some of those marginalized European Americans, you know, they become tribal and they start leaning with, as Mugabe used to refer to it, kith and kin, you know, and that is a big problem. It's a very big problem. I'm glad you, you,

centered right on the media. One of my articles exclusively is on how the media abandoned Somalis in Minnesota. They were regurgitating and publishing press release from the US prosecutor's office. I did some quick calculation and I said, okay, they kept referring to the $250 million scandal, okay. And they focus only on one of the nonprofits.

Both of the two nonprofits were headed by European American women. They focused only on one. And that's a question that none of the media there asked the prosecutor. Why are you talking about this one, Amy Bach and not Kara Lohman, who allegedly did the same things that Amy did as well? Boom, didn't ask that. Why are you not asking the fact that MDE itself made millions of dollars? Boom. And then...

Milton Allimadi (21:22.572)
How could it be $250 million if indeed they served some food, right? If they serve some food, should you not calculate how much was served actually? Because in some cases, their establishments, Somali establishments, actually produce invoices of millions of dollars in food served. So why didn't you factor out the total as opposed to what was actually stolen?

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:35.907)
Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (21:50.954)
And you kept throwing that figure 250, 250. After my column, I noticed very shortly after, the prosecutor's office started changing the numbers, you know? And this is somebody doing it from New York and Washington, DC. You are local media. You are telling me you couldn't do that story. So yes, I agree with you, sister. Shame on the Eurocentric Euromedia for abandoning people of African descent all the time.

Adesoji Iginla (21:56.963)
they're just at.

Adesoji Iginla (22:18.777)
Okay, there's a part there in the news article, the overall theme, which is their countries are garbage and we don't know why they came here and you know what. So I want to hone in on that. The Somalis would not be in Minnesota, Maine and Ohio in those numbers, waiting off of the United States post 1993.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:29.879)
Yes, yes, bring that point up.

Adesoji Iginla (22:47.499)
Everybody remembers Black Hawk Down. You literally went in there and tore up the place, creating an imagined

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:56.975)
Back to the warlords, destabilize the Wow, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (23:01.465)
Yes, Farah, I did. You backed Farah, I did. And then when Farah, did turn on you, you then went in and turned the place upside down. You created that Somali refugees that poured into Europe, the United States, Canada. mean, so when he says their countries are garbage, you literally made it garbage.

Milton Allimadi (23:05.414)
Yeah. Right.

Milton Allimadi (23:28.795)
But let's be fair, let's go even further than that. The Soviet Union was involved as well. So Somalia became a pawn in the struggle between East and West, between the United States and the Soviet Union. At one time, Siad Barre, before the country totally collapsed, at one time it was backed by the Soviet Union, then one time it was backed by the United States. At the end of the day, the Somalis were the biggest losers.

Adesoji Iginla (23:34.432)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:38.039)
Yes?

Adesoji Iginla (23:39.617)
The Cold War, Yeah. Yeah, but the...

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:47.043)
Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (23:48.599)
Yeah.

Yes, and Syed Barre would later die in Lagos after being given asylum status. It goes to show...

Milton Allimadi (24:09.286)
My final take on this is this. At the end of the day, this is a very effective divide and rule tactic. see? The, quote unquote, tribalization of issues. When in fact, everybody knows who the enemy is. The enemy that affects whether you're European descendant, whether you're African descendant, Latino descendant, so long as you are a working person, a working class.

Adesoji Iginla (24:19.097)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (24:39.034)
So in order to divert attention away from class issues, you throw in the race, the so-called race issue. You throw in the gender issue. And then you keep all of us, you know, fighting for the crumbs while the big fat cats, as they say, accumulate and accumulate and accumulate. You know, that's the problem.

Adesoji Iginla (24:47.009)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (25:02.361)
Yes. I want to quickly read one, maybe three lines from a book I got back in the day. It says, one Times editor who was involved in some of the most virulent exchanges was Emmanuel Friedman, foreign news editor from 1948 to 1964. A Times reporter, Huma Biggert, expoused similar racist sentiments in his letters. In one letter, Wender Times, the New York Times, in fact,

Milton Allimadi (25:19.365)
Hahaha.

Adesoji Iginla (25:32.493)
sent Bigger to cover imagine independence movement in West Africa. He wrote to Friedman that he preferred writing about cannibals over Kwame Nkrumah, the hero of Ghana's independence struggle and the country's first post-colonial prime minister and later president. The reason I read that part is essentially when the sisters mentioned that the press have been just trumpeting what Mr. Trump has said. We have it.

documented in this fine book, which needs an update. How?

Milton Allimadi (26:04.495)
Yeah. So you know what, your comrade, let me be honest with you. I've been balancing so many projects, but now you've incentivized me to make this one a priority to finish updating the new version before the end of the year. How's that?

Adesoji Iginla (26:19.441)
So I just thought I remember that part. So I was quickly scrubbing to, I was like, I've seen this before. Okay, let's do this. And yes, so that said, well, that's Trump. also one of the reasons why we do this is so that we reframe the narrative, because it's not just good picking up those newspapers, listening to the news, hearing it on radio or on a podcast or

you know, just in passing and taking that as without proper contextualizing all of the stories. So I hope we've been able to do that. And that said, we're looking for 2000 subscribers by the end of the year, and we're up and running. So if this is your first time here, please do like, share and subscribe and all the other good stuff. So that said, we go to our next story.

which is breaking news, which was previously breaking news coming out of West Africa. And it's from Deutsche Welle, and it is that there was a coup in Benin, Republic, which makes interesting reading because of where it is. It's from the German news organization, Deutsche Welle, and it reads, the headline reads, Benin, a coup.

Echo Wars troops deployed after failed coup attempt. The byline says, Beining government said it followed a coup attempt by a group of soldiers who sought to destabilize the state. Echo Wars has now deployed soldiers as President Patrick Stallone said the situation is under total control. There was a part here that jumped out. So Echo Wars troops from Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria and Sierra Leone will be deployed to Benin. They've already been deployed anyway.

President Patrick's talons stressed in a TV address that the situation was under control after a failed coup attempt. Now, what is your take on this story when you first of all heard in light of what has happened here in this region and especially in the larger African space? Let's start with Brother, Brother Milton.

Milton Allimadi (28:40.162)
Sure. So this coverage, and the concern, of course, in Western media and Western government is the possible expansion of the alliance of Sahel states, right? Where you have Niger, you have Mali, you have Burkina Faso. And in these particular three countries, they are the ones that are articulating

Adesoji Iginla (28:54.808)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (29:00.193)
Yeah. OK.

Milton Allimadi (29:10.24)
the kind of position that African countries need to be doing, every African country. Otherwise, people who remember that film, Lumumba, by the Haitian filmmaker, Peck.

Adesoji Iginla (29:27.991)
Yeah, bro.

Milton Allimadi (29:29.214)
Right, Raoul Peck. When the general, the Belgian general, was instructing the African soldiers, when African soldiers were asking that, we need to replace you with an African. And he wrote on the blackboard, you know, which he actually, actually did in real life. He said, after independence equals before independence. So in Niger, in Mali and Burkina Faso are trying to change that.

Adesoji Iginla (29:42.989)
Thanks.

Adesoji Iginla (29:47.992)
Yeah.

and nothing has changed.

Milton Allimadi (29:58.343)
And they're saying the only way we can change that is by controlling our resources and making sure we maximize the percentage of money that we get from whatever is sold out. That's one half of the story. The second half is we have to start industrializing. We have to start using these resources to manufacture domestically in our own country. another number of things, create jobs.

Adesoji Iginla (29:59.033)
Mm. Mm.

Milton Allimadi (30:27.902)
And you know, it's not just one job, because when you create a factory job, the resources are produced on site. So let's take textiles, for example, right? Now people are going to be growing cotton. That's an industry, right? People are going to be preparing that cotton. That's an industry. Somebody's going to be preparing that into textiles. That's an industry. Somebody's going to be producing clothes out of that, you see? So there are multiplier effects of every industry. This is just one example.

And this is what African countries need to do. So long as they follow business as usual models, nothing will change. So to give you my own view of this article is that, this is a...

soldiers trying to disrupt constitutional government. It's true. You know, that is accurate. But there's a bigger story behind it. Why are they trying to disrupt constitutional government? And in my own view, I think they want to emulate what is being done in Niger, in Mali, in Bukena Faso. So you notice the countries that intervened to reverse the coup, countries that

Adesoji Iginla (31:20.451)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (31:45.937)
pursue the neoliberal model, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, you know, you see? It's not by accident. So that's my take on this article. And if you go toward the very end, but after Sister speaks, then maybe you can go to the very end and you'll see the person that quoting, even though he's an African, he's giving very useless quotes, you know. They found an African to give the kind of quotes that a European would give, you know, and you'll see that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:48.451)
Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (31:49.101)
Yeah. Cerelo.

Milton Allimadi (32:15.996)
after this just provides their own take on this. And I have one more question. How could Nigeria reverse a coup in another country in 15 minutes and you've been fighting Boko Haram for 30 years? Come on now. Oh, I'm sorry. You should have muted me.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:33.293)
was my point. That was my, that was my, no, no, no, no. We are completely in sync. That was my leading.

Adesoji Iginla (32:35.939)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:42.127)
That was my leading point first and foremost for these next articles that we're going to cover I was so burdened by the information here. I had to get my sage I got some sage here to cleanse No, no, no, because these these stories are heavy if you really think about them and if you think of what's at stake Okay, when you think about the toll it takes on a people to be dehumanized

Adesoji Iginla (32:54.617)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:11.267)
Maybe it's not you today and so it just seems like words, but you are a child going to school with other kids whose parents and you've heard it, you've seen it on TikTok or whatever. should say, you're garbage. You all stink. I mean, we're not, sometimes when we go through these stories, like we forget the human elements of it. And these stories really weigh heavy on my mind, cause they're not just stories. We are talking of

Millions and millions of lives being impacted. Okay, so now let's get to Benin. I totally agree with you brother that I my sense and they didn't talk to me, but my sense is hey we see Some of the positive things coming out of what's happened in Niger and Mali and Burkina Faso. We need something similar here Particularly when you consider the fact that they are supposed to have elections in Benin

in April of 2026. However, let's talk about what kind of constitutional government this is. Because all the opposition figures, leaders have been taken out of the equation, right? So Thomas Boinyi Yayi, who was former president, he's out of the picture. Rekia Madugu, he's been imprisoned.

Milton Allimadi (34:19.236)
during.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:36.858)
following quote unquote terrorism related convictions. Joel Aivo, who's an academic and an opposition figure, he's been imprisoned following a high profile conviction that has also been criticized. So you're having elections in April, but there's really no one to run against you, right? Because you've changed. Exactly, exactly.

Milton Allimadi (34:58.06)
And none of this was mentioned in this article, what you just said.

Adesoji Iginla (35:01.745)
Yeah

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:03.704)
So like we always have to ask what else, what else? First of all, go back to Adesuji's book. Look and see where is Benin, because we need to know where these places are. it's in proximity to, it's right next to Nigeria. we actually have brothers and sisters on the other side of this line, because we were one people before they arbitrarily drew that line to begin with, but let me not go. Let's talk about.

What does the people of Benin, what does their economy look like? Where you have a literacy rates for women that is under 40%. Where you have over 80 % of the people living on subsistence farming, if you will, informal labor. So the other thing this article doesn't address, and maybe it's because it was put out so early,

Adesoji Iginla (35:49.837)
That's filament. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:00.781)
is the intervention of France. First of all, they extracted the president and protected him. They made calls to Nigeria. They activated ECOWAS and they were providing intelligence and logistic information to the whole time because they are protecting their interests. And so I'm not necessarily a proponent for coup. I want peace and stability.

Adesoji Iginla (36:16.844)
In real time. Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (36:23.192)
Yes, of course.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:30.5)
But what we also know is that too many of the African leaders are just part of the elitist class. They are not caring about what is happening to the average African. And we have to address this in some way, or form. But yes, the point that you were making, brother, wait a second, Nigeria in less than a couple of hours, you mobilized, you had jet fighter planes flying over Benin and, and

Milton Allimadi (36:52.515)
Hahaha

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:00.664)
coordinating with friends to take out these people but you could not you have not been able to find where these girls are where they're hiding in the San Beci forest in your own country you cannot address the issues of instability security that's insecurity in your own country for all these decades y'all y'all play too much you guys have you are you are playing in our

Milton Allimadi (37:16.438)
That's crazy.

Milton Allimadi (37:23.734)
That's crazy. That's crazy. Something is going on. Something is going on, for sure.

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:31.524)
Mm-mm-mm. Mm-mm-mm.

Adesoji Iginla (37:32.473)
Okay, Brother Milton, you wanted to add?

Milton Allimadi (37:34.186)
No, no, I'm just agreeing with that. said something is going on. It's irreconcilable, you know, the conduct in Benin and the conduct domestically, you know.

Adesoji Iginla (37:46.073)
OK, so my contribution is this. There was a book written a couple of years ago titled The Prisoners of Geography. It's written by Tim Marshall. And in there, it says, some countries are not valuable for what they hold, but what they are. Binin is an example of such a, yeah. Binin is an example of the example of what he makes in that book.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:03.65)
Yep, that port, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (38:14.105)
And so why do I say Benin is a prison of geography? And Nizhe recently discovered oil. And in order to pipe the oil to the sea, there's a pipe going through from the north of Benin to the port in Kutunu of Benin. So you now have a situation where the Chinese are the ones who laid the pipeline. The ports.

is going to bring out the oil. And here is the conundrum. That's where the port where Kotonos sits is one of the most prime real estate when it comes to oil in the world. It's called the Gulf of Guinea. Literally, Nigeria, which is where Sister Aya is from, the oil producing areas, births out there, Gabon, births out there, Cameroon, births out there, Angola.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:56.686)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (39:12.739)
Bets out there, what's it called? What's the other country? Ghana, bets out there. So any oil producing or consuming country comes in there, collects their oil and go. What these guys were trying to do is to ensure that that conduit, which is Benin, does not fall into the hands of these guys led by

Lieutenant Colonel Tegri does not fall into their hands because if he does, it means now you've sealed that pipeline, it becomes much more dangerous for the companies that are coming to pipe. Then there is another aspect, which is where the sister comes in. Sister said Nigeria was able to mobilize in less than a couple of hours to get all their troops within into Benin Republic.

We cannot lose sight of the fact that one of the vital corridors, important export corridors for Nigeria is the Seme, Lagos border, Seme-Badaugari border. That border alone brings in billions worth of goods into Nigeria. So if Benin falls into the hands of, quote-unquote, hostile forces, it means that conduit is blocked. Now,

With regards to the grand scheme of things, what the article does highlight but doesn't go in depth into is that Patrick Stallone has been doing what is known as state capture. Basically, he's cornered all the power, so much so that the last constitutional assembly they had created a Senate where all the former presidents will go into

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:02.447)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (41:12.045)
the Senate and would have overarching powers over what the People's Assembly decide. So again, these are all parts and parcels of the pressure that Comrade constantly reminds us that sooner or later, these countries are going to react one way or the other. And they might have put down this one, but I can guarantee you there's something else in the pipeline. So brother, you want to go?

Milton Allimadi (41:39.3)
you have not only been in, in many other African countries too. But I have a quick question for you as well. So for Nigeria to intervene militarily like that, doesn't your Senate have to weigh in as well and take a vote?

Adesoji Iginla (41:53.631)
Well, we run a top-down government. Some of what you're describing is cosmetic in nature. We run a top-down government.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:54.651)
Forget our laws, we have no laws.

Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (42:06.48)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:06.863)
Yeah, and I mean, to the way that the Supreme Court in the United States has given Trump really better power. The same is true for Tenebu because he should never have been president in the first place.

Milton Allimadi (42:12.952)
Right, okay.

Milton Allimadi (42:19.586)
Right, okay. Understood, okay.

Adesoji Iginla (42:22.105)
So yeah, so and Nigeria being the big bully around that neck of the woods, basically, I mean, it was bound to happen. I should also add that as much as Nigeria doesn't have electricity, Nigeria provides all of the electricity in the Republic. So if Nigeria were to turn off the lights, they will basically be in darkness.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:50.993)
Well and in the same darkness Nigeria's in but I think we should also note someone pointed this out in the chat that Temi Seba had that Talon has just called for his arrest. Of course, this is after France stripped him of his French citizenship.

Adesoji Iginla (42:51.98)
Again.

Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (43:07.639)
Yes, it is in chip. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:09.455)
because he was critical of France and what they're doing in Africa. And so what Trump is doing, I suppose, he has allies across the world who will say, yes, we don't want those people coming in here. freedom of speech is only for some. In America, First Amendment rights only for some people. The rest of you be quiet. Just shut up and play ball, as they told LeBron.

Adesoji Iginla (43:32.825)
Shut up and dribble. OK, yes. The company said I should go to the bottom of the article. They wanted to read the article. OK, OK, OK, OK. So we go to our next story, which is what happened in Washington recently. And that comes from.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:36.059)
Shut up and dribble, yeah.

Milton Allimadi (43:42.981)
no, no, I think we can move on. We can move on to another story. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:00.494)
Okay, I gotta bring back my sage.

Adesoji Iginla (44:02.809)
The Financial Times. So the Financial Times reads, DR Congo to give US buyer mineral access after Peace Deal. Washington and Swiss trader Mercuria announced up to 1 billion each in funding as Trump seeks to end long running conflict. The Democratic Republic of Congo has agreed to give US buyers preferential treatment for minerals sold by its state owned

Milton Allimadi (44:03.28)
you

Adesoji Iginla (44:32.243)
mining companies. Just after one day after Washington brokered a fragile peace treaty between the country and neighboring Rwanda. The US government and Swiss trader Mercuria on Friday each announced up to a billion in fresh funding for mineral ventures in DR Congo, the world's biggest producer of cobalt and second biggest producer of copper. Washington key shares assigned an extensive critical minerals economic and security agreement on the heels of Thursday's treaty.

which paved the way for greater US access to DR Congo's wealth of minerals. Yeah, the Mumbai will be ruling in this grave, but let's go. So sister, you're burning the sage, so let's make some of that sage work. You want to go first?

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:20.887)
No, really this article and just everything surrounding the article, it causes me deep, deep, deep, deep pain. I can't even explain it because...

It feels, the sense I get is the same way I believe I would have felt had I been sitting on a shore watching the African Ma'af'a, watching what we're calling the Atlantic slave trade and watching.

the impact, watching how we were fighting amongst each other to produce more people for them to enslave, watching the African accomplices, but also watching the unmitigated greed and inhumanity of Western people towards us. And so first of all,

Peace deal. What are you talking about? Read this entire article. It just reads and Trump says it. This is about, we're going to make money. There was nothing in this article that talked about the people of DRKong, of changing their lives, what, what hap, you know, saving lives, rebuilding their nothing. This was about

We're going to come in and we're going to make money and some a few a handful of African elites are going to make money too and to hell with the rest of you. So let me just break it down a little bit more here. So this is not a standalone peace agreement. This was no altruism here. And actually I don't even have any details of any peace. What? Like what, what, is that? What is it that they actually said they're going to do? Are they going to allow us to borrow money from them?

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:11.365)
that we use them to buy more guns from them? Are we going to give them carte blanche entrance into our country and give them military bases so they can further spy on us and be able to bomb us at will right there, right then? Because going back to Benet, they talked about the French.

drones going back to somalia us how much they have used their drones and all of that they need bases in africa to be able to deploy in the way they are okay hopefully y'all are being able to follow me here but what this really is is a package of interlinked supposedly security security for them to extract not security for us

Adesoji Iginla (47:34.924)
Thanks, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:54.384)
but it's about extraction of minerals and so-called infrastructure commitments. But let's go and look at what those commitments are. Remember how we talked about before how hard it is to trade within Africa, how hard it is to travel within Africa that sometimes you have to fly outside of Africa to come back into Africa because all the transportation lines and the routes are based on the original trade routes

Adesoji Iginla (48:23.927)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:24.047)
which was to extract things from Africa, right? So even when they talk about infrastructure, people go back and pull up this article yourself. The infrastructure is how are we more easily able to access the mines and pull the items out, the minerals out and get it to our Western countries? Okay, the DRC agrees that these are the core components.

Milton Allimadi (48:31.688)
Thank

Adesoji Iginla (48:37.483)
access. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:51.683)
agrees to give U.S. buyers preferential treatment for minerals sold by state-owned mining companies. They get right of first refusal. Preferential treatment and right of first refusal. Mind you, I don't see any reciprocity where America has said, and by the way, you get right of first refusal or you get preferential treatment when you're buying any of our finished products.

Adesoji Iginla (48:54.841)
Treatment.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:17.827)
I also don't see anything that says, by the way, there will be an exchange of technology here. You are actually going to start being able to manufacture some of your raw materials. No, security for minerals logic. President Felix, she's security is basically saying, I need your security support, but in doing so you can now get access to our cobalt, our copper, our gold, our tin, right? Then.

Adesoji Iginla (49:34.685)
It's good.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:47.664)
This agreement, listen to this, creates a strategic mineral reserve to ensure, listen to this, who is this supposed to serve? To ensure predictable and durable supply for the United States, not for the country of origin. My God, how do we, how are we still signing these kinds of things? And then quote unquote, up to $1 billion.

Adesoji Iginla (50:04.984)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:17.477)
from the US International Development Finance Corporation for the Lobito Railway, linking copper producing regions to Atlantic ports serving Western customers. Now, when they say infrastructure financing, they did not say that they're giving you free money. When I finance my house, guess what that means? I'm still paying on a loan.

Adesoji Iginla (50:26.669)
the talk.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:46.085)
There's no, there are no freebies going on here. So you are loaning me money to build the infrastructure to make it easier for you to extract my goods, which you get right of first refusal to make it make sense. Y'all see why I had a burn some sage. And then this other entity, get Kamina's McCuria that this joint venture, what again, they are providing up to 1 billion in pre-financing.

Adesoji Iginla (51:09.817)
Yeah, the Swiss company.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:16.017)
lines, logistics, warehousing, and transport. Again, so let me wrap up with this. There's no binding commitment to local mineral processing. There's no requirement for downstream manufacturing in the DRC. There's no preferential pricing for the DRC when buying finished goods.

There's no technology transfer mandate. There's no labor value retention clause. There's no guarantee of reinvestment into Congolese public services. There's no binding environmental or social repair obligation. There's no Congolese industrialization timetable. I got to stop because I'm, I'm so hot. I'm so mad. I'm sorry. Carry on, brothers, because what are African leaders doing? Really, what are we doing?

Milton Allimadi (51:58.098)
I won.

Milton Allimadi (52:03.826)
Okay, all right. So, Congo had two choices.

Because Congo is not getting any support from any African country anyway, you Because many of those leaders should not be in power, you know, once we have a collection of more leaders like the ones In Bukidapaso, Mali and Niger, then there'll be hope that there'll be more African countries actually helping other African countries. So for the time being they're not there in fact

the countries that were sent to try to resolve the conflict between Congo and Rwanda, initially Uganda, and then Kenya, they ended up stealing Congo's resources and in the case of Uganda, killing literally millions of Congolese. So, Chiqueti's choice was run and sell the

Adesoji Iginla (52:44.963)
there.

Milton Allimadi (53:10.375)
your country, mortgage your country to the United States, the same country that brutally murdered Patrice Lumumba in 1961, a way to be conquered by Rwanda under General Kagame. So, Cabrera decided to sell his country to the United States. And what this article does not mention, a much more serious issue actually.

This is very similar to what happened at the Berlin conference. Only in this case, you have Africans signing onto this agreement as well, the documents. In the Berlin conference, African leaders did not even know that there was a conference going, ongoing, to partition the continent. They just saw Europeans coming with the military and saying, this country belongs to me now.

Adesoji Iginla (53:48.173)
Yes.

Milton Allimadi (54:10.908)
get off my land. But in this case, Chakri and Kagame were in the White House signing this. So here's another thing this agreement says that is not in the article.

It does say, as the Sears pointed out, that the United States has the right of fast refusal. But it does not say that if Congo wants to negotiate over these minerals with another country,

Adesoji Iginla (54:31.234)
If you do, yeah.

Milton Allimadi (54:43.12)
it has to first contact the U.S. ambassador in Congo.

Okay, so how does this get more, you cannot get more explicit than that, right? This is Berlin in 2025, right? In order for the Congo to even contemplate negotiating with a party that is not the United States, you must first inform the US ambassador. Beyond that, I don't even see the purpose of adding

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:50.49)
Puppet government.

Adesoji Iginla (55:03.897)
35, yeah.

Milton Allimadi (55:19.98)
additional comment. You know, because the sister covered the elements of the article very well. But I might add two things. Congo could use this interim period to build up its national institutions, to build up its security forces and its army. So that if Trump indeed completes his term, which is three years left, at the end of three years,

Adesoji Iginla (55:21.965)
Wow.

Milton Allimadi (55:47.992)
you have a viable armed force that can secure your border and your sovereignty, right? That's option one. Option B, the Congolese elite, including Shekary, the president, will do, as Trump said, make a lot of money. And then in three years' time, nothing would have changed. You would have made a lot of money. You'd still have the ragtag army. Congo's population is over 100 million.

Rwanda's population is 10 million, and yet Rwanda can conquer Congo any time it wants. So if nothing changes in three years' the elite, the Kabila, I mean, Shekedi class will make hundreds of millions of dollars, and then Trump will go, and then Rwanda will, Kagama, of course, will still be there. He's not going anywhere. Rwanda will then annex eastern Congo after the U.S. interest is gone.

But for the time being, it seems that the US is serious about making money because last week when Rwanda conquered additional territory toward Burundi, the US was very clear in what its ambassador at the United Nations said. It didn't mince words. said Rwanda controls M23. Rwanda is responsible for this new conquest. Rwanda is directly commanding M23.

Adesoji Iginla (56:45.851)
Hmm

Adesoji Iginla (57:12.589)
Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (57:15.809)
and the US will take action against anybody who spoils this agreement. So in order for them to make their money, they're even willing to take care of Kagame. So it means that at least for the time being, so long as they're making their money, as Trump said, Rwanda's hands are going to be a bit tied in terms of just conquering, conquering. Because as the US ambassador to UN said, we don't want spoilers, you see?

But as soon as this thing fades in three years...

If the Congolese are not change the armed force, the spoiler will come back and take over the Eastern Congo.

Adesoji Iginla (57:58.297)
That's it.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:00.261)
You know, I'm mindful of the time, but I feel like I need to just say this and just the point that we can explore individually, collectively at some other point. You know, if I go back to the area where my people reside at this point, Opobo Bonnie,

Milton Allimadi (58:06.114)
No, please, sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:21.978)
There was a civil war in Opobo, sorry, in Bonny that led to the creation of Opobo in the Southeast part of Nigeria. And at that time, different factions reached out to the Europeans that were there at the time, got cannon powder, got cannons, all of that from them, and blasted each other to smithereens, right? And then eventually there was a group that left and founded the area called Nigeria.

we see with their shanty war where

Ashanti's are fighting Britain. Britain actually gets other African leaders to come together and help Britain to overpower the Ashanti's. This sense of rather, I'm maintaining my sovereignty, but I'd rather bring this outsider in this sense to come and save me.

Adesoji Iginla (59:09.44)
is, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (59:17.325)
somebody.

Milton Allimadi (59:18.836)
Thanks.

Aya Fubara Eneli (59:21.152)
then God forbid for one who looks like me to maybe be the one who's quote unquote ruling over me. We just saw that in Women in Resistance when we looked at Beifu and the rebellion, if you will, St. John and how some of the enslaved people there, Africans, felt, wait a second, if this group of enslaved Africans really

Adesoji Iginla (59:44.077)
actually snitched.

Aya Fubara Eneli (59:50.863)
take power and consolidate power, we might be beholden to them. So we're going to sell them out and side with our white masters because somehow it makes more sense because we believe in our inferiority. It makes more sense if I'm going to be in any way compromised in terms of my freedom for it to be a white man who's doing it than a fellow black man. So although I understand

Adesoji Iginla (59:53.177)
They're going to make us late. Mm-hmm, yep.

Milton Allimadi (01:00:02.13)
But

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:20.728)
And maybe I don't totally understand because I'm not the leader in that position. Looking at my country and saying, my God, their force is coming from here and their force is coming from here. And what is Kagame trying to do? But then understanding the totality of the history of Africa and still delivering myself and my people to the United States of America, to Trump.

Milton Allimadi (01:00:37.382)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (01:00:40.806)
Right, but let me add to that as well.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:44.24)
I guess that is between a rock and a harplet, but it has never worked for us in the past. I don't see how it's going for us now.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:44.313)
You

Milton Allimadi (01:00:49.158)
You know, no, it goes beyond what you just said. It is not a uniquely or particular African thing, by the way. This is where you have to say, as Andy Young said, Britain was truly the mother of all imperialism and colonialism. How could tiny Britain control China at some point? It means the British were able to get Chinese fighting against Chinese.

The British got Irish fighting against Irish, right? The British were able to duplicate this template in the Americas, in North America and South America and the Caribbean, right? So it's not a uniquely African problem. But as you say, we have to.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:23.007)
virus yeah

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:40.59)
And by the way, shame on Kagame.

Milton Allimadi (01:01:45.74)
Right. We have to look at how we can look beyond these limitations, limited visions, you see? And the best example was Patrice Lumumba, where everybody was talking about, I'm a Congo, I'm a Muluwa. He said, no. He said, that model will not take us to the next level. We are all Congolese. And there is an appreciation for it because

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:06.039)
Bye take care.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:12.173)
Alicia.

Milton Allimadi (01:02:15.374)
everybody else was being very regional. But guess who they voted for? The majority voted for the person who had a bigger vision of Africa. And of course, you know, imperialism did not like that. They eliminated him and they let the Congolese go back to their factionalism, which is exactly, sorry.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:35.672)
Well, talking about factionalism, comrade, how about the Somalians in America who voted, some chose to vote for this fry guy as opposed to what they are coming out and talking about the Somalians. Where are they now?

Milton Allimadi (01:02:49.496)
Okay, okay, so, okay, I'm glad you said that.

I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that because it goes beyond the Somalis and this is something we need to devote maybe an entire show on that. I've always been very critical of, for example, African sisters and brothers in New York City, right? You come here, you know, you do what you got to do. And then once you realize

a brutal police officers that are not going to make a distinction between you and, aka African Americans, only then you start running to people like Al Chapton. No, you can't do that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:35.117)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (01:03:42.924)
You can't do that. know, I've in all the years I've been in this country, I interacted at every level with my sister and brothers in this country, right? And then sometimes we don't acknowledge the sacrifices that have been made to pave the way for everybody else, including us, right? That's not recognized. And the...

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:48.568)
Well, they can't do that.

Milton Allimadi (01:04:12.748)
power structures in this country don't appreciate that because they don't want these pioneers, revolutionaries, to know the impact of what they actually did in the years of struggle during enslavement, after so-called restoration. What is it called again?

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:23.168)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:33.849)
American Reconstruction.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:34.83)
Reconstruction.

Milton Allimadi (01:04:35.816)
Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights era, the Postal Rights era. The sacrifices have been tremendous. You need to know this history. You need to want to be a part of this society that they have been trying to build that benefits everybody. You you come here, you don't know about it, you diminish it. And then when the police shoot one of your own, you start running,

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:40.013)
The Civil Rights Act. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:59.64)
Rather you, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:05.114)
They come for you, yes.

Milton Allimadi (01:05:05.861)
Let me now go to our shop done. It cannot work that way. So this message is not only for the Somalis, but it's for everybody coming from the content.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:15.93)
wholeheartedly agree with you. It's actually one of the reasons why I decided to get a master's in black studies at Ohio State is because coming to this country, I realized how this misinformation, this disinformation spreads and creates divisions amongst us. So you think of the images that African people, black people, African-Americans were getting of Africa. It's distended stomachs and

flies buzzing around children's eyes. That was all they were getting. So Africa, you know, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats. They can actually believe that. And what were we getting back in Africa? We were getting gang bangers, good for nothing, single moms. So they set it up where we meet each other and we don't recognize each other as brothers and sisters.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:44.889)
flies.

Milton Allimadi (01:05:46.953)
Yep.

Milton Allimadi (01:05:55.805)
Exactly!

Milton Allimadi (01:06:03.326)
course.

Milton Allimadi (01:06:10.675)
Run. Run.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:12.24)
And what I would tell my friends is I'm like, you are crazy. It's like your mama had a child and that child somehow moved somewhere and was living with an aunt somewhere and you come together and you don't want to recognize that you are a kin? And you're absolutely right. And I would say if they were still lynching, which they are, but if there were more wholesale lynching black men the way they were earlier, would you migrate to this country?

Milton Allimadi (01:06:23.977)
from, right.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:39.106)
and think this is the place that it's going to save you. No, you won't. So how dare you not acknowledge the history here and actually not pay homage to the people who paved the way for you to be here. And if we understand on all sides that it took us coming together for us to achieve the successes we have. So the civil rights movement

coincides with the African independence movement. It's the same period of time. These people were meeting at the Pan-African Congress. We had people like Anamdea Zikewe who were students here in the United States. We were having conversations with each other. If you look at the overthrow of apartheid, it was because largely the impact

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:09.305)
with the independence, independence movements.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:23.705)
I'm in coma.

Milton Allimadi (01:07:25.795)
And Krumah went to HBCU.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:27.293)
Come on.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:35.832)
of African Americans who were pressuring their government. So for anybody on either side to think we are not one and our struggle is not one and we can ever win if we're not unified, you stupid as hell. And I'll just put it that way, not even ignorant. We need to unite. We need to unite.

Milton Allimadi (01:07:40.439)
Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:51.204)
good.

Milton Allimadi (01:07:52.441)
Well put. Well put.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:55.373)
There is no module. There is no module.

Milton Allimadi (01:07:56.655)
I'm gonna put you and Trump in the same room now. And let's see who comes out standing.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:00.153)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:05.945)
Last story before...

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:08:06.981)
Well, as long as I have my gas mask on.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:11.731)
Okay. Last story before we throw you into the rigs with Trump. It's from the BBC and it's titled, Kenya signs a landmark health deal with US despite data fears. There is the man himself, William Ruto and Marco Rubio. Kenya has signed a historic five-year health agreement with the US, the first such pact since Donald Trump's administration over its foreign aid program.

The 2.5 billion, that's 1.9 billion pounds deal is aimed at combating infectious disease in Kenya with similar agreements expected to roll out in other countries aligned with Trump's broader foreign policy goals. The government to government deal aims to boost transparency and accountability and has raised fears it could give US real-time access to critical health databases, including sensitive patient information. Kenya's health

Minister Aden Dwell sought to allege South Fair saying only identify aggregated data will be shared. Okay, sister, wanna go first?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:09:23.377)
No, brother go.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:25.721)
You

Milton Allimadi (01:09:25.891)
All right, so on this article, I only have a few points. I think obviously I made myself clear a couple of weeks ago when we discussed the fact that they had cut all the money that used to sustain the financing of the health program to fight HIV AIDS in South Africa and other African countries. And I said, obviously in the long term, you don't want any...

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:47.033)
It's US ID.

Milton Allimadi (01:09:54.933)
African country to be dependent on any type of aid period from the United States. I also said in the short term, obviously, I would not advocate just overnight cutting the assistance the way they did because it means many people are going to die in the process as you find your other ways or alternatives of how to do it. So those points I made at that time, they still apply today, right? Obviously, it means there's a lot of

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:59.725)
Correct.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:22.52)
Mm-hmm.

Milton Allimadi (01:10:24.6)
to rest on the health system. If this money can lead to saving lives, the money should be taken. But here's my concern. Are you going to go back onto that dependency model again? So I read in the article that Kenya is going to contribute $800 million, I believe, and the US 1. something billion. And do you have a plan that shows me

in every subsequent year Kenya is going to be assuming the greater proportion of it and that within three, four years, there'll be no need for Kenya or any African country to get this type of aid. That's what I really want to see in terms of a program. But to refuse it because there are concerns about issues of data and the people who are concerned and of course, issues of data are very critical. I'm not undermining it at all. But I'm saying

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:23.969)
Okay.

Milton Allimadi (01:11:25.29)
I wonder whether the millions of Kenyans who live in the rural areas, the one who now have no access to any type of medication in those clinics in the rural areas, I wonder if they are as concerned about data issues as the elite who are living in the capital city of Nairobi. I saw a documentary and the guy needs to the updated version. It's called The End of Poverty.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:37.069)
Okay.

Milton Allimadi (01:11:54.079)
by Philip Diaz. And it was discussing the Kenyan who lives in the so-called slums in Nairobi. I think it's called Kibera, the slum. Kibera, okay. And one was being interviewed. This guy who said since the World Bank program, when the country got a loan from the World Bank, and the condition was to cut all subsidies to the healthcare system.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:03.193)
Keep going.

Milton Allimadi (01:12:23.605)
So they could not even go to hospitals to get simple medicine for malaria. So people are dying of malaria because they cannot even afford quinine. He says for any illness that his family has, they will try to get enough money to go and buy aspirin from the local corner shop. So I think we need to distinguish the concerns of the elite. And I'm not saying that.

data issue is not legitimate. But we need to distinguish their concerns with the concerns of the vast majority of the impoverished Kenyans in the rural areas as

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:05.753)
system.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:13:09.243)
So, you know, let's just be very clear on the fact that these are complex issues and they're not, the answers are not easy, but I would say definitely necessary for us to think through just all the ways that we are trying to address these issues and to have.

not just short-term plans but to have longer-term plans like like brother was was saying. I do have a lot of concerns with this deal. There are at least from what this article is sharing there's a lot of information that I don't have.

I understand the point of we don't want to give money to a third party. Well, not even a third party USAID that it was still run by the United States and then somehow it's it's going through NGOs and so on and so forth. That's the argument they're making. But if it's a USAID, they equally could have done this without going through NGOs if you want it. OK.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:58.467)
state.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:11.362)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:12.463)
I guess for me, I'm looking at, again, the way that the US is bullying and squeezing countries. And because I know nothing is altruistic, I'm always like, what is the end game here? And I know we do not come out on top.

based on their calculations. I'm interested in knowing what are the healthcare needs, how much money was coming in through the USAID that has been lost, and where was that money being directed, what programs was it funding, and this new program that they're putting together.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:30.957)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:50.309)
Does it have the same concerns or are there going to be different concerns? So we're talking about 1.7 million coming from the United States, at least the first year. It's a five year term, a billion. That's the equivalent of $6 per person in Kenya, if you're talking about 55 million people. There are real life concerns as you were mentioning, comrade.

Milton Allimadi (01:15:00.931)
Billion. Billion.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:03.097)
billion.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:16.715)
I was reading an article of a man who was saying, my wife doesn't want to sleep with me because she's afraid of contracting a disease. I'm afraid of...

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:23.757)
H-I-S. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:27.269)
her contracting it as well. I'm afraid of dying myself first, but then I'm also afraid of her getting it and then what happens to my children. So these are very real life concerns here. If anybody has a friend or a family member or perhaps yourself, if you are taking the medication to help keep down the antiviral load and so on and so forth, you understand how important this is. I just don't ever trust Rubio and Trump.

Milton Allimadi (01:15:31.439)
Right.

Milton Allimadi (01:15:52.973)
Thank

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:53.563)
to be making any decisions that are really going to benefit us. I'm also concerned with Ruto and how he's moving. Ruto came here and with the UN General Assembly, he made such an impassioned speech about sovereignty and Africans and the role we should play and how we should be respected and all that. But then he takes his troops to Haiti. He now is the first one that they roll out this deal with that they intend

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:55.565)
the package.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:16:23.566)
roll out all with multiple other countries. But again, the whole thing is if you're going to get any of this, you have to be a strategic partner. You have to do what we see to do. And so there are further implications beyond even just

How significant is this money? Yes, is better than none, but you pretty much gave 40 million to what country? No holds, you know, it's like they just gave it to them. And then we've got to jump through all these hoops for 1.7 billion. I do have ultimately concerns about in this data age that we're in, seeing how far Elon Musk and his people went.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:51.758)
See you

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:17:10.096)
to you through Doge get so much data on the average American and then all of a sudden now Doge is gone, they're gone, but that data has been extracted. What are these people? Why are they so interested in our data? And how is it going to be used? How is it going to be weaponized? Because I know that it will. So for this one, I'm still very concerned.

I have a sense that our people just come to the White House. We're so excited to be in that gaudily decorated place with the fake gold on the walls until they extract it, not from our countries. No, but Trump is going to take the gold to Mar-a-Lago and keep the fake one in the White House anyway. But we're so happy to go sit in these places. I don't know that we are getting these agreements ahead of time.

I don't know that we are vetting them ourselves and really making the calculations, or if we're just so intent. I see it every day in court here in the United States when I go into, when I deal with small claims debt. People who have signed contracts, they were so happy to get someone to agree to finance their car loan, that they did not see that they are signing a car loan for 31.99%.

that they did not see that they have to pay first like five years only on interest and the principal hasn't come down. And by the time the principal, you start to pay the principal, the car has fallen apart because you bought a lemon to begin with. But guess what? You signed this contract. So now you are bound by this contract. But the people who gave you the contract to sign,

had it vetted, had their lawyers look at it, make sure it was ironclad. I'm just concerned about how we're doing business. I understand that we are in a tough situation.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:19:10.866)
It seems to me that Africans have to get into a contract with themselves to say, we are going to have some tough years, but we can feed ourselves.

We don't need to buy aspirin. And I know there are people who are going to say easy for you to say you're in your nice home in Texas, but I'm actually trying to implement these things for myself here. We don't need that aspirin because we had painkillers that were indigenous to us that grow in our plants. I have a plant outside my house right now that I was not aware of until I started researching that can actually prevent pregnancy.

So, Abbot and all of them can do whatever it is they want to do until they stop banning the plants and it is actually a flower that grows commonly. We can go back to our indigenous ways for a moment to shore up our own borders, to feed ourselves again, to provide for ourselves. Otherwise, we're forever going to be beggars on this scene and these people do not mean us well. I don't know how else to put it.

But I'm growing food. I'm growing food. I'm doing the little that I can do to start figuring out my way back to some kind of independence. And so for us on our continent to keep signing away land, signing away resources, it breaks my heart.

Milton Allimadi (01:20:16.511)
Thank

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:26.081)
Independence.

Milton Allimadi (01:20:39.477)
All right, there's a simple solution to everything you just said. That's right, we need to have governments like the ones we have in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. None of those guys running those countries would come to the US to sign any deal of that nature, you see? But so long as we have neocolonials like Aruto, like Atisha K.D., know, first of all, they're not even authorized to sign these deals.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:39.671)
Yeah, speaking of.

Milton Allimadi (01:21:08.531)
many of these guys are illegitimate. They do not represent the vast majority of Africans in their country. But once they get that title of president or prime minister, they are recognized by the European system. And they come and they put their signature on a deal with the World Bank and IMF. And who pays for those deals? Who is the one who is producing to service the debt? It is the rural farmer who does not even know.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:21:08.984)
Exactly.

Milton Allimadi (01:21:38.195)
that his president or prime minister or minister of finance is signing a deal under his name that he will be responsible for paying in the White House. So long as we have these neocolonial types of governments, unfortunately, we'll have the situation. But then one can also look at it a different way. One can say, so long as they continue with this type of behavior, quite naturally, they will give birth to revolutionaries.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:42.497)
I think.

Milton Allimadi (01:22:07.846)
like the ones that are governing the Alliance of Sahel States. That's the rosiest way to assess it. see? But Rodney, first of all, you talked about the indigenous medicines. Rodney wrote about that in How Europe and a Developed Africa. He said Africans used to know the role of every plant and what ailments they were meant to treat. But they stopped that in the education system.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:13.166)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:33.324)
Yeah. Yeah.

Milton Allimadi (01:22:36.508)
in the colonial education system, they wiped all of them out, you know, destroyed all the indigenous education and got you to, are saying what? God saved the queen or God saved the king. So we need to go back to a lot of that as well. But I agree with you. We have so many indigenous solutions. But if the mindset of the people that are governing these countries look first to Europe.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:49.689)
So good.

Milton Allimadi (01:23:04.508)
or to the United States for solutions, we have a big problem.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:09.837)
Yes, there is one quote I would like to leave us with. it's, for as long as your home are under puppet regime, teleguided by neocolonialism, real black freedom will only come when Africa is politically united. That comes from, that is actually in Krumah and it's titled, Struggle Continues. So which I'm currently reading.

Milton Allimadi (01:23:20.989)
Yep.

Milton Allimadi (01:23:26.31)
That sounds like Krumah. It sounds very much like Krumah.

Milton Allimadi (01:23:36.742)
There you go.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:39.649)
So that's it.

We've come to the end of another, I'm sure, very informative and insightful episode of African News Review. I cannot thank Sister Aya and Comrade Milton enough, and we hope to continue to do this. And one of the reasons why we're doing this is all of these stories cannot be written in the void. Simply because they've written it doesn't mean it ends there.

we as human beings, as Africans, as African-Americans, as Caribbeans, as Africa larger at heart, should also come to

Milton Allimadi (01:24:27.676)
It's called the Africana people. If you say Africana, then it puts all in a white umbrella.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:32.267)
Yeah. there is even another phrase that I would call from another larger space, is now it's called global Africa. So yes, so we're part of a global Africa. So that said, thank you both for coming through. Any final thoughts?

Milton Allimadi (01:24:45.221)
Okay.

Milton Allimadi (01:24:57.328)
Alluta continua.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:59.415)
Victoria Sata and sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:25:02.323)
Just gratitude too.

chats who are watching, are sharing, who are thinking through these issues, we win together. Together we win.

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:08.407)
Yes, yes, yes. yes, yes. And speaking of winning, for some of elders who have won in the past, we continue our series of Women and Resistance. And it will be the turn of Sarahoun Magu. This Wednesday, 7 PM Eastern Standard Time, the name again is Sarahoun Magu. Join us and you will find out more about her.

One final thought, also we're looking to get to 2,000 subscribers by the end of December and I'm sure you guys know what to do. Like, share, subscribe and the other stuff. Until next week, it is good night and God bless.

Milton Allimadi (01:25:59.641)
My head.