|
Nigerian Exiles, Democratic Struggles and the Notion of Sacrifice: Interspatial Activism and the Proactive Discourses of Liberation
Anthony Attah Agbali
attahagbl@yahoo.com
The annulment of the June 12th 1993 Nigerian
Presidential election by the government of the dictator, President Ibrahim
Badamosi Babaginda, threw Nigeria, as a nation into turmoil and portrayed the
structural crevice constituting its national order. The slogan of June 12th
as a “watershed” pervaded and civil society demanded the installation
of the supposed winner of the election, the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.
However, with the coming of General Sani Abacha, after dethroning the interim
regime of Chief Ernest Shonekan, the whole issue of June 12th was discarded,
as he reneged on his promise to enthrone democracy, ending up in jailing Chief
Abiola.
In the aftermath of this event, different democratic forces evolved to establish
National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a broad coalition of democratic interests
and pro-activists, as democratic opposition to Abachas dictatorship.
In reaction, the Abacha junta began targeting members of this coalition in
the attempt to decimate and annihilate them. Many were targeted to be killed
using government security apparatus. Hence, some members of NADECO managed
to escape into exile in Europe and America, where they established themselves,
constituted as voices of pro-democracy, in spite of the differences in their
political, occupational, ethnic, regional, and religious backgrounds. Monumentally,
these NADECO exiles were able to establish Radio Democracy International (later
renamed Radio Kudirat International) as a voice of the opposition.
The activities of these pro-democratic agents was vital to the enthronement
of a democratic regime in Nigeria following the sudden death of General Sani
Abacha, the despotic head of government, who was planning to succeed himself.
This paper intends to examine the nature of exile as a space of freedom and
alienation, and also the discourse of sacrifice and democratic liberation that
characterized the rhetoric of these exile activists. Further, it also intends
to explore further the reasons that made it so easy for many of these exiled
activists to return to Nigeria to continue their political career, while it
is at times difficult for other Nigerian immigrants to go back home.
African Immigrants in Urban America: Construction
of Social identity and Religion in St. Louis, Missouri
African immigrants are featuring significantly
among the new immigrants to the United States of America. Today’s
African immigrants form represents a historical continuum with previous
African immigrants, who came to the shores of the United States forced
and dehumanized as slaves. In contrast, however, contemporary African
immigrants’ are constituted differently as they came of their
own volition to the United States.
Thus, among the most recent immigrants to the United States are those
affected by internecine civil wars, such as many Eritreans, Somali,
Sudanese, Liberians, among others, and those affected by political
persecution and ethnic cleansing such as the Ogoni Nigerian ethnics,
Nigerian democratic members of the opposition, civil society, and intellectuals
(mainly during the Abacha dictatorship), the Somali Bantu, the Rwandan
Tutsis and their sympathizers, and others. Others, especially skilled
professionals are pushed by factors of economics and existential satisfaction
to emigrate to other social spaces and nations. Some of these immigrants’ destinations
occur within Africa, whereas others target the West, and specifically
urban American.
In all, African religious values, identities, and institutions offer
immigrants a vital source of social anchoring, emotional solace, and
help with social adjustments. Thus, religious centers are vital spaces
of heightened social interaction, mnemonics recall and reordering,
thus also featuring as spaces of interpenetrations in hybridizing the
purely material (mundane) and the purely spiritual.
This paper intends to examine the nature of this phenomenon, centering
on St. Louis, Missouri, a major immigration destination in the past
(1880 -1920). Though, immigration to the St. Louis area has lessened,
immigrants and refugees have found a home here, including many from
Africa. Their presences and influences have helped paint St. Louis
colorful multicultural spatial contour. Their religious values, norms,
institutions, and practices have structured America differently and
equally enriched her. Thus, while African immigrants attain assimilation
and acculturation they also offer to America an African “soul” that
uniquely makes the concept of “e pluribum unum” relevant.
Using census data, archival resources, and ethnographic sources we
shall in depth explore the nature of this social phenomenon.
|
