Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
The Centre for Africa Liberation and Socio-Economic Rights (CALSER) stormed the Embassy of the United States of America in Abuja on Tuesday to express its displeasure over the killing of African-American George Floyd and other Blacks living in the United States.
Floyd died on May 25th in Minnesota, in the US state of Minneapolis, during an arrest.
The Convener of CALSER, Princess Ajibola, condemned the killing of Floyd while in police custody, adding that: ‘No one has the right to inflict torture or to subject anyone else to cruel or inhuman treatment.’
The protesters vowed that they would no longer tolerate the ill-treatment of fellow Blacks by law enforcement officers in the United States.
The group issued a statement, which reads:
‘The Centre for Africa Liberation and Socio-Economic Rights have in numerous stated that it is indeed time for the Blacks and Africans to take their destinies into their hands if we must survive the fangs of the Whites whose desire is to see to the extinction of the entire Black race in the world.
‘This is over 50 years down the line when the Late Martin Luther King spoke about the emancipation of Blacks in the United States of America. Yet, the very issues he canvassed are still present in the United States of America.
‘We are not unmindful that some of us have come here out of great trials and tribulation. Some of us have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from where our quest for freedom left us battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering.
‘These words of Martin Luther King reverberate till date in the United States of America and other western climes. And the question is: should we suffer untold hardship and persecution just because of the colour of our skin?
‘Should our children, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers continue to be killed because we are Blacks? We are gathered here to register our displeasure with the happenings in the United States of America where Black lives do not matter,’ Ajibola said.
CALSER called on the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, to convey its message to President Donald Trump.
‘Our message is simple. Black Lives Matter and racial discrimination must stop in the interest of peace, unity and progress. If this does not stop, Africans must take their destinies into their hands and fight for their rights because according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), we are all born free. We all have our thoughts and ideas, and we should all be treated the same way.
‘The rights in the UDHR belong to everyone, no matter who we are, where we’re from, or whatever we believe. We all have the right to life and to live in freedom and safety. No one should be held as a slave, and no one has the right to treat anyone else as their slave.
‘No one has the right to inflict torture or to subject anyone else to cruel or inhuman treatment. Nobody has the right to enter our home, open our mail, or intrude on our families without good reason. We also have the right to be protected if someone tries to damage our reputation unfairly,’ the group also said.
However, an official of the United States Embassy who attended to the protesters, received a protest letter on behalf of the United States Diplomatic Mission to Nigeria.