Do Black lives really matter to African leaders?

In the wake of the world battling with the Covid-19 pandemic that knows no race, colour, gender, caste, class, religion, tribe and WHO set guidelines to save lives, the world has risen to fight for equality, justice and the basic human rights. This started with the brutal arrest and murder of George Floyd, an African-American, to the revival of the ‘Black Lives Matter,’ to a worldwide movement to fight racial inequality and injustice.

Events of protests unfolded world over, back home in Africa, we are astonished at the response of the security forces to the protests. In the United States, they are bending a knee before the protesters as a form of apology for their actions, an acknowledgment of Abraham Lincoln’s famous phrase of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” to define a democracy.

Watching the US forces bend a knee amid protests is a marvel to my countrymen, but the rationale is that they swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, defend it and the citizens; I believe here it would constitute disobeying orders of a superior officer.

My brothers, back home, security forces storm courts of law and parliamentary chambers at leisure and carry our Members of Parliament like chicken thieves and fixing them under a pickup truck, with no apology, but the ‘spin masters’ speech, who have perfected their trade like ‘Squealer’ the character in Animal Farm.

Here our fellow Black brothers who ‘lead’ us, have passed laws like the Public Order Management Act, that requires one to notify or seek permission to hold a peaceful protest.

However, our courts of law have declared provisions in such laws unconstitutional, but the security forces are adamant to the rulings. We have no room for holding a protest against any acts and actions of the State or any State machinery without being branded enemies.

But fast forward, as soon as you write to notify or seek permission, a battalion of soldiers and a police academy, will be found ready to pounce on anything that moves, even the peaceful protests will be cold before start or within a few hours depending on who beats the other to the venue.

With firing teargas, live ammunition and beating up of citizens; not even journalists are spared after identifying themselves.

The protests over the death of Floyd have rekindled the movement of ‘Black lives matter’ but, do “Black lives matter” to African leaders? In Uganda, we have no Coronavirus death yet. However, pictures carried on media of lives being brutalised and lost by security forces have become a trend.

There is an African proverb that says: “It’s a woman whose child is eaten by a witch who knows the evils of witchcraft,” mine was on May 12, when a friend called to inform me of the death of a nephew - one “Mubangizi Barion,” who was picked from his house in the area of Natete, Kigaga Zone in Kampala by police in perfect health at about 5pm and by 7.32pm, he had been registered at the Kampala City Council Authority mortuary on the same day of arrest.

The family is asking the police to explain how their son died, but there are no answers. Will the family ever get justice for Barion, or is it another case of a knee on the neck with screams of “I can’t breathe” as life is snatched out by security forces.

Our leaders, every Black life matters regardless of gender, caste, class, religion, tribe or abilities, the Barions’ of this world may have died for being seen as nobodies, but to their families, they were a treasure of wealth and blessings.

And the least we ask is human dignity and justice, for we are not just Africans, but also Africa is born in us.

Mr Owoko is a lawyer.
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