News – DRC Foreign Minister in Dublin re Yves Sakila

Introduction

Democratic Republic of Congo Foreign Minister arrived in Ireland last week in connection with the lynching of Mr Yves Sakila in Dublin. This diplomatic visit is highly symbolic for the Congolese and Africans.  A short reflection on this important visit is discerned below.

Reflection

Every human life from conception to natural death is dignified and inviolable everywhere at all times. This natural law applies in the Republic of Ireland irrespective of citizenship and residency category. Therefore, the brutality and barbarity of Mr Sakila’s lynching challenge this ageless truth. The spectre of dehumanisation imposed on Mr Sakila attempted to strip him of identity, existence, relationships and community. While the Irish nation was and remain horrified, Mme Foreign Minister’s visit to Dublin carried a bold message, “Mr Sakila is a human being, an African son of Democratic Republic of Congo.” The Congolese are proud and dignified, a fact undiminished by his awful death. His compatriots acknowledge and respect him through his country’s top diplomat.

The visit for justice was part of a broad diplomatic initiative including broad discussions on bilateral relations between Kinshasa and Dublin. Kinshasa’s priorities proceeded from mechanisms for review triggered by the illegal act. There are no records of Kinshasa’s summoning the resident Irish ambassador/representative according to diplomatic standards. Such reticence in public reaction given the gravity of offence may suggest both elevated bilateral relations and prior Dublin’s communication of embarrassment to Kinshasa through the diplomatic channels. Nevertheless, what is evident is the maturity of Kinshasa’s diplomacy.

The meeting between Mme Foreign Minister and her Irish counterpart took place probably after the former's courtesy calls on the prime minister and president. Policies, initiatives, diplomatic agreements and shared geopolitical concerns etc may have featured in the talk. Her meeting with the Irish Justice Minister who is Ireland’s chief law officer was in order. Simply put, Mme Foreign Minister’s questions could be framed as thus “Does the Republic of Ireland respect human life? Where was the law in the lynching of Mr Sakila? Does racial justice exist in Ireland? Is there a link between Mr Bertie Ahern’s hate speech and the lynching? Where was the Garda in the matter? Are private security operatives empowered to kill under any situation? Any assurance against reoccurrence? Where does Kinshasa - Dublin relations go from here?” 

Another strong symbol is Mme Foreign Minister’s engagement with Irish media/population where she broke protocol to speak with impeccable English instead of French. She was heard clearly while oozing with confidence, professionalism and responsibility in statecraft.

A historical truth parallel can be drawn between Mme Foreign Minister’s action and Roger Casement’s investigation of millions of Congolese victims killed by Belgian operatives under the orders of Leopold 2 of Belgium.

Lastly the outstanding work remains for the Congolese, African and Irish communities in Ireland to continue solidaristic actions of enormous pressure on the Irish government to secure justice for Mr Yves Sakila soon.

Contradictions, Ambiguities and Dichotomies of real Nigeria

 Introduction

A recent past travel to and through the territory generated pictures of historical reality in diverse experiences located precisely in refreshed memories, new vistas for self-interrogation and unknown niches that mesmerised imagination. Simply put, nothing is stationary as any authority is quickly devalued by inundating touches of dynamic change. Therefore we position these lived experiences in 4 silhouettes of collective human endeavour captured in real time across in different places below the 6^th parallel.

The Gist

Away from Whatsappistan republic that offer armchair analysts and uncritical observers their dues devoid of practical responsibility and incisive duties in a specific territory of their purview; historical reality offer something more concrete, agencies in action, complex processes and radical responses that dissolve attempts at easy description and non-frill explanations. 

As 2026 opened her arms to the long-suffering peoples, their tested hopes exploded almost simultaneously across different settlements, villages, towns and urban concentrations. What is moving millions of people to act, to seek to breakdown unjust barriers to survive cannot be contained by shallow intellectual posturing or irreverent rational constructs. There is more to the deep yearning of the interiors, their insatiable draws to justice and the indefatigable biceps bulging for liberation. The evident fact is that most peoples across the multination that call different locations therein home no longer wait for insensitive external structures or reckless impositions to dictate their experience, understanding, judgement and decision. Each person have become a republic, as the republic is truly humanised in each person.

It is no longer a head-on collision between contrary forces waxing lyrical with opposite tensions, no, this is the maturity of the innocent just party finally settling for dedicated asymmetrical response to uncertainty after a strategic scanning of the horizon. In accepting that the future is neither predictable nor predetermined; they wrest away any trust on external and imposed structures to define, decide and forge the future of their choices. Be it possible, probably or preferable; they are the master. A mastery devolved to each person; man, woman, boy, and girl. It may suggest on casual view as license for uncoordinated randomness, in actual fact its systematic evolution and development over time point to a side to human quality lost in the so-called quantitative modernity pivoted in its loss in translation on confrontation with qualitative indigenous peoples.   

Let us start from a road trip within the entity where one-way Lagos-Owerri airfare cost nearly half a million naira. Forget about inflation for the moment. The road like an impressive lady offered cosiness between her feminine touch and warm hug. Lagos-Owerri by road should take 8 hours but useful lessons have extended it to provide helpful tasks that melt assumptions. The first is the erection of  "president" every few kilometres personalised as a uniformed personnel armed to the teeth at checkpoints with an arm on the trigger and the other unclenched for a drop. 

He/she is the head of state, “invincible” in real-time micromanagement of movements with “full” powers of life and death to control the spaces and the people in them. Congratulations to civilian rule and democrazy! Even the passing “selected” acknowledge and give them their dues. Seamless bilateral relations open up under this presidency with the commons mostly women particularly mothers meandering elegantly between vehicles hands-free with goods on their heads sinking their wisdom to sell all sorts to travellers baking in the sun or gloomed by rain. This isn’t laziness, it is agency, it is hope.  

Another beautiful testimony refreshed in every settlement as peoples refused to bless an irreverent state or submit totally to humiliation. Yes, they are excluded and marginalised, but hang tightly on their inalienable dignities which defy the highest bidder. Whether in Eke Onunwa Imo State, Oshodi Lagos State or Rumukurushi Rivers State; it became apparent that survival is allergic to a single religion, one ethnicity and gender. It eviscerates any pretence of the human condition. Beyond an initial consternation in the face of inhumanity, an attentive soul simple yawns to evident weight of hidden source of vitality, a dense mystery that grounds men, women and children from all walks of life to defy the odds to make life worth living each day. This is the majority, the masses and the commons of the nations! You must be there with them, to share, breath and exhale with them before interpreting assimilated experience. These are human beings per excellence who cannot be parked into regressive categories of attainment, background, nation and religion. They worth more!

Penultimately is the apparent subtle machination but bizarre display of raw power in a manner that colonial minds could only envy. Reflection of power in its broadest context unsuspectingly inflicts a powerful daze on the uninitiated that its dynamics and purpose is always open to abuse by the inauthentic. In addition it also raises an important forgotten fact that many fakes clamouring God’s name have the strongest buy-in and loyalty to unbridled power. Anyway beware of those who holy roll in desperation as generations keep exposing their bottomless stomach and poverty of memory. 

A trip to Port-Harcourt through Okpala offered a worthy pilgrimage package for perusing lower appetite clothe in desperation on the right side of the road once Eziama is passed. After Nkwo Ala Eziama all the way to Amala to the south and Ntu to the west i.e. 10+ kilometres square of communities’ land were grabbed with impunity. Check it out on Google map. Purported God’s agents didn’t flying in via prophetic visions, they were offered/invited/led by citizens/elite of the said communities to enable rape, betrayal and usurpation of their own peoples. Obike community refused to submit to such degeneracy. They deserve applause and credibility.

Lastly, a new march on Africa via geopolitical steps is slowly emerging with satrapic compliance of Abuja. Not that the current occupants have any leverage for antagonism or protest. How can stomach incorporated wax lyrical on Nigeria’s independence and even genuine sovereignty without advance settlement? Of course he/she is entitled to his/her disequilibrium. Truth is that the weak diplomatic construction effected by Chief Obafemi Awolowo during Nigeria-Biafra war that grafted Nigeria under Washington DC with London’s superintendence is iron-clad. That giant of a genius as “vice-president” had no match in Jack Gowon and his uniformed minions as they folded their undeserved ranks then on “One Nigeria”. Lagos later Abuja locked itself in an intellectual and unrealistic covenant as a stunted inferior partner even as Kissingerian maxim loudly intoned, “To be US enemy is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”

Finally

All great and emerging powers know where Nigeria leans. Moscow got the message long ago, while Beijing currently draw profitable risk-free pickings from the morass of opportunities. Now that Europe is down, flat and almost out; Washington DC is positioned to start recolonisation with extra boots on the ground. 2025 Christmas bombing on the caliphate space of Sokoto sent a weighty message. Dominated Abuja (for her huge natural resources) may also serve as a bridgehead for niggling Alliance of Sahelian States (AES). Look at the map again. However the Venezuela playbook maybe rerun without deployment of armada on hydrocarbons and nucleus. As for the surviving masses and mystics, their eyes remain unwavering on the prize regardless of who the master is or becomes. Revolution of survival is the way since the state or its making remain stillborn. They have the moral superiority and ethical ascendance to hold their ground after all they’re already embalmed in a history richly dripping with fat from revered ancestors prior to colonial infiltration which birthed current demoralisation.