Thirty-eight years ago, Obafemi Awolowo, a prominent Nigerian nationalist and statesman, passed away. Affectionately known as 'Awo,' he played a pivotal role in Nigeria's independence movement. During the colonial era, he was an active member of the Nigerian Youth Movement, which opposed British rule. In 1945, he attended the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester as a representative of this movement, alongside Hezekiah Oladipo Davies, a prominent Nigerian trade unionist and lawyer. As the first indigenous premier of the Western Region of Nigeria, Awolowo implemented free education for all and free healthcare for children. He also established a minimum wage in the Western Region, inaugurated the first television station in Africa, Western Nigeria Television, in 1959, and oversaw the opening of Liberty Stadium (now Obafemi Awolowo Stadium) in 1960. In 1965, he laid the foundation for Cocoa House, the first skyscraper in Nigeria and West Africa.

Continued……. He also coined the name ‘naira’ for the national currency, and his image appears on the ₦100 banknote. His contributions to Nigeria's decolonisation and socioeconomic growth have secured him a place in the pantheon of pan-African greats.

Sources

https://tribuneonlineng.com/115th-posthumous-birthday-seven-fascinating-facts-about-chief-obafemi-awolowo/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Obafemi-Awolowo

LONDON DIASPORA CALLING: ‘HANDS OFF TRAORÉ!’

In this video, we meet more of the voices that came out in London recently to protest outside the US embassy, chanting ‘Hands off Ibrahim Traoré!’. Thousands pitched up, joining a global wave of solidarity with Burkina Faso’s revolutionary leader.

It came after another attempted coup in April. Ouagadougou blamed ‘foreign-backed elements’ seeking to derail the country's move towards sovereignty and regional unity.

As protests spread from the Burkinabe capital to Accra, Monrovia, London and elsewhere, the same message echoed: Africa will no longer be dictated to.

Many noted that the latest coup attempt came after the Pentagon’s top Africa commander made disparaging remarks about Traoré in the US Senate, in what appears to have been propagandistic preparation for his removal:

Continued….. General Michael Langley accused Bukrina Faso’s president of misusing state gold reserves to pay for private protection. Langley’s subsequent visit to Ivory Coast, allegedly home to exiled coup plotters, only heightened suspicions.

The rallies weren’t just about Burkina Faso. They were about a continent reclaiming its agency. Burkina Faso, along with Mali and Niger, has expelled French troops and taken control of national resources. The trio have forged the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) - a new bloc rooted in pan-African self-determination.

Many protesters drew comparisons to past pan-African martyrs such as Muammar Gaddafi and Thomas Sankara, saying that they were not willing to wait and see Traoré fall like his predecessors at the hands of neo-colonial forces.

For many, it’s a revolution in motion. And in the heart of London, the diaspora made it clear: Africa’s future will not be negotiated in foreign boardrooms.

Filmed by @essad_48

Sources:
https://www.voice-online.co.uk/opinion/comment/2025/05/01/ibrahim-traore/

https://apnews.com/article/burkina-faso-protest-ibrahim-traore-coup-attempt-langley-9c2b167d2516c1fcbe5a3acd558bcc9f


https://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/1/headlines/burkina_faso_protesters_rally_in_defense_of_interim_president_after_alleged_coup_attempt

AFRICAN STREAM VISITS IRAN DURING HELICOPTER TRAGEDY

At African Stream, we try not to let our impressions of a country be determined by Western mainstream media depictions. Instead, we like to make up our own minds - preferably, by going and seeing things for ourselves. Luckily, we had the opportunity to do just that for the case of Iran: this time last year, we were invited to its SOBH festival (@Sobh_festival). We attended several events and visited landmarks, and even won an award for African Stream's role in showcasing local and regional narratives from Africa. It was a momentous time to be in Iran, as three days into our trip, the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, and his foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, as well as other senior officials, all died in a helicopter crash.

Continued…..

African Stream's editor-in-chief, Ahmed Kaballo (@ahmedkaballo), attended his funeral alongside many thousands of mourning Iranians and gave a first-hand account of the historic event.

Check out our vlog from Tehran, and let us know where you would like us to visit next.

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

IS THE BBC IMPARTIAL? WE REACT

Gary Lineker (@garylineker on X), a retired British footballer, was forced out of his job hosting the BBC’s ‘Match of the Day’ for criticising the UK’s immigration policy in 2023. 

In this video, he challenges BBC Two host Amol Rajan (@amolrajan on X) on the media outlet’s biased coverage of Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza. Rajan argues for impartiality in war coverage, but Lineker pointed out the BBC’s lack of it in the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Comment on our take in this snippet of a larger video you can watch on African Stream’s YouTube channel (@ahmedkaballo4170). 

Sources
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67676982

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67687449

ACQUITTED KILLER COPS ‘A BUNCH OF VAGABONDS’

‘To protect and to serve.’

That’s the motto supposedly motivating US police officers. However, protection and service are rare for Black people in their encounters with law enforcement. Sadly, even when the police officers themselves are Black.

The tragic case of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, who died three days after five Black police officers savagely beat him on the night of 7 January 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee, is an example of aggressive policing targeting minorities, a throwback to the days of slave patrols. Memphis is a city of 62.9 per cent Black people.

Continued……. Ted Golden, a former Memphis police officer, told Court TV (@CourtTV on X) there was nothing ‘standard’ in how the officers handled Nichols’ alleged traffic violation. However, they were members of the now-disbanded SCORPION Unit, a 40-officer team known for violent tactics, as its acronym suggests. On 7 May, a jury acquitted three out of five officers of all charges related to the beating. The other two officers took plea deals.

Further, that the officers were Black raises questions about the value of efforts to diversify police forces. Despite the Memphis police force being more than 50 per cent Black and the police chief being a Black woman, the US Department of Justice announced in December 2024 that its investigation found that the department uses excessive force and discriminates against Black people.

Such violence harks back to when white masters suppressed slave uprisings using Black overseers and white slave patrols, from which modern US police forces grew. Plus, the notion that a Black person is up to mischief informs pretextual traffic stops, allowing officers to stop motorists for minor infractions and then search for other violations. The Memphis city council passed an ordinance in honour of Nichols in 2023 limiting pretextual stops, but the Tennessee legislature repealed it.

This scenario reminds us that only a fully authentic decolonial revolution in the US will allow the country to transform and heal from its societal ills.

Video credit: @CourtTV (X)

Sources

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/07/nx-s1-5388488/three-memphis-police-officers-found-not-guilty-in-the-death-of-tyre-nichols

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/7/us-jury-acquits-three-memphis-police-officers-in-tyre-nichols-beating-death#:~:text=On%20Wednesday%2C%20former%20officers%20Tadarrius,official%20misconduct%20and%20official%20oppression

https://www.aamva.org/law-enforcement/what-to-do-when-stopped-by-law-enforcement

https://www.notion.com/templates/police-officer-sops?srsltid=AfmBOopS7y8S7ONjodczdnDgXcoZdUKQM4a0DmyzdHoZ0nTd93oKUgMy

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/memphiscitytennessee/HSG445223

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org

https://datausa.io/profile/soc/police-officers#ethnicity

https://www.ebony.com/3-former-memphis-police-officers-found-not-guilty-of-state-charges-in-tyre-nichols-death

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/tyre-nichols-officers-acquitted

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64422576

https://naacp.org/resources/criminal-justice-fact-sheet#:~:text=A%20Black%20person%20is%20five,targeted%20because%20of%20their%20race

https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/aclu_the_other_epidemic_fatal_police_shootings_2020.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/22/black-or-blue-the-complex-double-lives-of-oaklands-black-police-officers

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64421705

https://www.psrmemphis.org/the-case-for-pretextual-traffic-stops

https://alccourtwatch.org/the-violent-evolution-of-police-and-imperialist-militarized-tactics-on-community-members

https://www.npr.org/2024/12/05/g-s1-36967/memphis-police-excessive-force-black-people

https://www.memphispolice.org/about/chief-message

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2025/05/08/memphis-police-reform-tyre-nichols/78991473007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p

Continued……. He is most famous for leading a raid on the federal armoury at Harpers Ferry with the goal of inspiring a slave insurrection. Brown’s forces held out for two days but were eventually defeated by military forces led by Robert E. Lee. Many of Brown’s men were killed, including two of his sons, and he was captured. Brown was quickly tried and hanged.

John Brown was no saviour, he was a soldier in the war for African liberation. And in the annals of Black history, he is not remembered as a White ally, but as a freedom fighter who used his privilege to burn the system, not benefit from it. His raid didn’t succeed in the short term but it accelerated the start of the Civil War, which kicked off a few years later and sent a chilling message to slaveholders that their days were numbered. His example reminds us that it was, and still is, possible to repurpose your privilege and fight for justice.

Sources

https://medium.com/@samarakareemofficial/john-brown-1800-1859-a-sketch-of-theodore-weld-a-radical-abolitionist-and-his-role-in-american-b11aa0d3b021

https://www.nps.gov/hafe/learn/historyculture/when-john-brown-met-harriet-tubman.htm

https://www.biography.com/activists/john-brown-frederick-douglass-friendship