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Thousands in US mark MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech

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Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III join other politicians and activists to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 'I have a Dream' speech on the National Mall on August 24, 2013 in Washington, DC

Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III join other politicians and activists to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech on the National Mall on August 24, 2013 in Washington, DC

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Tens of thousands gathered Saturday to mark 50 years since the March on Washington, the civil rights watershed where Martin Luther King Jr famously declared: “I have a dream.”

Under blue skies, the predominantly — but by no means exclusively — African American crowd swelled around the Reflecting Pool, cheering a procession of speakers who addressed them from the white marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

“This is not a time for nostalgic commemoration… The task is not done. The journey is not complete. We can and we must do more,” said King’s son Martin Luther King III, speaking from the precise spot where his father delivered one of American history’s greatest speeches.

“Fifty years ago, my father stood upon this hallowed spot and the spirit of God spoke through him… I can almost hear my father humming, ‘A train’s a-coming,’” he said.

“Their march is now our march, and it must go on,” echoed Attorney General Eric Holder, honoring the estimated 250,000 who assembled on the National Mall in sweltering heat on August 28, 1963 to denounce racial segregation and demand equal rights.

Martin Luther King 50 years ago

Martin Luther King 50 years ago

“Today, we look to the work that remains unfinished,” Holder said. “We want this nation to be all it was designed to be, and all it can be.”

Organizers had planned for as many as 150,000 people to attend Saturday’s mass rally and afternoon march past the nearby Martin Luther King Jr monument, ahead of another commemorative march Wednesday to be addressed by President Barack Obama.

The March on Washington is best remembered for King’s stirring vision of a United States free of inequality and prejudice, telecast live to a nation undergoing a phenomenal decade of soul-searching, crisis and change.Read the speech here:Martin Luther King’s immortal Dream speech

Saturday’s event, spearheaded by civil rights firebrand Reverend Al Sharpton with prominent trade-union backing, underscored a fresh list of concerns, from income inequality and threats to voting rights to immigration reform and urban violence.

Some of the crowd at the memoriam for Martin Luther King today

Some of the crowd at the memoriam for Martin Luther King today

Foremost on many minds was Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black Florida teenager shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer who was subsequently acquitted of murder, in a test of the state’s “stand-your-ground” self-defense law.

Speakers and demonstrators alike also voiced concern for the Voting Rights Act, a key piece of civil rights legislation that the US Supreme Court has sent back to Congress to revise.

“We have another fight. We must stand up and fight the good fight,” Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, who addressed the March on Washington as a 23-year-old activist a half-century earlier, told the rally.

“We cannot go back. We have come too far… We can not give in.”

In the front rows, the largely middle-aged and good-humored crowd held up signs condemning racial profiling and demanding statehood for the US capital’s District of Columbia, which has no voting member of Congress.

“We have not progressed. We’re going backwards, I’d say, in the last 20 years,” said Vera Peele of South Bend, Indiana, who expressed concern about the ability of the frail senior citizens she helps look after to access voting stations.

“We’re getting away from what really matters, and that’s the people,” added mother-of-six Tameka Johnson of Scotland Neck, North Carolina, a teaching assistant worried about the impact of educational cutbacks in her Southern state.

Marjorie Ross of Springfield, Massachusetts, was part of a group that traveled overnight for seven hours to find itself unexpectedly at the very front of the crowd that stretched back to the Washington Monument with the Capitol in the distance.

“My grandmother came in 1963. I picked up the torch to be here for her,” said Ross, who was 13 back then. “As a kid I endured a lot of injustice, and I’m sure it was because of the color of my skin.”

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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: PM News

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Kano Transfers Over 1,000 Almajiris To Different States Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.

The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.

Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.

Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.

Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.

Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.

In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.

Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.

Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.

However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.

Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.

 

Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria

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COVID-19: ‘Bakassi Boys’ Foil Attempt To Smuggle 24 Women Into Abia In Container

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By Ugochukwu Alaribe

Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.

The market women, said to be  from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.

Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.

A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.

Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that  smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.

 

Sourced From: Vanguard News

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Woman Kills Her Maid Over Salary Request

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Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole

The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.

Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.

He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid  in January 2020.

‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.

She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.

He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.

The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police  Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.

Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.

He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’

He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.

Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.

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Boko Haram Attacks: Buhari Summons Urgent Meeting Of Service Chiefs

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President Buhari and the Service Chiefs in a meeting. (File photo)

Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend. 

He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart. 

Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.

The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad  problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”

The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad,  saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts.  This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”

When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose. 

Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them. 

Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter. 

“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said. 

 

Sourced From: Tribune

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