The portrayal of Muslim women in the media typically involves images and stories of oppression. Sumbul Ali-Karamali, author of The Muslim Next Door, cuts through the white noise to explain how Muslim women are participating in society and changing the world.
PRESS RELEASE
The League of Minnesota Human Rights Commissions has bestowed upon Wynfred N. Russell the 2009 Human Rights Award for his commitment and accomplishments in the cause of human rights. In the citation, Russell was commended for his service to numerous organizations and the community at large and for setting a “powerful example for all.”
Russsell is well known for his involvement and advocacy regarding HIV/AIDS prevention and education among people of color, working with the African immigrant community, and promoting educational opportunities for underrepresented students. The award reads that he is being recognized “for helping make this world a better place by promoting human rights and the greatest good for all people.”
Russell is director of the Center for Multicultural Services at Normandale Community College in Bloomington and a former instructor in the Department of African American & African Studies at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, where for six years he taught African history and culture. He has also taught African history and multicultural education at North Hennepin Community College and Century College, respectively. Russell is currently a commissioner on the city of Brooklyn Park’s Human Rights Commission.
In response to receiving the award, Russell said, “I am deeply humbled and gratified. This honor belongs to the many unrecognized heroes whose silent acts of tenacity and compassion have inspired me to continue to labor for the common good.”
Nominees are judged on contributions that represent a substantial effort toward winning or preserving equality and justice for groups of people whose circumstances make them vulnerable to prejudice, discrimination, or injustice. Past awards have been given to other individuals and organizations whose activities have enhanced or protected human rights in Minnesota, including The Minnesota Civil Liberties Union, Geri Evans (former state representative), and Matthew Little (former Greater Minneapolis NAACP president).
The League of Minnesota Human Rights Commissions, founded in 1972, is a voluntary non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and advancement of human rights. League members are the various Human Rights Commissions chartered in cities and communities throughout the state. It is the only statewide agency concerned with fighting all forms of illegal discrimination. To find out more information about the organization, please visit www. hrusa.org/league.
On January 20, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Kucana v. Holder that a law barring judicial review of discretionary decisions of the Attorney General applies only to decisions made discretionary by statute, not to decisions that the Attorney General himself declares as discretionary by regulation. In effect, the court reversed the Seventh Circuit Court’s ruling that it could not review the Board of Immigration Appeals’ denial of Kucana’s motion to reopen asylum proceeding based on 8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii). This law states that no court shall have jurisdiction to review any action of the Attorney General, “the authority for which is specified under this subchapter to be in the discretion of the Attorney General.” Before this law was enacted, the then-attorney general passed a regulation stating that decisions to grant or deny motions to reopen removal proceedings are within the Board’s discretion.
The Supreme Court reviewed the case to see whether a court may review a foreign national’s petition to reopen a removal proceeding. Kucana, a citizen of Albania, entered the United States on a business visa but remained beyond authorization and applied for political asylum. Kucana failed to appear at his immigration court hearing because he overslept. As a result, the immigration court denied his asylum application and issued a removal order against him.
Kucana filed a motion to reopen in 2002, which the Board denied. Four years later, having not yet been removed from the United States, Kucana filed a second motion to reopen, this time arguing that changed conditions in Albania made it more dangerous for him to return to his country, and asked for reconsideration of his asylum claim. After the Board denied Kucana’s second motion to reopen, he appealed to the Seventh Circuit, which dismissed his petition for lack of jurisdiction.
The Court observed that while the Attorney General’s regulation gives the Board broad discretion to grant or deny motions to reopen, the courts retain jurisdiction to review the Board’s decision. As the Court noted, Congress did not codify the regulation or otherwise specify that such decisions are in the Attorney General’s discretion.
In reversing the Seventh Circuit, the Supreme Court noted, “The motion to reopen is an ‘important safeguard’ intended ‘to ensure a proper and lawful disposition’ of immigration proceedings.” The Court added that there was no “clear and convincing evidence” that Congress intended to preclude judicial review of motions to reopen. The Court also stated, “The Seventh Circuit’s construction would free the Executive to shelter its own decisions from abuse-of-discretion appellate court review simply by issuing a regulation declaring those decisions ‘discretionary.’ Such an extraordinary delegation of authority cannot be extracted from the statute Congress enacted.”
The Court found that decisions on motions to reopen removal proceedings are essentially procedural decisions that have traditionally been subject to judicial review, and that the law had not changed in this regard. Ultimately, the Court reversed and remanded the case for further review. Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, and Sotomayor joined. Justice Alito filed a separate opinion concurring in the judgment.
While the Kucana opinion benefits foreign nationals seeking to reopen removal proceedings, it leaves open several issues that the lower circuit courts will need to address. The Supreme Court limited its Kucana holding to the review of motions to reopen where the underlying form of relief sought by the foreign national is one that Congress specifically authorized the federal courts to review, including asylum. The Court declined to review whether jurisdiction exists where the relief underlying the motion to reopen is discretionary and usually not reviewable by the circuit courts, such as adjustment of status or cancellation of removal. Nonetheless, Kucana generally preserves judicial review for foreign nationals facing removal from the United States, particularly asylum seekers who are likely to be persecuted, tortured or killed if they return to their home countries.
Nothing in this article should be taken as legal advice for an individual case or situation. The information is intended to be general and should not be relied upon for any specific situation. For legal advice, consult an attorney experienced in immigration law.
Pushcart Prize nominee, Maaza Mengiste, read an excerpt of her debut novel “Beneath the Lion’s Gaze” at Magers and Quinn bookstore in Minneapolis recently.
Mengiste read a vivid excerpt from the book to an audience of about 30 people on a Sunday night.
Her book, “Beneath the Lion’s Gaze” captures the lives of a family unraveling in a brutal environment of prewar Ethiopia in the early 1970’s. It focuses on the 1974 revolution that led to a coup that deposed Emperor Haile Selassie by members of the armed forces. When the coup toppled the archaic monarchy, it pledged to bring about a peaceful change. What followed however was cruel and inhumane violence. She has captured the brutality, turmoil and starvation people have endured in Ethiopia through the eyes of the family in the novel.
After reading an emotionally gripping passage at the Minneapolis appearance, she was asked why she chose to write about this specific period.
“It’s so traumatic, it’s very deep and draining story,” said Mengiste. “And it’s very touching for me.”
Although she was young, Mengiste said her memories of Ethiopia’s violent revolution have shaped the book tremendously. Mengiste said through research she was able to put historical and political events into context and write the story.
“I was very young, but the memories I do have were very vivid,” Mengiste told audience members. “I remembered snaps, different scenes and gunshots, but I had no way to put them into context.”
Mengiste is one of the few Ethiopian-American authors who have emerged in the American literature world. Mengiste was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She graduated from New York University with an MFA in Creative Writing. Her work has been nationally recognized and appeared in New York Magazine, The Baltimore Review and Ninth Letter.
Mengiste was a recipient of the Prague Summer Program fellowship as well as the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Yaddo fellowships. New York Magazine recently chose Mengiste as a “New Literary Idol”. The New York Times and the Huffington Post have recently reviewed Mengiste’s debut novel.
Solomon Deressa said he came to the book reading to support Mengiste. Deressa said not many Ethiopians are open to have a discussion about the traumatizing conflict the revolution brought forth.
“I am an Ethiopian and I am here to support Maaza Mengiste,” said Deressa. “We need to see more of these stories being told.”
Mengiste is amongst the many upcoming and growing African writers of our day. Mengiste transforms the harsh reality of a traumatic event into a story about people’s struggles for freedom and happiness.
“This is just one story and there are so many individual stories out there,” said Mengiste. “I hope my book becomes an excuse for people to talk about and have an open and honest dialogue about this senseless violence.”
The biggest advertising campaign of the new year isn’t selling cars, beer or burgers. The $340-million effort, which made its debut with a TV spot on the Golden Globe Awards last Sunday, encourages everyone in the U.S. to be counted in this year’s census.
The 30-second commercial marked the start of a massive publicity push by the government that will include ads during the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics, as well as advertising in several different languages aimed at some of the hardest to count communities including immigrants, African-Americans and Native Americans.
The ad campaign is part of an even bigger effort that includes 150,000 partnership organizations, and 1.5 million enumerators, people hired by the Census Bureau to go door-to-door to count people who don’t send in their census forms by the April 1 deadline.
It’s a huge mobilization of manpower and money. Even so, there is widespread concern that the government isn’t doing enough and many people will go uncounted. “Despite all these efforts taking place there is a lack of information about the census,” said Dr. Paul Watanabe, a member of the Census Bureau’s advisory committee on the Asian population.
Watanabe, who directs the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston, recently spoke about challenges facing the Census Bureau as it seeks to, “count everyone wherever they may be.”
“It’s the equivalent of a country going to war in terms of what’s required in resources and energy,” he told a group of community activists, students and college professors at the university. And while the government’s effort this year is massive, Watanabe cautioned that you can’t just “leave it up to the government to have a successful census. The participation of groups and organizations is essential, especially in hard to count communities.”
According to Watanabe, immigrant communities are among those at the greatest risk of being undercounted. He cited estimates that the 2000 Census missed three quarters of Minnesota’s growing Somali population and about half of the Cambodians living in Lowell, Massachusetts. In New York, the nation’s largest and most ethnically diverse city, the census count “has traditionally lagged well behind the national average,” according to a press release from the office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Across the U.S., about three quarters of the population mailed in their census forms in 2000. But the response rates were substantially lower for Hispanics, Asians and other groups that include large numbers of immigrants.
This time, the Census Bureau is making an even greater effort to reach out to immigrant groups. But problems remain. For example, Watanabe said, the actual census form has been printed in six languages. But only forms in English and Spanish are being mailed to households. Anyone who wants to fill out a form in the other four official languages –Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Vietnamese– needs to request it through a website.
To complicate matters even more, the questions on the Census form have been translated into over 50 languages. But those versions are only intended for instructional purposes. Forms in Polish or Farsi don’t count. Only the ones in the six official languages will be accepted.
People with limited or no English, and only a vague understanding of the American system of government, could have a tough time figuring out how to participate in the census. What’s more, Watanabe says, this year’s count comes at a time of rising anti-immigrant sentiment. It’s also the first post-9/11 census, which will test “whether the government is trusted and whether the government trusts certain populations.”
Despite these obstacles, Watanabe applauds the Census Bureau for trying to reach hard-to-count populations. But he says expensive ad campaigns will not increase participation. Rather, he argues, “it’s the trusted people in communities, in families, that will enhance the count.”
According to Watanabe, one example of a potentially successful approach is the Census in Schools program, which aims to educate school kids about the count. “Who actually fills out forms in immigrant households?” he asked. “In many language-isolated communities, children act as language brokers. Reaching them is critical.”
Cesaria Evora has been bringing the beautiful, bluesy and romantic songs of her native Cape Verde to the world for the past forty five years. The world music icon has bounced back from her stroke in 2008 to release her highly anticipated new album, Nha Sentimento. Emmanuel Nado, host of Africa Mix on KALW, explains her enduring appeal.
WASHINGTON – Despite their own financial difficulties and development challenges, many African nations are joining with the international community to donate money and lifesaving or emergency support services to the earthquake-stricken people of Haiti.
Worldwide, governments have now pledged more than $1 billion in
emergency aid to Haiti, and the people of Africa are doing their part as
well.
South Africa has deployed two search-and-rescue teams to Haiti and South African nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army, have launched appeals nationwide for $4 million in emergency aid. The South African NGO “Gift of Givers” has also collected more than $600,000 in emergency supplies for Haiti.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has announced it is sending $2.5 million in emergency aid to help Haitian earthquake victims. DRC Information Minister Lambert Mende told the BBC, “Congo isn’t bankrupt; our own problems should not prevent us from helping a brother country.”
Senegal’s president, Abdoulaye Wade, has offered $1 million in aid.
Gabon, the Republic of the Congo and Namibia are each pledging $1
million in funding.
Equatorial Guinea has pledged $2 million in emergency earthquake relief. In a written statement, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo said, “Although our two countries are separated by an ocean, Equatorial Guinea stands with the victims in Haiti in this time of distress and chaos.”
The funds pledged by the Equatorial Guinean government, like those of
many other foreign governments, are being transmitted to Haiti with the
help of the United Nations, the statement added.
Mauritius, which has pledged some $500,000, has mobilized nationwide to help raise funds for the earthquake victims. The city council of Beau-Bassin–Rose Hill, which is the country’s second-largest city, announced January 20 that a TV charity event would be held January 29 to collect donations for Haiti.
The diocese of Port-Louis, the capital of Mauritius, through the
Mauritian charity Caritas, which is organizing the fundraiser, put out
the call for disaster assistance.
Botswana is donating $150,000 to the earthquake relief effort, calling
the donation “a token of the friendship, goodwill and solidarity that
exists between the government and people of Botswana and the government of Haiti.”
Rwanda is sending $100,000, as is Sierra Leone, while Namibia has
pledged $1 million. The Namibian Red Cross has launched a nationwide appeal for the victims and has told the Namibian Broadcasting Company that although the government has responded to Haiti’s predicament, the need is so great the public is being asked to step up and donate as well.
The government of Liberia has announced a $50,000 donation to Haiti. An Information Ministry release detailing the donation says the
relationship between Haiti and Liberia dates to the founding of the
Liberian state.
In Kenya, the Red Cross has launched a joint appeal with the
International Committee of the Red Cross. Benin has established bank
accounts to accept donations for earthquake victims and to support the
approximately 50 Haitian students studying at a university in Benin,
many of whom are now cut off from financial support from their families back home. Benin has also offered to increase the number of national police it has deployed to the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti
(MINUSTAH) and offered to send military forces to the U.N. mission there.
The list of African donor nations continues to grow day by day.
NAIROBI – An estimated 63,000 people have been displaced from their homes in Somalia in just the first few weeks of this year due to ongoing fighting, the United Nations refugee agency reported.
Some 14,000 of them were uprooted in the capital, Mogadishu, where clashes last week between Government forces and Al-Shabaab and Hisb-ul-Islam militants left at least 10 people dead, including children.
Similar clashes last year in the capital displaced hundreds of thousands of people, many of them for the second time in the course of a year in the strife-torn nation, which has not had a fully functioning national government since 1991.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) added that fresh fighting between the Government-aligned Alu Sunna Wal Jamma militia and Hisb-ul-Islam erupted in the central Somalia town of Belet Weyne on 9 January, reportedly killing at least 30 civilians and injuring another 50.
Thousands have fled their homes and an estimated 11,900 have temporarily settled around Belet Weyne in what the agency described as “appalling” conditions.
In the town of Dhuusamarreeb, in the central region of Galgaduud, renewed clashes between Alu Sunna Wal Jamma and Al-Shabaab early this year has forced some 28,800 people from their homes. They are now sheltering in surrounding villages and in urgent need of shelter, water and health care, said UNHCR.
“As the struggle for control of the territory continues, insecurity makes it extremely difficult for aid workers to access the area and deliver vital assistance,” UNHCR’s Melissa Fleming told reporters in Geneva.
According to the agency, there are some 1.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Somalia, and more than 560,000 people living as refugees in neighboring countries, mainly in Kenya, Yemen and Ethiopia.
As chief of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Daniel Yohannes, is the highest ranking Ethiopian American in Obama’s government.
An Ethiopian immigrant is making history as the highest Ethiopian-American official in the Obama administration.
Daniel Yohannes was born in the Ethiopian capital. He completed his elementary school at Addis Ababa’s Nativity Boy’s School and later transferred to St. Joseph’s, a prestigious Catholic high school in Addis Ababa.
“In those days people of my generation were idealistic, full of energy, with a lot of love for each other, as well as love and respect for our parents, elders, and teachers,” Yohannes says.
“Growing up in Ethiopia, we had a wonderful awareness of our country as well as the world. We were more advanced in some ways than most teenagers today,” he says.
Go west, young man
In 1970, the 17-year-old Yohannes came to the United States and settled in Los Angeles, California. After completing high school, he pursued his undergraduate studies at Claremont McKenna College and went to graduate School at Pepperdine University, where he obtained his MBA.
Of his time in California, Yohannes says the first few years were difficult. With no car he had to walk two to three hours a day trying to be on time for both classes and work.
With an undergraduate degree in economics and a graduate degree in finance, Yohannes was finally ready to plunge into the world of banking. He worked his way up to vice chairman of the sixth largest bank in the United States, U.S. Bank, which has assets close to $260 billion.
For many this would have been success enough. Not so for Daniel Yohannes. Taking an early retirement from the bank in 2003, he co-founded one of the first “green” banks in the United States, one that specialized in funding companies creating non-polluting technologies in northern California. Observers point out that Yohannes “went green” before the movement became fashionable.
Making a difference globally
The MCC was created in 2004 with a mission to reduce poverty through long-term economic growth. According to Yohannes, the MCC was created based on best practices learned in the last four decades from other U.S. development agencies.
The MCC is very innovative in terms of its approach. “We work with countries that have implemented good social-economic policies and are accountable for their own growth,” says Yohannes.
As chief executive officer of the MCC, Yohannes says he now has an opportunity to make a positive difference globally.
MCC equals good governance
Yohannes says the MCC, which has more than $7 billion available for grants, forms partnerships with some of the world’s poorest countries. But only those that invest in their citizens and are committed to good governance and to economic freedom make the cut.
Nineteen countries have entered poverty-reduction “compacts” with the organization, 12 of which are from Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal and Tanzania. Together, they account for over $5 billion available for projects aimed at promoting growth.
Yohannes tells about some of the successes. Ghana, he points out, is making commercial agriculture more profitable and reduce the cost of transporting food from rural areas to markets. In Lesotho, the MCC is helping the children of HIV-positive mothers live long and healthy lives by renovating health care centers and establishing clinics to distribute anti-retroviral medicines. And in Burkina Faso, 400 classrooms have been built exclusively for girls.
“I’m confident that MCC’s antipoverty partnership worldwide will generate sustainable economic growth and opportunity, and this is fundamental to enhancing our collective security and common humanity for a more prosperous, peaceful world,” Yohannes told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee during his confirmation hearings.
Supporters say with the vast experience in the private sector that he brings to the MCC, Yohannes is well positioned to help boost African businesses and national economies.
In the months leading up to the 2010 World Cup – the first to be held in Africa – all eyes will be on soccer teams from every part of the globe. Soccer (as it is called in the United States) is understood and well-liked throughout the world, where it is usually known as “football.”
But “football” in the United States means American football, and though it is the most popular sport in the United States, it does not get much traction outside the country. While passion for American football remains almost exclusively rooted in North America, the players increasingly are from diverse backgrounds, and more and more of them are from Africa. The number of first- or second-generation American athletes from Africa has multiplied over the past few decades.
African athletes already have established a solid presence within the U.S. National Football League (NFL). In fact, an outstanding University of Nebraska athlete whose mother is from Jamaica and his father from Cameroon – Ndamukong Suh – is a top professional prospect in the United States.
One of the first African-born players to stand out in the NFL was Christian Okoye of Enugu, Nigeria, the Kansas City Chiefs running back from 1987 to 1992. Nicknamed “the Nigerian Nightmare,” Okoye still is very popular, and is remembered for his surprising speed and ability to break free from tackles.
But for many young American football enthusiasts, he represented something more: a first encounter with an African athlete, and a first connection with Africa. “Okoye was the reason I first looked up Nigeria on a map,” says Drew King, a Washington sports bar manager and football fan.
Some 20 years later, the NFL boasts dozens of athletes who are recent immigrants from Africa. Nearly every team has at least one such player, and both the Chicago Bears and the St. Louis Rams have four each. Immigration trends have something to do with this: more sub-Saharan Africans have immigrated to the United States over the past few decades than at any other time in history. The 2000 U.S. Census revealed that the influx of Nigerians, Ethiopians and Ghanaians, (the three largest groups of African immigrants to the United States), had increased by 370 percent, 220 percent and 235 percent, respectively, in 10 years.
Despite these gains, the sub-Saharan African-American community remains small, representing only 3.7 percent of the U.S. population, larger only than the community of immigrants from Oceania. But it is the presence in the NFL of athletes of African and Polynesian descent that has increased most dramatically in recent years.
Football requires speed, strength and size. The African football players have these traits, and they have something more: the drive and discipline to succeed on and off the field. These athletes have been shaped by challenges they faced as immigrants, and by a will to succeed instilled by parents who came to the United States to offer them a better life.
Success in the classroom, Powerhouses on the Field
Nearly all American professional football players join the NFL after going to university and playing college football, which has slightly different rules from the professional version. Though American schools offer both athletic and academic scholarships, most students obtain only one, and the competition to attain either is intense. But many of these African-American athletes in the NFL have managed to do both.
For example, for several Nigerian-American athletes currently playing for the Houston Texans, achieving academic excellence is just as important as displaying physical prowess on the field.
Xavier Adibi, the Texans’ 25-year-old linebacker, is the son an immigrant who came to Oklahoma State University to play soccer and eventually earn a doctorate in biochemistry. Along with his brother Nathaniel, Xavier attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute after graduating from high school as a Virginia state champion. Throughout his high school, college and professional careers, Adibi has been praised for being smart as well as fast.
Ndamukong Suh, a Cameroonian American currently completing his studies at the University of Nebraska, is widely considered to be one of the best professional prospects in the United States.
Frank Okam, a defensive tackle, earned his degree in sports management from the University of Texas in three and a half years. Despite the class load, Okam was a five-time member of the university’s Athletic Director’s Honor Roll and a member of a national championship team.
Amobi Okoye, also a defensive tackle, is considered by some to be one of football’s most remarkable prodigies. Born in Anambra, Nigeria, he moved to Huntsville, Alabama, at age 12. After spending two weeks in middle school, he was promoted to high school freshman. As a sophomore, he took up football and quickly mastered the sport as both a defensive and an offensive lineman. At 16, he entered the University of Louisville and became the youngest player in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Also graduating a semester early, Okoye became the youngest player to be drafted in the first round of the draft by the NFL at age 19. He plans to continue his education at Harvard University, where he was accepted in 2005, after he retires from professional football.
Lives Transformed, Careers Shaped by Hardship
Other African NFL players are able to overcome challenges on the field in part because they have already overcome the challenges of conflict, poverty and loss.
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Mathias Kagimu Kiwanuka, a defensive end for the New York Giants, is also a proud son of Uganda. While studying at Boston College, Kiwanuka kept a Ugandan flag on display in his dorm room in remembrance of his grandfather Benedicto Kiwanuka, who was elected the first prime minister of Uganda in 1961 and assassinated by Idi Amin supporters in 1972. Shortly after fleeing the political turmoil that left thousands dead during Amin’s dictatorship, his parents divorced. His mother began a housecleaning business to provide for her three children.
Minnesota Vikings tight end Visanthe Shiancoe was born in Birmingham, England, shortly after his mother escaped Liberia as civil war broke out in 1980. Fearing that her sons’ lives might be endangered by the conflict that ravaged the country for nearly two decades, she left a comfortable lifestyle and eventually sacrificed her marriage to secure a safe environment in Washington for her children. Working two jobs and sewing her own clothes, she has provided Shiancoe with a lifelong role model, and he credits his ability to bounce back on the field to his African mother’s unwavering resilience.
African and American Champions, Local and Global Role Models
Many of the recent African immigrants in the NFL have chosen to give back to their communities, both in the United States and in Africa, and have become role models for youth on both sides of the Atlantic.
Akinola “Akin” Ayodele, a Nigerian-American linebacker for the Miami Dolphins, is famous for his strong faith and commitment to giving back. Having already won several awards for his advocacy on behalf of the poor and the sick, he recently founded Akin’s PATH, a charitable organization that partners with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Miami to mentor underprivileged youth. The foundation also calls on all Dolphins fans to volunteer as mentors.
Cincinnati Bengals safety Chinedum Ndukwe belongs to a prominent Nigerian-American family. His older brothers include Ikechuku, an offensive lineman for the Miami Dolphins, and Kelechi, an Iraq war veteran who currently serves as the U.S. Navy liaison to the U.S. Senate. After attending Harvard Business School during the offseason, Chinedum began a trust fund with his brother Ikechuku, with the intention of launching a charitable organization that would enable them to give back to both their hometown and their homeland. The now-operational Ndukwe Foundation promotes well-being and healthy lifestyles in local communities and across the Atlantic. In addition to financing an entire football season for a youth team in one of the most underprivileged neighborhoods in Columbus, Ohio, Chinedum visited Nigeria with Ikechuku to start a football camp where their parents were born and raised.
New York Jets safety James Ihedigbo’s parents, Rose and Apollos, left Nigeria in the 1970s and settled in Amherst, Massachusetts, where they raised four children and both earned doctorates from the University of Massachusetts. After playing basketball, lacrosse and track in high school, James also went on to study at the University of Massachusetts, majoring in sociology. His combined passions for athletics, education and social issues have led him to reach out to youth in both the United States and Africa. He frequently visits schools to engage students in discussions about the importance of hard work and faith. He also advocates for, and spends time with, children suffering from sickle cell anemia, a disease affecting about one in every 500 African Americans. Following his parents, who returned to Nigeria to establish the Nigerian Agricultural Technical Community College, James recently founded the Hope Africa Foundation, a charitable organization that provides young Nigerians with scholarships to ensure the completion of their education.
One of the greatest obstacles to diversity in the world of American football is the sport’s relative nonexistence outside the United States. Although the NFL has organized several overseas expansion games, none have yet taken place in Africa.
Ashton Youboty, a Liberian-American cornerback for the Buffalo Bills, told the cable sports network ESPN in 2006 that “good athletes come from all over. I’m sure there are a lot of world-class athletes in Africa right now, people whose skills would allow them to play in the NFL if they just got the right break. I was lucky. … How many other African kids do you think there are who could do the same thing if they learned the game? The truth is, a lot, I’m sure.”
At a time when cell phones and the Internet are closing cultural and communication gaps that once separated Africa from the rest of the world, news of the rise in high-profile African players in the NFL may lead African audiences to become familiar with – and fans of – American football.
Stephen Hayes, president of the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) in this interview with Mshale Correspondent Williams Ekanem in Washington D.C says African leaders should reflect on why things are working out in other continents but not in Africa. He is of the opinion that there is nothing outsiders can do about the high level corruption on the continent.
The Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) had a very successful outing in September during the 7th U.S. Africa business summit, although early, but what would say are the gains of the summit?
The gains definitely depends on our goals which is basically to strengthen relationship and investing in Africa in terms of business and credibility with various governments including our own government, certainly that was achieved. The secretary of state gave a very important speech which was underlined the relationship with the key countries, Nigeria been one of them, South Africa, to some extent Kenya and Ethiopia as well as Ghana.
I think in that case, it was just a huge success. In a way, I can say that it was the most successful summit, in terms of having identified specific goals and having met some of those goals.
Now the other aspect is, does it increase US-Africa business relationship? That is going to be in the long term, we have to wait and see on that.
Can you point at any example where your objective of strengthening commercial relationship with African businesses has paid off?
I can give a lot of different examples and they are business to business. A lot of members of CCA like General Electric have put up a lot of contracts and we set up some of the meetings. Westinghouse is another example. One can cite a lot of more examples but that is less important to me. What is more important is that we are establishing business relationships.
There are a number of examples and there are also probably, a number of those that we don’t know about. Our organization basically deals with relationships and those relationships are hard to track, but most of our members continue to do new businesses because of the relationship we have created.
With the myriad of economic problems in most African countries, how does CCA market them for meaningful business engagement with U.S. companies?
Well those are the major challenges on the African side, on the U.S. side there are also challenges including people having to understand that Africa is a diverse continent with different countries and different places to invest and quite some good and also difficult places to invest. So I think the greatest challenge is trying to get more U.S. companies in Africa. It is still a learning process, no matter how long I have been here, but in any case, I think where we are going with the bilateral relationships we are going to be far more successful in U.S.-Africa business formations.
It is designed to move the relationship forward by bringing businesses together looking at where we can partner in all parts of Africa a. Yes lack of infrastructure is a problem that is why some African countries and China are working on improving infrastructure that is not only going to be used by the Chinese but by everybody else. I like to see more U.S. companies involved in infrastructural development.
The Council recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Nigerian Economic Summit Group NESG; can you lead us into more details?
Nigeria is one of the most important markets in Africa. . Nigeria to me is of paramount importance. Its stability is key to the stability in the entire continent. The fact is that a lot of people have just started investing in Nigeria. If we have a way to track the investments, I think a lot of the Diaspora community is investing more in the country than any other Diaspora community.
It is one of the most important nations on the continent of Africa. So the NESG is the place where we intend to have one or two meetings in a year and we will get to meet large Nigerian companies through this partnership.
With the intractable problem of wanton corruption in most African countries, turning wealth into a curse, the continent sure needs help. Is there anything the CCA can do?
We are not all things to all people, where we can help is areas we can do build business relationships, make the environment more stable. We are working with our companies to do that, but again we can’t do that unless you have local partners, so it can take some time realistically. In the long run, we make small difference here and there in terms of building partnership but its better dealt with locally.
What is the Infrastructure summit in April 2010 all about?
It’s about building relationships with various other countries and companies as well as finding partnerships. We have a considerable South African contingent coming; we are pushing very strongly to have a large Nigerian contingent also because that is where they can access infrastructural relationships. That is the basis of the forthcoming U.S. Africa infrastructure conference in Washington D.C. It is very difficult to name any other of such gathering and ours is such a very high quality and visibility.
What we are also going to do is to work very closely with the World Bank on this because we are going to make it come immediately after the World Bank spring meeting so that we can have the finance ministers there. We are looking at a tie-in between infrastructure and financing because financing is the biggest obstacle to investment. Our work is long term, its relationship building for greater investment.
As successful as the CCA may be in facilitating commercial relationships between the U.S. and Africa, critics are of the view that the Council has not really impacted the continent. What is your response to this?
I understand the perception; there is a general negativism and cynicism often to many things in life. I can understand where that might have come from. But has U.S. investments in Africa increased? Yes it has. Has it increased significantly? No, perhaps no less significant than in any other area with exception to China and India who are becoming more significant investors in the continent of Africa. So have we added to the visibility of Africa in the United States? I don’t think any other group has done more work.
I don’t know of anybody who has done more in the past ten years in making Africa visible as an economic destination. AGOA hasn’t worked very well, not because it is a bad legislation, but because the capacity to use AGOA is not there, the infrastructure is not there. Why is it not there? Africans have to stop blaming others but ask what can be done to make the situation better and to me that comes back to functional leadership.
We are strongly resolved to making a change in Africa. These are areas we got to address and on our part we work to get people see that Africa is a very diverse and a very good destination that is not been used.
A greater relationship with Africa can help the U.S. economy considerably. I think we need Africa in more ways than Africa needs us. But at the same time, have these guys asked themselves why things are happening elsewhere and not in Africa? It is very easy to blame the outsider because then you don’t have to address the issues, especially at the leadership level.
Based on all you have said so far, what message do you have for Africans?
Don’t give up hope. I think it’s going to be a stronger U.S. Africa relationship but it’s going to take a lot of work.
Editor’s note: Read Williams Ekanem report on the 7th U.S. Africa business summit held in Washington, DC.
