President Macron in Nigeria
President Macron from Twitter
President Macron was in Nigeria for a couple of days last week. Our son Sam, with his company Trace TV, was instrumental in making the arrangements for Macron’s visit to one of Nigeria’s most famous destinations.
Fela Ransome-Kuti, later just known as Fela, was a well-loved musician and activist. Fela’s life was chronicled in the musical Fela on Broadway a few years ago. The Shrine in Lagos was the center of his activism and music. He died in 1997.
Early in his career he played with Victor Olaiya whose music I enjoyed in the 1960’s at Kakadu, a popular night spot! Fela’s Afrobeat is still popular today.
He was often at odds with the military governments of the time. In the early 1980’s I was driving along the Yaba Expressway in Lagos and saw police cars chasing another vehicle. It was Fela being hunted by the authorities, a frequent occurrence.
He got away that time, but later he was arrested and imprisoned for 20 months in what Amnesty International and others called trumped-up charges.
The Shrine has been rebuilt as an entertainment center in a new location in Lagos, and is now called The New Afrika Shrine.
Inside the New Afrika Shrine from their Facebook page
Dancing at the Shrine
The BBC World Africa News had a couple of articles about Macron’s visit.
A one-minute video showed President Macron dancing and speaking at the New Afrika Shrine. Our son Sam is in the photo at about 26 seconds, at the right front.
The article accompanying the video says, “The French leader – who spent six months as an intern at the French embassy in Lagos in the early 2000s – told reporters travelling with him: ‘I like Nigeria a lot. It’s an appealing country. I’ve got a lot of memories… that haven’t left me.’ ”
An equally entertaining 10-second video shows President Macron speaking pidgin English in Lagos! Clearly he enjoyed himself on his visit.
Of course the Nigerian media also had many articles about his visit. Nigerian News Direct described the meeting between President Buhari and President Macron in the capital Abuja.
At this meeting, the article said, “Macron pledged to increase the cooperation between Nigeria and France in tackling security challenges brought about by the activities of Boko Haram and ISIS jihadists in Nigeria and the Sahel region of Africa.”
Prison Gerrymandering, Another Take on Voting Rights
In June I wrote about women voting in Nigeria, in response to a question from audience members at book talks. And way back in November 2016 I blogged about the US election and my surprise at the results of the voting.
I’m sure I’ve written about the unjust US practice of denying felons the right to vote. Many states have changed those rules, including Connecticut.
However there is another method of impacting voting rights in Connecticut. WHSU, our public radio station, had a recent story about a suit brought by the NAACP on this issue. It concerns a type of gerrymandering. Two WSHU reporters provided background on the case.
Ikem, with his mom behind him, at Sesame Street Park in New Jersey on Saturday
Where Prisoners are Counted Makes a Difference
In Connecticut prisoners are counted as part of the population where the prison is located. In our state these are mostly rural and mostly white areas. The prisoners cannot vote while they are incarcerated, but their numbers add to the voter rolls in their districts.
So their district gains in representation at the state level, while the hometowns of the prisoners, mostly urban and with a large Black and Latino population, lose representation.
“Counting inmates as part of the local population is not new. According to a report by the Prison Policy Initiative it’s been done for more than 200 years. What has changed is the location of the prisons, and the number of people incarcerated,” the authors of the WSHU article say.
Today many prisons are far from the cities where the prisoners come from, and the numbers of incarcerated people, especially Black men, have skyrocketed.
An article from the Hartford Courant in late June describes the lawsuit brought by the NAACP. “The NAACP, working with the Rule of Law Clinic at Yale, brought the suit on behalf of several registered voters living in districts whose political power they say is diluted by the redistricting plan, including one former inmate,” the article says.
Let me know if you learn more about this lawsuit or its outcome.
Beach Day, Finally
Our daughter Beth and her husband Kelvin came to Westport with Ikem on Saturday. Ikem will be five in mid-July, another one of our family birthdays.
Ikem at a Westport playground on Saturday afternoon
We finally had fabulous beach weather. So we were on Compo Beach for several hours on Sunday afternoon.
The tide was really low. We could walk out for hundreds of feet and the water was only up to our knees, or up to Ikem’s chest. He loved it, and tired himself out skipping with delight at the feel of the water, especially the tiny waves.
Kelvin took lots of pictures of Ikem in the water. I forgot to ask him for some. I’ll ask for some and have them next time!
Beth’s son Kenechi and his girlfriend Mary came late Sunday for dinner. We ordered Thai food from a restaurant nearby. It was delicious!
We all shared the meal. Then Beth went home with her family while Kenechi and Mary stayed for a Scrabble game.
Who won? Well, I don’t want to brag, but I’ll give you a clue; it wasn’t my grandson or his girlfriend!
