Touched by the tragic killing of George Floyd,” a group of notable African singers, artists, academics, journalists, civil society and business leaders have come together to condemn police brutality in America and called for renewed and increased relationship between Africans all over the world and African-Americans.

According to a statement issued by over 90 notable Africans including popular singers like Youssou Ndour, Salif Keita, Akon, popular Cameroonian footballer, Samuel Eto, former Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, outgoing Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director, Guardian Newspaper in Nigeria, Debo Adesina, Nigerian actress, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde and many other prominent African sons and daughters, they have decided not to remain silent.

The statement reads: “In these strange moments of uncertainty and fear, the news from America has broken our hearts.

We cannot remain ilent! We cannot remain deaf and blind to the plight of our African-American brothers and sisters. We are shocked by the brutal murder of George Floyd by police officers. The unbearable sight of George Floyd suffocating under the knee of a police officer in uniform looks like a return to the dark ages.

“George Floyd’s agony and death crowns a long litany of screams and supplications, adding one more atrocity to a chain of brutalities and racist killings. — It has revived in us the old wounds of our souls and summoned painful, shared memories. We cannot remain silent because we know how much we have in common with our brothers and sisters in our global black community – our African Diaspora. “We African people are 1.3 billion strong. How can we be silent when we know that your long walk to real freedom echoes the struggles of yesterday and resonates with the struggles we are waging here in Africa, your mother continent? We are waging these struggles to advance our common causes: democratic freedoms, dignity, equality, social justice, the rights and well-being of women and all minorities, the integrity of leaders and institutions, economic independence, and finally the control of our cultural and historic destiny.”

Agitating further in this statement, they said: “In this spirit, we the people of Africa are one people, and one nation.

We are a 1.3 billion strong nation stretched out over a whole continent, and with you in the African Diaspora, we are millions more. Together we can build the global African nation. It will be our nation, and we will name squares and schools after the countless other heroines and heroes of African descent.

In memory of our common ancestry, the new Africa will be conceived as our common home. “Finally our common task could be to develop mutually beneficial economic partnerships among those of us on the continent and those in the Diaspora, in order to create the conditions for true independence.

And while we break our silence, we will claim our rightful place in human destiny. In these decisive moments when humanity is confronted with an existential threat linked to climate change, health pandemics, and a life-threatening rise of social inequalities, we must come together.

“We have never forgotten that humanity originated on our continent. At this critical and fragile moment when humankind feels that it has reached a tragic impasse, it is our duty to help humanity build a better and more sustainable future for itself and for planet Earth, through the path of our founding values —’ubuntu’ and ‘nitté’ (our shared humanity), wisdom, equality, respect, solidarity, and brotherhood and sisterhood, so that our human family finally reconciles with itself in peace. Today, in the memory of George Floyd and millions of other black lives who mattered, we Africans in Africa, mourn our loss and honour a rich moment of shared connection.” (Saturday Tribune)

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