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  Political correctness has been one of the biggest learnings of this year. Amid a worldwide outbreak, voices from all over the world rallied against the age-old contagions that have been plaguing humanity. On this uphill climb to social justice, we have uncovered an underlying structure of discrimination that lurks beneath our milieu. As our language has been shaped alongside a predominantly racist climate, it has absorbed some of the recollections from that period. On our journey to free our system of its prejudice, we must also purge our lexicons of the scars of the past which stoke buried hatred. Here are some phrases that you should immediately remove from your usage. Cakewalk Cakewalk is a word very commonly used to describe a task that is extremely easy to perform. However, this word has a dark and completely antithetical connotation. The ‘cakewalk’ was the name of a  pre-Civil War  dance originally performed by slave-people on the plantations. The dance was often ...

  Footage posted on social media shows several hundred people demonstrating, in defiance of a curfew imposed hours earlier by authorities. Soldiers have opened fire on demonstrators gathered at a protest site in Lagos that has been the epicentre of widespread rallies against police brutality in Nigeria, according to several witnesses. Amnesty International also said in a statement on Tuesday it had received “credible but disturbing evidence of excessive use of force occasioning deaths of protesters at Lekki toll gate in Lagos”, adding that it was investigating “the killings”. Three witnesses told Reuters News Agency that the soldiers fired at the protesters who had gathered in the Lekki district of Nigeria’s largest city in defiance of an indefinite curfew imposed hours earlier by the authorities. Hundreds of people were at the site at the time of the shooting, which witnesses said took place around 7pm (18:00 GMT). “They started firing ammunition toward the crowd. They were firing...

  The Lagos State Government has confirmed the shooting of #EndSARS protesters by security agents in at the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos on Tuesday evening. The government, in a statement, promised to investigate the attack. The security agents believed to be soldiers opened fire on protesters gathered at the toll gate, which had been one of the main rallying points of #EndSARS protesters. The protests have been going on for about two weeks to compel the government to ban the Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the police, which has been accused of extortion, torture and extra-judicial killings. Earlier on Tuesday, following the breakout of violent clashes between the police and persons suspected to be hoodlums across the state, the governor of the state,  Jide Sanwo-Olu , announced a 24-hour curfew from 4pm on Tuesday. However, protesters at the toll gate defied the curfew and continued to gather, though peacefully at the toll gate. Just around 7 p.m., before security agents...

  Those in Nigeria’s halls of power must have been flummoxed when protests erupted in response to Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu’s October 11 announcement that the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) would be disbanded. They had made the fatal error of thinking that the #EndSARS demonstrations were just about the police unit and suspending it would take care of the problem. But the Nigerian youth know better. This was the fifth time in as many years that this thorny unit had been “reformed” or “disbanded” and it is abundantly clear that the government is not serious about tackling police violence. The scepticism of protestors proved justified, as on October 13 Adamu announced the creation of a new unit – Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) – to replace SARS. OPINION Opinions | Police The Nigerian protests are about much more than police violence SARS’s abuse reflects the moral bankruptcy of the system the corrupt Nigerian ruling elite has put in place. Annie Olaloku-Teriba...

  The leader of Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980, Robert Mugabe (1924-2019) was one of the longest-serving and, in the latter years of his reign, most infamous African rulers. Trained as a teacher, he spent 11 years as a political prisoner under Ian Smith’s Rhodesian government. He rose to lead the Zimbabwe African National Union movement and was one of the key negotiators in the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement, which led to the creation of a fully democratic Zimbabwe. Elected prime minister and later president, he embraced conciliation with the country’s white minority but sidelined his rivals through politics and force. Beginning in 2000, he encouraged the takeovers of white-owned commercial farms, leading to economic collapse and runaway inflation. After a disputed election in 2009 he reluctantly agreed to share some power with the rival Movement for Democratic Change. Before his ouster in 2017, he ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years.  Robert Mugabe: From Teacher to Freedom F...

  In 1971, General Idi Amin overthrew the elected government of Milton Obote and declared himself president of Uganda, launching a ruthless eight-year regime in which an estimated 300,000 civilians were massacred. His expulsion of all Indian and Pakistani citizens in 1972—along with increasing military expenditures—brought about the country’s economic decline, the impact of which lasted decades. In 1979 his reign of terror came to an end as Ugandan exiles and Tanzanians took control of the capital of Kampala, forcing Amin to flee. Never brought to justice for his heinous crimes, Amin lived out the remainder of his life in Saudi Arabia. Idi Amin: Early Life and Military Career Idi Amin Dada was born c. 1925 in Koboko, in northwestern Uganda, to a Kakwa father and Lugbara mother, who separated shortly afterwards. In 1946, after receiving only a rudimentary education, Amin joined the King’s African Rifles (KAR), a regiment of the British colonial army, and quickly rose through the ran...

 Michael Lee Capel (born October 13, 1961) is a former Major League Baseball (MLB) right-handed pitcher who played for the Chicago Cubs , Milwaukee Brewers , and Houston Astros . In 49 career games, Capel pitched 62.1 innings , struck out 43 batters , and had a career win–loss record of 3–4 with a 4.62 earned run average (ERA). While he played in MLB, Capel stood at 6 feet 1 inch (185 cm) and weighed 175 pounds (79 kg). A starting pitcher in college and parts of his minor league baseball career, he converted to relief pitching while in Chicago's minor league system.