Last week American racial tensions reached its boiling point with the death of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the subsequent death of four police officers and a transport officer in downtown Dallas Texas. Solidarity protests were held in far away United Kingdom and Germany. American pop icon, Beyonce had her own written protest on her website, Nigerian Afro music star, Tiwa Savage, currently in on tour in South Africa shared the photo below to lend her voice to the #BlackLivesMatter campaign.
She has been castigated by some of her followers over the post and for her indifference to the killings in Nigeria.
However she defended herself in a post she shared: ‘I don’t need to justify my support for #BlackLivesMatter‘.
‘Let us not let the devil distract us by letting us fight amongst ourselves and lose focus on the many tragedies happening around the whole. Yes you as an individual might not be able to fight for every cause but even the little you do will help’.
‘I don’t need to justify my support for #blacklivesmatter and it’s sad that some people should even question my support because I’m sure these same people were happy when the rest of the world supported us with our #bringbackourgirls movement, but you don’t want us to show support because it is not right on our doorstep. This is exactly what the enemy wants and he “the devil” is a liar’.
‘We will keep supporting each other and not get distracted and just to clarify what happens at home means so much to me as a Nigerian. I didn’t just hashtag I joined several walks in protest, used my voice as an artist and wrote ‘olorun mi’ as a tribute to lives lost on the Dana crash and will continue to do many more as it is my duty as a Nigerian, a citizen of this world and a child of the Most High’.
