Speaker urges students to support human rights

Notes governments prefer

‘ignorant populace’
By:Sally Goldenberg
   A former Nigerian political prisoner who challenged the government in his homeland addressed Hillsborough High School’s social studies students about the importance of human rights in the United States and throughout the world.
   He ended his speech reprimanding America’s policies toward Iraq, Iran and North Korea as U.S. troops are being deployed to the Middle East.
   Sowore Omoleye relayed personal anecdotes of arrest and the physical torture to emphasize the corruption occurring in Nigeria.
   He said he became an activist against the government at age 10, when he realized that officials penalized individuals who expressed anti-government thoughts.
   "I said to myself, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to stop the system that humiliated my family,’" he said. He referred to the Nigerian government as "a system that deprives everybody of their rights in this society."
   Mr. Omoleye, born in 1971, said he led other Nigerians to speak out against the government, which resulted in eight arrests. He opposed the government’s plan to significantly reduce the number of Nigerian universities.
   "The governments prefer a very ignorant population," he said.
   He compared his life as a Nigerian, jailed and beaten, to his present life as a student at Columbia University where he is working for a master’s degree in public administration.
   "When you went to summer break, I went to jail," he told the students, criticizing the typical American lifestyle as he has witnessed it since he moved to the United States in 1999. "The luxury is so much that people don’t think about human rights in this country."
   Because Americans lead leisurely lives, he said, they generally ignore pressing human rights issues that surround them. "It’s amazing the amount of ignorance that exists among our people here on human rights issues," he said.
   To exemplify his point, he said, America is committing a human rights violation by going to war with Iraq, which he said is not a military equal to the United States.
   Several students expressed skepticism at Mr. Omoleye’s anti-globalization statements, asking him how can the United States assist Third World countries without imposing capitalistic, democratic values. He responded in part by saying that America should condemn corrupt governments, such as the Nigerian one.
   "We need a global movement to change the entire world," he said, emphasizing the need for unity in supporting human rights.
   Prior to his speech, students discussed the apathetic trend toward civic-minded activities and the high school’s branch of Amnesty International — an organization campaigning for human rights. The school’s AI chapter organized Mr. Omoleye’s appearance, which cost $300.
   Students seemed to concede that teen-agers are typically uninterested in AI, which has 10 active HHS members, because students’ concerns are geared toward personal, not global or national, interests.
   "I know most people (in high school) have no idea about what goes on in the world," said Aikta Wahi, president of HHS’s chapter of AI.
   Despite its struggle to garner unwilling participants for many projects, AI members felt Mr. Omoleye’s presentation was well-received by the 100 or so students in attendance.
   "I think his talk went pretty well," Aikta, a senior, said. "People really seemed to care."