Thirty-five minutes into the most recent Sunday broadcast of his “Africa on the Move” weekly podcast, host Lee Robinson learned from his call-in guests that none of what he was saying was going out over the air.
“That’s what they do,” Robinson said. “It’s been happening for the last couple of months now.”
The “they” Robinson suspects is behind the effort to disrupt and sabotage his shows allegedly are agents of the federal government.
Robinson lives in and broadcasts from Richmond, VA.
“Sometimes I can be here in my house using the Wi-Fi and they will have intelligence station wagons and vehicles outside monitoring the calls in this area,” he said. “But it comes with the territory. There’s not much I can do besides letting people know.”
To prove his point, Robinson played an audio recording from the FBI’s Website about FBI Director Christopher Wray’s recent and first-ever visit to Nigeria and Kenya.
During his trip, Wray reportedly told his African hosts the United States is currently engaged in propaganda wars with the enemies of Democracy worldwide. The American government, Wray said, sponsors publications seeking to counteract the barrage of misinformation being disseminated across Africa by nations opposing U.S. presence there.
Wray reportedly warned the two African nations about the possible resurgence of groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Al Shabab in Africa as the Israeli invasion of Gaza gives rise to tension on the African continent. In addition, the United States reportedly committed to paying Kenya $300 million to send 1,000 troops to Haiti to stabilize the situation there.
Wray reportedly is also trying to establish stronger ties with conservative African states like Nigeria and Kenya since the U.S. was asked to remove its military bases from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso by the new revolutionary governments in those nations. Wray’s discussions in Kenya and Nigeria reportedly also focused on the common threats they faced along with the United States and ways to fight against them.
MISSING PAGES
Robinson is the host of a second weekly radio show, “Missing Pages of History,” that has both a national and an international audience. On a regular basis, this show brings to the fore the many known and previously unknown accounts of history, including but not limited to Ancient Egypt, Black troops in the Civil War of the United States, and the Haitian Revolution.
“We were doing such an excellent job that they pressured the local phone company I had a contract with to drop my phone account. Even though I was paying and doing everything I was supposed to do as a customer, the phone company management said they didn’t want to deal with the headache,” Robinson said.
One of Robinson’s guests on last Sunday’s broadcast said that some Haitians believe that the Kenyan troops scheduled to be deployed to Haiti might bring a deadly strain of Ebola with them.
“Haitian American Attorney Ezili Danto said this was one of the perils being brought to Haiti under American sponsorship,” Robinson said. “She’s one of the best organizers and defenders of Haitian causes in the world arena. And she deserves all the support we can give her.”
After the 2010 Haitian earthquake, U.N peacekeepers in Haiti from Nepal were found to be the source of a strain of cholera that killed over 30,000 Haitians. That experience caused Haitians to generally oppose the presence of any foreign troops.
Robinson foresees Richmond as the future base of a communications center for a worldwide African people’s network. He is fully committed to the work that he is doing and is currently laying the groundwork for an annual festival and workshop to heighten people’s awareness of both local community and world communications. “We’re inviting people from around the world to come in at least once a year and discuss the developments in the worldwide African community,” he said. As an example, he already has a plan to invite a Cuban delegation to Richmond next summer.
