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The alleged story of three hundred African boys was reported across all BBC London networks. The source of this information is the Metropolitan police who was reported to have asked London education authorities about how many African boys aged four to seven had vanished from school between July and September 2001.

In a classic piece of fear politics the Metropolitan Police suddenly remembered that four years earlier three hundred African boys had gone missing in London. Detective Chief Inspector Will O'Reilly told the BBC that during the investigation which ignored to query the situation with African girls stated “It is a large figure - far more than we anticipated when we started this line of inquiry”. The story which was co-incidentally released while the national media had created an ‘African witchcraft abuse’ tale was tied in with the investigation of the torso found in the Thames. The BBC sought the opinion of Author Yinka Sunmonu who claimed “They are being trafficked, they are being emotionally abused, there are incidences of domestic slavery, there is physical abuse, sexual abuse”


In an interview for BBC London, John Azah, Met Police Advisor on African communities said “once they are past immigration and get into the country they are lost in the system”. However is it just a co-incident that the issue is being conflated with issues surrounding immigration immediately after an election campaign which ruthlessly attacked African and non European communities? How is it that the private fostering arrangements that have worked well within the African British community for many decades is now under scrutiny with guiding calls from outside our community calling for a national register.

If this was really such a big issue then why has there not been a media outcry over the failure of the Police to previously notify us of these potential child abductions? Surely with the much trumpeted government focus on child protection and the new Child Act 2004, such an act of gross incompetence must warrant a public inquiry?

No?

Well that’s because this is politricks. At the end of an overwhelmingly negative report BBC reporter Guy Smith states “there is certainly no evidence that hundreds of boys have been murdered, in fact many may be in safe hands”. Yet the British media continues to assault a successful African tradition by claiming it is based on benefit fraud and exploitation of labour. Typically the government declined to be interviewed on this issue.

It is imperative naïve African Britons are not manipulated into helping pass even more anti-African legislation to appease the growing xenophobic appetite of a racist majority.