As the world commemorates World Holocaust Day on January 27, reporter Joke Thomas reflects on the history and lessons learned 80 years later, focusing on the inhumane treatment of groups opposed to the Nazi regime and the global response to genocide since World War II.

One group targeted by the Nazis and first to be sent to death camps was Jehovah’s Witnesses. For many, the observance of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp on January 27 is a sobering reminder of human atrocities – man’s injustice to fellow man.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD) honors Holocaust victims and promotes the educational and historical significance of this tragic period.

Auschwitz, during its nearly five years of operation, included a concentration camp, forced-labor camp, and extermination camp, with over 40 subcamps. The Nazi regime executed severe human rights abuses against millions, including Jews, Poles, Slavs, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, and people with disabilities. Jehovah’s Witnesses were also persecuted; about 400 Witnesses of various nationalities were imprisoned at Auschwitz, where gas chambers claimed up to 6,000 lives daily.

Jehovah’s Witnesses were identified by a purple-triangle patch on their uniforms, signifying imprisonment for their religious beliefs, not their ethnicity.

“The Witnesses’ moral principles and practices did not align with the Nazi ideology of racism, hate, and extreme nationalism. Consequently, their activities were targeted, and they were banned in Germany as early as 1933.”

The story of how Jehovah’s Witnesses maintained their faith despite the cruelties of Auschwitz is a lesser-known part of Nazi-era history. Sociologist and Auschwitz survivor Anna Pawełczyńska noted that the small group of Witnesses stood out for their ideological strength.

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum records indicate that Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the first prisoners sent to the camp. Of the hundreds of Witnesses incarcerated, at least 35% died there. The museum’s website states: “Jehovah’s Witnesses deserve closer attention for their ability to hold on to their moral principles under camp conditions.”

“On the scale of Auschwitz’s huge community, the Jehovah’s Witnesses constituted but a tiny, inconspicuous little group,” said sociologist and Auschwitz survivor Anna Pawełczyńska. “Nevertheless, the color of their triangular badge stood out so clearly in the camp that the small number does not reflect the actual strength of that group. This little group of prisoners was a solid ideological force, and they won their battle against Nazism.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted solely based on their religious convictions. The Nazis offered them freedom if they renounced their faith and supported the regime, but they remained loyal to their values. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Union’s Red Army liberated about 7,000 prisoners from the death complex.

Last year, Jehovah’s Witnesses released a digital brochure titled “Purple Triangles – Forgotten Victims of the Nazi Regime.” The 32-page brochure is available for free download on jw.org and features pictures and documents from a traveling exhibition. The exhibition, displayed at memorial museums and educational institutions across Europe, had been viewed by about 600,000 visitors by the end of 2002.

Jehovah witnesses believe and educate the public through their global bible-based campaigns of a future free of human suffering caused by all forms of injustices. To learn more, visit their official website ww.jw.org.

By Mike Omuodo

A phone vibration drew my attention to an incoming message – a friend had sent a message with an attachment and a note reading, “This is so sad and needs to stop! The message was followed by some crying emojis.

Curious, I opened the attachment. It was a photo of some of the carnage in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – to be precise, the photo of corpses of those killed in the DRC’s never ending war, piled like some wastes from a city garbage truck. My heart bled for the children and women of DRC, the main victims of this horrendous war!

The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has killed over 6 million people over decades, stands as a stark reminder of the continent’s internal and external challenges. Despite Africa’s rich history, cultural diversity, and growing potential, the persistent violence in the DRC represents a failure of both African leadership and the international community to address a crisis that undermines the very notion of African unity, independence, and self-determination.

The DRC, endowed with an abundance of natural resources—diamonds, gold, copper, coltan—should be one of Africa’s most prosperous countries. Instead, it has become a battlefield where local militias, foreign corporations, and regional powers exploit its riches, leaving its people in poverty and suffering. This is a direct affront to the vision of African sovereignty, which seeks to ensure that African resources benefit Africans and not external actors or corrupt elites.

The inability of African nations to decisively intervene and resolve the conflict in the DRC highlights a painful reality: while African leaders have championed unity and cooperation through platforms like the African Union (AU), they have largely failed to protect one of their own from decades of exploitation and war. The silence and inaction of many African governments on the DRC crisis is a scorn to the idea of Pan-Africanism, which promises solidarity and collective action in the face of injustice.

The war in the DRC is also a reflection of how foreign interests continue to meddle in African affairs, undermining Africa’s sovereignty. Since colonial times, external powers have exploited the DRC for its natural resources, leaving the country in a state of perpetual conflict. Today, multinational corporations and foreign governments continue to benefit from the illegal extraction of the DRC’s minerals, funding armed groups and prolonging instability.

African leaders have a moral and political obligation to assert Africa’s control over its own resources and territory. Allowing foreign actors to dictate the fate of one of the continent’s richest nations not only diminishes the sovereignty of the DRC but also weakens the entire continent’s ability to defend its economic and political interests.

Failed Governance

At the heart of the DRC crisis is the failure of governance. While external actors have played a significant role in the conflict, internal divisions, corruption, and weak leadership within the DRC have exacerbated the situation. Successive governments have struggled to maintain control over vast portions of the country, allowing warlords and militias to fill the power vacuum.

However, the broader failure lies in the inability of African leaders to come together and address these internal issues through diplomatic pressure, peace-building, and robust intervention. Instead, some regional powers have been accused of further destabilizing the country by supporting rebel groups and exploiting the chaos for their own gains. This lack of leadership not only prolongs the suffering of millions of Congolese but also erodes trust in Africa’s ability to solve its own problems.

Strategic Imperative

This war shouldn’t be seen merely as Congo’s problem but as a moral and strategic imperative for the entire African continent. The ongoing conflict undermines Africa’s collective goals of peace, security, and economic development. It destabilizes a region that is critical to the future of Africa, limits economic growth, and diverts attention from pressing continental issues such as poverty alleviation, infrastructure development, and healthcare.

Allowing the DRC to remain in a state of war or even degenerate further into the abyss reflects poorly on the African Union and regional organizations like the East African Community and Southern African Development Community (SADC), which have the capacity to mediate and intervene. If African leaders do not act now to stop the violence and build sustainable peace, it will signal a failure to live up to the founding principles of these organizations and African independence itself.

Reclaiming sovereignty

This war is not just a humanitarian catastrophe; it is a direct challenge to Africa’s ability to assert control over its own destiny. The conflict has exposed the fragility of African sovereignty and the vulnerability of the continent’s vast resources to external exploitation. To truly live up to the promise of a united, independent, and prosperous Africa, African leaders must rise to the occasion, reclaim the DRC’s sovereignty, and bring an end to this senseless war.

Inaction or passive diplomacy will only deepen the wounds and prolong the suffering. It’s time for Africa to lead by example, assert its political will, and save the DRC from becoming a permanent scar on the continent’s legacy. The war in the DRC cannot be allowed to continue as a scorn upon Africa’s sovereignty.

The writer is a pan-African Public Relations and Communications expert based in Nairobi, Kenya

By Timi Olubiyi, PhD

In your organizational or business, once you have more than just one employee, you run the risk of having politics in your workplace. Workplace politics often carries a negative connotation, but in reality, it is a natural and inevitable aspect of any organizational environment.

The workplace in itself is a setup where individuals from diverse backgrounds, different educational qualifications, and varied interests come together to work towards a common goal.

Therefore, workplace politics can promote or make individual obtain advantages beyond the usual legitimate authority. Simply put, workplace politics arises when employees tend to misuse their power to gain undue attention, influence, and popularity in the workplace. It mostly happens when staff places self-interests ahead of organizational interests.

Unarguably, with the multi-ethnicity nature of our country Nigeria, workplace politics exist in virtually all organizations and business places, be it public or in private corporations. Though politics may be positive (collaborative) if it aligns with the company’s objective or negative (destructive and competitive) if it is full of maligning but the fact is that no organization exists without politics.

Workplace politics can hurt a business and its employees when done excessively. Too much politicking can result in lower morale of staff, higher staff turnover, low job performance, thereby lowering the overall business productivity and profitability.

The negative effects of organizational politics are what this piece is looking at which can ultimately undermine the overall goals of any business. This politics reduces the productivity of staff and eventually, the business will be at a loss.

The common element of workplace politics is the disregard of company policies and procedure, which is usually organizational instruments to check it. Often workplace politics usually circumvent the formal organizational structure.

The motives for employees to engage in office politics in the workplace are things such as staff aspires to come into the limelight easily without much hard work, job insecurity amongst others. Staff also engage in office politics to reap financial, emotional, and even physical rewards.

Politics also arises when employees aspire to achieve something beyond their authority and control in a short period. Lack of supervision and control in the workplace could be another instance of workplace politics. Too much gossip at work can equally lead to politics.

Jealous colleagues can indulge in work politics simply to tarnish their colleague’s reputation to obtain advantages and come in the good books of their superiors. Workplace politics can naturally result from the competition employees have with one another and it’s a major part of everyone’s working life.

Favoritisms by business owners and subjective standards of performance can also lead to it. People often resort to organizational politics because they do not believe that the organization has an objective and fair way of judging their performance and suitability for promotion. Similarly, when business owners have no objective way of differentiating effective people from the less effective, they will resort to favoritism.

All the aforementioned political behaviors in the workplace have a lot of potential consequences on business outcomes and can affect company processes such as; decision making, promotion, rewards and among others either negatively.

To control politics, business leaders must be aware of its causes and methods. Because if it’s not well handled it can create morale issues and low job performance at the workplace. Hence it is necessary that business leaders, especially in Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), become proficient in establishing and implementing a system of adequate management of this phenomenon.

Various managerial strategies can serve the purpose of diminishing workplace politics and are available to business owners. Some of these are: encouraging open communication in the workplace which can constrain the impact of political behavior.

When communication is open, it also makes it more difficult for some people to control information and pass along gossip as a political weapon. More so when business leaders are nonpolitical in their actions, they demonstrate in subtle ways that political behavior is not welcome in the business.

Most importantly business leaders and owners should be transparent and generally adopt performance-based criteria in the business. The success of any business relies heavily on the efforts of its employees; therefore, the performance-based criteria should be without bias or favoritism.

Remember, if it is political behaviors that are rewarded, staff will behave politically. Conversely, if it is performance behaviors that are rewarded, employees will perform and be productive. Other managerial strategies known to be effective in reducing business politics include involving employees in decision making, fostering teamwork, building trust and social support, publicly recognize and reward people who get real results, basing personnel and program decisions on objective criteria, demanding accountability from all members of staff and reprimanding political behavior.

The starting point of the implementation of these managerial strategies is to have a thorough business structure and institute policies to mitigate potential negative political behaviors in the workplace. Workplace politics is a huge challenge for business owners/managers in that it cannot be depoliticized but can be consistently addressed for business outcomes to be achieved and maximized. Good luck!

How may you obtain advice or further information on the article? 

Dr Timi Olubiyi is an Entrepreneurship & Business Management expert with a PhD in Business Administration from Babcock University, Nigeria. He is a prolific investment coach, adviser, author, columnist, seasoned scholar, member of the Institute of Directors, Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI), and Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC)-registered capital market operator. He can be reached on the Twitter handle @drtimiolubiyi and via email: [email protected], for any questions, reactions, and comments. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author- Dr Timi Olubiyi and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of others.