Since the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), by the operatives of the Nigerian Department of State Security (DSS) in October 2015, public protests have intensified, both in Nigeria and its diaspora, calling for the independence of Biafra. The demands include an appeal to the Nigerian government to conduct a referendum on independence. Kanu has since been released from prison (in April this year), but the […]
The Gulf States and Israel benefit tremendously from the authoritarian order that has kept the region underdeveloped and unfree for decades.
Twitter a while back: ‘Robert Mugabe is old enough to be Muhammadu Buhari’s father.’ Robert Mugabe, 93, is campaigning to be reelected next year. He is “slurring his words and dozing off (just resting his eyes, a spokesman claimed).” He may still win. Wole Soyinka was right in 2011 when he described Mugabe as “still […]
Igbo nationalist groups have the right to self-determine whether they want to be part of Nigeria or form their own independent republic.
Politics in many parts of Africa is often understood through a metaphor of eating – a point to which Jean-François Bayart drew our attention in his seminal 1989 publication, The State in Africa. In contrast to the social scientific discourse of corruption, the idiom of eating is more neutral and bespeaks necessity. While eating to […]
Happy Father’s Day. This was the week of June 16th–the commemoration of the 1976 Soweto Uprising, which gave impetus to the long last phase of the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. (If you’re wondering about the contemporary incarnations of that revolt, look no further than #FeesMustFall, #RhodesMustFall, the Economic Freedom Fighters and groups like […]
Rwanda’s constitution was changed in 2016 to allow Kagame to stay in power until 2034.
There seems to be no limit to Europe’s and USA’s willingness to accept and even support autocrats in North Africa and the Middle East. Consider the case of Egypt, Africa’s third most populous country. Since Egypt’s military seized power in a coup and thus ended a brief experiment with real democratization in July 2013, the […]
Put on "Gang Signs & Prayer," the debut studio album of Stormzy (Government Name: Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari Owuo, Jr.), as this is going to be a long Weekend Special.
Jeremy Corbyn has led Britain's Labour Party since 2015. There is no one else in British politics remotely like Corbyn.
Ordinary Kenyans are tired of the drama of party politics, and are hungry, job insecure and live under the threat of police bullets.
This is the first opportunity for Gambians since independence in 1965 to have a broad-ranging public conversation on its future.
Opportunities like China’s One Belt One Road Initiative cannot simply be ignored, but should be engaged with critically.
After nearly fifty years, the real impact of the Biafran war on Nigeria remains to be measured, free from political gamesmanship.
The author, in exile from Eritrea, attempts construct a profile of the country's longtime leader.
Yolanda Daniels is a domestic worker with three children. She has lived on a farm outside of Stellenbosch in South Africa’s Western Cape for more than 16 years with the white farm owner’s consent. Like many other women living on farms, overwhelmingly coloured and black, both the security of Ms Daniels’ employment and housing are […]
Neither western or African media nor academic literature can afford to continue to erase or marginalize Anglophone Cameroon from the region’s present and history.
The Tafelberg site in Sea Point, a rich suburb of Cape Town, has come to symbolize the vested interests that corrupt our state and maintain white property powers’ near-exclusive access to well-located land and housing in Cape Town. In December 2015, this prime piece of state-owned land was sold to a private buyer with no […]
The real danger of an Emmanuel Macron victory is that, simply by virtue of not being Marine Le Pen, his policies will be treated as reasonable.
There is no doubt that the AU has the potential to be an important political actor but it faces severe limitations as a continental body.