1. The fat lady will sing. The New York Times has now featured two West African marriages in its Sunday “Vows” section in a matter of weeks. The first is of a Nigerian wedding (ceremonies in Abuja and Virginia). It’s a union of a very well connected lawyer and an investment banker that makes for, shall […]
Late last year, we ran a piece on the documentary Fuelling Poverty, a 30 minute crash course on the politics, implications, and significance of #OccupyNigeria and the fuel subsidy protests of January 2012. Made by Ishaya Bako and backed by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, the film deftly exposes Nigeria’s failed social contract. But […]
When watching Bassem Youssef skillfully deliver satiric political commentary on “El-Bernameg” (The Program), it is impossible not to be almost startled by the resemblance to Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show”. The similar set and the fact that, let’s be honest, they kind of look the same, doesn’t help. Youssef’s recent legal trouble in Egypt – namely […]
A short South African Press Association bulletin on Monday announced the death of one Happy Sindane. If you don’t remember him (and South Africans are notorious for their short memories), he “made headlines in late May 2003 when he alleged that he was a white boy who had been kidnapped by black people.” Sindane had […]
These days, well-behaved African heads of state are rewarded by Barack Obama with the chance to meet with him in groups of four and have their picture taken with him. It’s like meeting Beyonce, but you get to call it a state visit. That’s what happened on Friday when Malawi’s Joyce Banda, Senegal’s Macky Sall, […]
What has murdered Black Consciousness activist Steve Bantu Biko to do with the beginning of spring in the Netherlands? Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything in school. Steve Biko has indeed nothing to do with the new season here whatsoever. Still, this didn’t stop a bunch of yuppies and hipsters to organize a party in […]
Last Tuesday, President Jonathan pardoned 7 Nigerians. While four of those pardons, Diya, Yar’Adua, Adisa and Fadipe have raised semantic issues as they had been granted ‘clemency’ under the regime of General Abdusalam Abubakar in 1999, the remaining three–former Bayelsa governor, Diepriye Alameisiyagha (among others, he dressed up as a woman and skipped bail in […]
Post by Laurent Dubois The French national anthem, La Marseillaise, is, if you think about it, a pretty nasty song. It dreams, in one of its more memorable verses, that the “blood of the impure” will “irrigate our fields.” It’s a rousing anthem, to be sure, and I myself can frequently be heard humming it […]
Angola is a country that has been ruled by the same party, the MPLA, since independence in 1975. The party has effectively transformed itself from a socialist bloc into a purely capitalistic organization with a diverse array of business interests and impressive market-savvy, all thanks to the barrels upon barrels of oil the country has […]
Burkina Faso’s president, Blaise Compaoré (that’s him above posing in between Michelle and Barack Obama at the UN a few years ago), is receiving some mixed PR right now. The Telegraph in the UK has said that even with a murky past, Compaoré may be shaping up to be West Africa’s chief negotiator in regional […]
