Africa Is a Country

Sahara Reporters

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Sahara Reporters

By
Sean Jacobs

Last December I met the impressive Omoyele Sowore, founder of Nigerian online news site, Sahara Reporters. I was chairing an independent media panel in Brooklyn ahead of the World Social Forum in Dakar. Sowore was one of the panelists.  Based in New York City, Sahara Reporters have broken a number of big stories, including events around the country’s former president Umaru Yar’Adua’s sudden passing in 2009.  This profile by Al Jazeera English’s media criticism program, “Listening Post,” reviews Sahara Reporters’ history and impact, but the reporter Yvonne Ndege also takes advantage of her position to settle scores over Sahara Reporters’ criticism of her reporting of attempts by the family and supporters of the then-unconscious, now deceased Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua, to insist that he was in good heath and still able to govern the country:

Further Reading

After the uprising

Years into Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, the rebellion faces internal fractures, waning support, and military pressure—raising the question of what future, if any, lies ahead for Ambazonian aspirations.

In search of Saadia

Who was Saadia, and why has she been forgotten? A search for one woman’s story opens up bigger questions about race, migration, belonging, and the gaps history leaves behind.

Binti, revisited

More than two decades after its release, Lady Jaydee’s debut album still resonates—offering a window into Tanzanian pop, gender politics, and the sound of a generation coming into its own.

The bones beneath our feet

A powerful new documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi’s personal and political journey to recover her father’s remains—and to reckon with Kenya’s unfinished struggle for land, justice, and historical memory.

What comes after liberation?

In this wide-ranging conversation, the freedom fighter and former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs reflects on law, liberation, and the unfinished work of building a just South Africa.

The cost of care

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

The memory keepers

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism.

Making films against amnesia

The director of the Oscar-nominated film ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.