June/July 2025
Muhammadu Buhari and the Politics of Memory
Understanding the different responses to Buhari’s death helps us understand his legacy on a divided nation. Read More...
Èkún Omi and Femi Bajulaye’s Yoruba Aesthetic Vision
Having premiered at the 2025 Diversity in Cannes Short Film Showcase, Femi Bajulaye’s Èkún Omi presents a cinematic exploration and representation of African migrants’ realities through a deeply conscious Yoruba aesthetic. Read More...
‘The Republic of the Congo Is Not French, It Is Congolese’ Andréa Ngombet’s First Draft
Congolese writer, Andréa Ngombet, founded the Sassoufit Collective to document human rights violations in the Republic of the Congo: ‘It started as a mobilization against President Sassou Nguesso’s 2015 constitutional change and then evolved into a support structure for local voices. This vocation also aligns with my historian training: to produce, document and archive so that future generations know we resisted and that another Congo was possible.’ Read More...
5 Books That Explain Why Lagos Drives People Crazy
In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of books to read to understand why Lagos drives people crazy. From a book that exposes the racial privilege that marks the city to one that explores its dangerous underground and criminal networks run by the very people who should be protecting the city, these books will make you livid about just how anything is permissible in Lagos! Read More...
How France Secretly Poisoned the Algerian Sahara
Between 1960 and 1966, the French colonial regime secretly detonated four atmospheric and 13 underground nuclear bombs and conducted tests of nuclear technologies in the Algerian Sahara. This secret atomic programme spread radioactive fallout and caused irreversible contamination across Algeria, the Sahara, Africa and elsewhere. Read More...
How Nigerian Loan Providers Marginalize Women
Young women, like most women in Nigeria, struggle to access credit. Expanding financial equity will require simpler systems, cultural change and support for women to take informed financial risks and build economic power. Read More...
The Akpoti-Uduaghan Playbook on Resistance Against All Odds
What does it mean to be a Nigerian woman fighting against the establishment? When Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan was suspended for speaking out against sexual harassment, she inadvertently began to create a blueprint for resistance against seemingly insurmountable odds, where refusal itself can be a form of victory. Read More...
What Burns in Bafut Is More Than a Place
To Cameroonians, the Bafut Palace is more than a historical landmark; it is the heart of a living culture, where rituals bind the present to the past. Yet today, the palace stands under siege, its legacy threatened by the Anglophone crisis that has engulfed parts of Cameroon. Read More...
On Misogyny and Black Women’s Hair
For many Black women, the pressure to straighten their hair is not just an aesthetic choice, nor only a necessity for survival in professional spaces, but a burden imposed by colonial and patriarchal standards of beauty. Read More...
10 African Writers and the Books That Made Them Become Writers
In our latest First Draft interview, we asked ten African writers, including Fatima Bala and Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, about the books that inspired them to become writers. Here’s what they told us. Read More...
