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Nigeria

The Development Zone That Never Was?

Gerhard Seibert·July 6, 2025
When the Nigeria–São Tomé and Príncipe Joint Development Zone (JDZ) was established in 2001, it was expected to become a profitable offshore oil-producing area. But nearly 25 years later, the project has proven to largely be a white elephant. Read More...
June/July 2025Nigeria
Grief’s First Kiss is an Avalanche

​​​​​Grief Is the Hiding Place of Love

Iruoma Chukwuemeka·July 6, 2025
​​​​​With Grief’s First Kiss is an Avalanche, Wendy Okeke joins a solid line of Nigerian authors who have explored grief in their literature, examining the deep affinities between love and loss without putting one over the other. Read More...
June/July 2025NigeriaReading
Detty December

Who Benefits From Nigeria’s Detty December?

Jola Sonowo·July 6, 2025
The beginning of the second half of the year signals plans for Lagos’ glitzy Detty December, a seasonal spectacle that generates short-term profits for a privileged few while deepening inequality, fuelling inflation and missing opportunities for sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Read More...
June/July 2025Nigeria
Security

Restrategizing Northern Nigerian Security Beyond Border Fences

IGWE KELECHI NJOKU·July 6, 2025
Nigeria’s worsening insecurity cannot be curtailed by border fences alone, as suggested by the chief of defence staff, but by the government investing in border communities, strengthening local infrastructure and deepening cross-border cooperation with neighbouring countries. Read More...
June/July 2025Nigeria
Togo

Togo’s Fifth Republic Is Here—But at What Cost?

Ayobami Steven Akinola·July 6, 2025
Long-standing fatigue with eroding civil liberties and authoritarianism in Togo has culminated in an outbreak of youth-led protests following constitutional changes ushering in Togo’s Fifth Republic. Is the creaking Gnassingbé dynasty finally under threat? Read More...
June/July 2025Togo
Ama Diaka

‘Read With Curiosity, Not Conclusion’ Ama Asantewa Diaka’s First Draft

Ama Asantewa Diaka·July 6, 2025
With her latest short story collection, Ghanaian poet and author of Someone Birthed Them Broken, Ama Asantewa Diaka, set out to document the lives of contemporary youth in Ghana: ‘I wanted to create something that future youths could look back on—something they could hold up against their own lives and say, “This is where we came from. This is what it was like.”’ Read More...
First DraftGhanaInterviewsJune/July 2025
Books

5 Books That Read Like Tales by Moonlight

Ijapa O·July 6, 2025
From the story of a troubled treasure hunter to that of a spirit child who chooses to remain in a crumbling world rather than escape to bliss of eternity, the books in this collection will cast a spell on you just like any tale by moonlight. Read More...
June/July 2025Read Something AfricanReading
An illustration of Sarah Ladipo Manyika and Ngugi wa Thiong' sitting at a table with books and a typewriter.

On Meeting Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

Sarah Ladipo Manyika·June 29, 2025
Sarah Ladipo Manyika reflects on her relationship with Kenyan literary giant, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and coming to terms with the complexities of his life. Read More...
June/July 2025KenyaNigeria
A collage of Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, Mauritania's president.

Ghazouani at the Helm

Hassan Ould Moctar·June 29, 2025
While domestic challenges to Mohamed Ould Ghazouani’s legitimacy dimmed soon after he was re-elected as Mauritanian president last year, his attempt to balance competing external pressures risks reigniting the social tensions that underpinned the original mobilizations against his re-election. Read More...
June/July 2025Mauritania
Death of the Author

Black Scholarship in Africanfuturism

Aditri Chatterjee·June 29, 2025
Nnedi Okorafor's 'Death of the Author' is significant in imparting agency to its Black readers who want to explore africanfuturism, redefining Black scholarship through science fiction and proving that scientific development does not exclusively lie outside literature or within Western countries. Read More...
June/July 2025NigeriaReading

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The essential guide to the ideas, trends, people and stories shaping Nigeria and the broader African continent. Subscribe from N5,000/$5.99 monthly.

A Vision for Nigeria’s Queer Future #OnSite⚡️⁠
⁠
David Emeka writes that Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde isn’t just a novel; it is a world rebuilt from fragments of language, grief, and queer imagination. In Emeka's reading, Ziz, the narrator who challenges fate and English itself, becomes a vessel for resistance. Through Ziz and a circle of artists, Osunde, Emeka writes, crafts a community that feels both fragile and indestructible, one that transforms art into survival and storytelling into sanctuary. He captures the pulse of Osunde’s vision: a Nigeria imagined anew through connection, rebellion, and tenderness. The reviewer also notes how Osunde’s work refuses comfort, instead asking what freedom really costs in love, in money, and in vulnerability.⁠
⁠
Read the full review at the link in bio⁠
________________⁠
📝: David Emeka (@iruomaemeka)⁠
📷: Illustration by Kevwe Ogini (@@dfutureart)/ THE REPUBLIC..⁠
🔍: Peace Yetunde Onafuye (@yetundeandbooks)⁠; Editors.
Calling all photographers! It's time to take your Calling all photographers! It's time to take your shot!What does 'Another Nigeria' look like to you? ATLAS, brought to you by The Republic, in collaboration with LagosPhoto Festival, is inviting photographers to share their vision of 'Another Nigeria'. ⁠
⁠
Win $2,500, media visibility and promotion, professional mentorship and an exhibition spot at the upcoming LagosPhoto Festival.
⁠
Deadline is 24 October 2025. Learn more and submit by clicking this post at the link in our bio.

Make sure you follow @atlasphotos.co for updates and more exciting content in the near future.
Charly Boy Bus Stop and the Politics of Official R Charly Boy Bus Stop and the Politics of Official Renaming #OnSite⚡️⁠
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In July 2025, the Bariga Local Council in Lagos removed the name 'Charly Boy Bus Stop', originally chosen by residents in the 1990s to honour activist and musician Charles Oputa, and renamed it 'Baddo Bus Stop' in tribute to rapper Olamide Adedeji. Dengiyefa Angalapu writes that for 30 years, Charly Boy’s roadside philanthropy: scholarships, drainage repairs, impromptu street concerts, etc., bound his name to the bus stop. Angalapu argues that toponyms like 'Charly Boy Bus Stop' function as Nigeria's grassroots archives, 'living encyclopaedias created by residents, repeated by bus conductors and traders, passed down like family heirlooms.' When you remove these names, the author says, you collapse oral hyperlinks. If a junction is called War Front, an elder explains how soldiers camped there during the Civil War. Remove the name, and that civic lesson vanishes. The question isn't whether governments can officially rename places, it is whether they should erase communal memory in the process. ⁠
⁠
Read the full story by clicking this post at the link in our bio⁠
________________⁠
📝: Dengiyefa Angalapu (@greatdengis)⁠
📷: Photo Illustration by Ezinne Osueke (@ezinne.o.osueke) / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: WIKIMEDIA.⁠
🔍: Peace Yetunde Onafuye (@yetundeandbooks), Yusuf Omotayo (@yusufomotayo)⁠; Editors.
Today in 1962, Uganda gained independence from the Today in 1962, Uganda gained independence from the United Kingdom. #RPUBLCHistory⏳⠀⁠
⁠
On 9 October 1962, Uganda gained independence from the United Kingdom. The Ugandan Constitutional Conference, which was held in London in September 1961, was organized to pave the way for Ugandan independence⁠
⁠
Read more about Uganda by clicking this post at the link in our bio.⁠
⁠
Today's history post is brought to you by @annuvahomes. ⁠
________⠀⁠
📝: Adams Adeosun and Ugonna Eronini⁠
📷: 1) 50th Anniversary of Uganda's Independence, Kampala, 9 October 2012. Flickr. ⁠
2) UN General Assembly Addressed by President Amin Dada of Uganda, 1975. UN Photo/Teddy Chen.
‘Who Do We Imagine AI Is Built By and Built For? ‘Who Do We Imagine AI Is Built By and Built For?’ #OnSite⚡️⁠
⁠
‘If an African rural woman were designing AI, what would it look like?’ This is the question Nanjala Nyabola has spent three years answering while developing an African feminist philosophy for regulating digital technology. Her provocation cuts deep: AI is sold to Africa as ‘leapfrogging’, a magic wand that fixes everything, but without African participation or agency. In conversation with The Republic’s Editor-in-Chief Wale Lawal, she unpacks the material realities of AI, how it consumes land, freshwater, and electricity while producing pollution. Through feminist, decolonial frameworks, their conversation centres African lived experiences, exposes how extractive technologies mirror colonial exploitation, highlights unequal burdens on women and marginalized groups, and reimagines tech as a tool for justice rather than domination. ⁠

Read the full story by ordering our latest issue ‘An African Manual for Debugging Empire’ at the link in our bio. It is also available digitally to our paying subscribers. 
________________⁠
📝: Wale Lawal (@wallelawal)⁠
📷: Illustration by Charles Owen (@blvkninjvculture) / THE REPUBLIC.⁠
🔍: Peace Yetunde Onafuye (@yetundeandbooks), Yusuf Omotayo (@yusufomotayo)⁠; Editors.
The Betrayal of Mandela’s Apartheid Liberation M The Betrayal of Mandela’s Apartheid Liberation Movement #OnSite⚡️

Nelson Mandela, in his first month as president of South Africa in 1994, promised a ‘rainbow nation at peace with itself,’ a country where everyone could live with dignity after decades of apartheid’s brutality. But 31 years after liberation, that dream feels elusive. Andile Zulu writes that while political freedom was won, economic liberation was traded away. Zulu asserts that before the African National Congress (ANC) took power in 1994, Mandela had locked South Africa into a neoliberal framework that prioritized corporate interests over the people’s needs. Apartheid died, but capitalism evolved, and the consequences have been devastating for millions. Today’s South Africa tells a brutal story: 43% unemployment, 30 million living in poverty, and a staggering wealth gap where ten per cent of the population owns 85 per cent of the country’s wealth. The promised redistribution never came. Instead, the ANC’s Black Economic Empowerment policies created a new Black elite who, like their apartheid predecessors, exploit and repress Black workers. The Marikana massacre of 2012, where 34 Black miners were killed by police protecting a multinational mining company’s interests, stands as the most tragic symbol of this betrayal. But the fight isn’t over, Zulu writes. The next generation must build coalitions powerful enough to make governments fear disappointing citizens more than disappointing shareholders. True liberation, the author says, requires dismantling economic subjugation, not just political oppression. 

Read the full story here: https://rpublc.com/october-november-2025/nelson-mandela-apartheid/
________________
📝: Andile Zulu (@Shakas_Coconut)
📷: Photo Illustration by Ezinne Osueke (@ezinne.o.osueke) / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: WIKIMEDIA. 
🔍: Chidinma Nebolisa (@nmanebolisa_), Yusuf Omotayo (@yusufomotayo)⁠, Wale Lawal (@wallelawal); Editors.
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