EDITOR'S FOREWORD
An African Manual for Debugging Empire
Our latest issue, An African Manual for Debugging Empire, confronts the erasure of Africans in global tech debates and highlights the ways the continent is actively shaping, contesting and redefining the futures of AI.
COVER ESSAY
Africa’s Role in the Future of Artificial Intelligence
As artificial intelligence transforms global systems, Africa remains sidelined in its design; even as its labour and resources power the very infrastructure that makes AI possible. The emergence of AI on the continent raises urgent questions about equity, inclusion and how to ensure Africans benefit from the technologies they help sustain.
COVER ESSAY
Saving Nigeria, the Piggyvest Way
In today’s digital age, history-making lightbulb moments don’t always strike in boardrooms or after soul-searching mountain hikes. Sometimes, they unfold casually on the X timeline. Piggyvest, now one of Africa’s leading wealth management platforms, began exactly with that: a tweet, a conversation and a simple idea that would quickly revolutionize Nigeria’s fintech industry.
COVER ESSAY
The Geopolitics of Digital Technology in Africa
As the world leans into the fourth industrial revolution, Africa has become a frontier for the geopolitical power play of China and the United States. Amid this, African governments must take control of their digital development or end up as pawns, again.
COVER interview
‘Who Do We Imagine AI Is Built By and Built For?’
With AI proponents promising to ‘save’ Africa, Nanjala Nyabola asks an urgent question: what happens when a continent’s future is outsourced to someone else’s imagination? We discuss the politics of technology, the myth of the ‘cloud’, and why the next digital revolution must begin with African women.
THE MINISTRY OF ARTS / FICTION DEPT.
To-Do List
‘I woke up one day and I realized that I simply despised the smallness that life here hoists on everyone. Small loves, big needs met by small resources, small hopes quashed by gigantic misdeeds, small joys flickering off with each new leaving.’
THE MINISTRY OF ARTS / FICTION DEPT.
Mgbeojikwe
‘Jikwe, why did you not marry?’ Okenwa asks, his gaze holding Mgbeojikwe’s. ‘What were you thinking?’ … ‘I could have married you,’ he says, adjusting in his seat, ‘In a different world.’
THE MINISTRY OF ARTS / FICTION DEPT.
The Absence of Stains
‘Mariam doesn’t know whether Dina’s a virgin, but if she were in her place, she now thinks—under the threat of her family finding out that she wasn’t—she would say she had been raped. To them, that would be better than knowing she had sinned willingly.’
THE MINISTRY OF ARTS / VISUAL ART DEPT.
Is Rejecting AI Art Becoming a Conservative Position?
The growth of generative AI has led to debates about its acceptability in art and whether artists are being conservative for rejecting its use.
THE MINISTRY OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Who Will Own and Control Africa’s AI Energy Future?
As Africa races to power its digital future with Chinese solar panels and AI-ready data centres, it risks becoming both the supplier of critical minerals and the dumping ground for toxic waste in a new form of green extractivism, wrapped in the language of digital and climate progress.
THE MINISTRY OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS / FIRST DRAFT INTERVIEWS
‘Don’t Give Up on the Story You Want to Tell’ Laila Lalami’s First Draft
Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami, is fascinated by the extractive power of technology: ‘Techno-capitalism has infiltrated our lives to such an extent that our only real break from it comes when we sleep. I began to wonder what might happen if that kind of extractive power were applied to the world of dreams.’
THE MINISTRY OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS
Wi-Fi Warriors and Homeland Dreams
In a country failed by peace agreements, connection didn’t disappear—it went online. South Sudan’s digital diaspora challenges the glossy myths of Silicon Valley and insists that innovation thrives not only in wealth and infrastructure, but in resilience, memory, and connection across borders.
THE MINISTRY OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS
Angola’s ‘Inorganic’ Techno-Democracy
In Angola, the intersection of technology and governance is forging an unconventional democratic landscape—one that emerges spontaneously and outside traditional political structures. While the regime has long maintained control through conventional means, the rapid proliferation of digital platforms, social media, and encrypted communication is enabling civic engagement beyond state oversight.
THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE
The Dark Matter of Genetics
From his mother’s community chemist shop in Enugu to a Toronto lab, Nigerian pharmacist Chukwunonso Nwabufo is building a device that could save lives by revealing how your genes respond to drugs, but his real revolution may be redefining what is ‘rare’ in medical research.
THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE
Africa’s AI Path to Health Impact
AI is opening the door to health systems that can learn, adapt and act. Can Africa harness it to leap ahead?
THE MINISTRY OF WORLD AFFAIRS
How Technology Preserves the Legacy of Colonialism Across Africa
The parallels between colonialism and bias in modern technology offer an instructive analysis that reveals how contemporary digital infrastructures perpetuate colonial power even as they claim to connect the world and advance social justice issues.
the cover
‘The Empire Hacks Back,’ by Olalekan Jeyifous
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SPECIAL THANKS
Illustrators: Sheed Sorple Cecil, Kingsley Chibueze, William Igwilo, Olalekan Jeyifous, Sarah N. Kanu, Kevwe Ogini, Shalom Ojo, Charles Owen, Shalom Shoyemi, Ezinne Osueke and Dami Mojid
Issue Design: Wale Lawal, Dami Mojid and Ezinne Osueke
Editors: Wale Lawal, Yusuf Omotayo, Peace Yetunde Onafuye, Ada Nnadi, Chidinma Nebolisa and Ijapa O
