Southern Africa

‘But how disturbing it is that my own language, one filled with so much beauty and melody, would be considered foreign to me. Why did I not think in my language? Why would my default language be one that was imposed by brutal colonialists on my ancestors’ lips?

With waning multilateralism, the United Nations is experimenting with new geographies, relocating agencies to cities in the global South. Can a strategy born of austerity also reshape legitimacy and influence?

‘We are at your grave. Everyone is crying, everyone is wishing you goodbye. All I have are paralyzed emotions depicted by a numb countenance. When the saints go marching in their immaculate number, I hope you are among them.

Member of the Feminist Coalition and organizer of the #ArewaMeToo and #NorthNormal movements, Fakhrriyyah Hashim, reflects on #EndSARS five years after ‘Feminists against SARS’ redefined national consciousness on police violence.

With the #EndSARS movement and the eventual Lekki Massacre in October 2020, the realization that the lives of ordinary Nigerians could be snuffed out simply for demanding a better country transformed migration from an option for a better life into a perceived necessity for survival.

Editor of Who Gave The Order: The History of a People’s Movement, Chibueze Darlington Anuonye, believes that 20 October 2020 stands as an indictment of the Nigerian conscience and urges Nigerians to remember that day: ‘What happened at the Lekki Toll Gate could be described as a country waging war a

Exactly 70 years ago, African and Asian states gathered to imagine a world beyond empire. Their dream of solidarity—its failures and achievements—still haunts global politics.

Although Nelson Mandela’s presidency fostered hope for a permanent end to the woes of the apartheid era, South Africa’s non-white population have come to realize that they are still under an oppressive regime—but this time, at the mercy of the country’s ultra-rich and ownership class.

What happens when the politics of naming is used to silence a story? From ‘Charly Boy’ to ‘Baddo’, Nigeria’s streets are becoming battlegrounds where memory, identity and politics collide.

Nigeria celebrates its 65th independence anniversary during a period of uninterrupted 26 years of democratic governance. Despite this commendable sustenance of democracy, the country struggles to unite as ethnic tension rises.

The guardians of ukungwi—a practice that educates girls and women on sex, homemaking and marriage—are reimagining their approach to this East African tradition. Today, they face a dilemma: the risk of losing the cultural essence of ukungwi while seeking to monetize it for sustainability.