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.
OUR BEST WRITING OF 2023
Every year, The Republic publishes the most ambitious writing focused on Africa, from news and analysis to long-form features.
Support our award-winning coverage by subscribing today.
Read our best writing of 2023.
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.
Every year, The Republic publishes the most ambitious writing focused on Africa, from news and analysis to long-form features.
Support our award-winning coverage by subscribing today.
OUR BEST WRITING
OF 2023
Every year, The Republic publishes the most ambitious writing focused on Africa,
from news and analysis to long-form features.
Support our award-winning coverage by subscribing today.
Read our best writing of 2023.
‘The laffaya is elegant, but it is also instructive. It teaches you how to move, how to hold your head high. There is a sensuality in the way it wraps the body, not in the Western sense, but in the quiet power it gives.’
Our top analyses, debates, ideas and stories of the week.
For decades, oil has dictated the fate of the naira. When crude prices soared, the currency strengthened; when they collapsed, the naira buckled. This cycle, so familiar to Nigerians, once seemed unbreakable. Yet in 2025, something unusual happened: oil prices fell sharply, but the naira held its ground. What changed?
‘The laffaya is elegant, but it is also instructive. It teaches you how to move, how to hold your head high. There is a sensuality in the way it wraps...
Since 2021, France has witnessed a decline in economic growth. A key question is whether France’s ailing economy has any connection to the recent spate of coups and subsequent loss...
Despite the United Nations’ workshop and log-frame fabrication of a particular kind of African woman who can be measured, trained and displayed for prime-time news, African women’s organizing has always...
The United Nations’ celebration of its 80th anniversary provides an opportunity to investigate the institution’s involvement in Africa and analyze an age-old academic question that has made its way into...
Still Available: Our December 2023 – January 2024 Print Issue
Featuring:
Saratu Abiola on Aṣa; Dami Ajayi on Asake; Emmanuel ESomnofu on Ayra Starr; Olasubomi Olumofin on Burna Boy; Jide Salawu on Davido; Carl Terver on M.I; Ernest Nweke on P-Square; Zainab Kuku on Tiwa Savage; Patrick Ezema on Wizkid.
Still Available: Our December 2023 – January 2024 Print Issue
Featuring:
Saratu Abiola on Aṣa; Dami Ajayi on Asake; Emmanuel ESomnofu on Ayra Starr; Olasubomi Olumofin on Burna Boy; Jide Salawu on Davido; Carl Terver on M.I; Ernest Nweke on P-Square; Zainab Kuku on Tiwa Savage; Patrick Ezema on Wizkid.
We get it. Sometimes the headline stories are just not enough.
‘The laffaya is elegant, but it is also instructive. It teaches you how to move, how to hold your head high. There is a sensuality in the way it wraps...
‘I don’t recall the exact moment it dawned on me that almost everyone I called a friend had left Nigeria, but the realization was shattering. Having a friend leave you...
‘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...
‘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...
For decades, oil has dictated the fate of the naira. When crude prices soared, the currency strengthened; when they collapsed, the naira buckled. This cycle, so familiar to Nigerians, once...
Tinubu’s economic reforms have had an unintended consequence: the collapse of Nigeria’s once-vibrant nightlife. In its wake, a surprising twist has emerged. Young Nigerians are channelling their frustrations from dance...
Rice costs more, the naira buys less, and the middle class is checking out. From golden-age dreams post-independence to present japa-fuelled exits, this essay traces how Nigeria’s middle class rose,...
Nigeria will begin 2026 with its biggest tax overhaul in decades. But what exactly is changing and will the new tax regime worsen or improve Nigeria’s economic and fiscal future?
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...
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...
In 1977, historian Obaro Ikime delivered a lecture, ‘History and the Changing Cultures of Nigeria’, responding to Alhaji Shetima Ali Munguno’s disapproval of what he saw at the University of...
Since its independence from France 65 years ago, the Republic of Congo has remained profoundly shaped by its Marxist-Leninist past, marked by authoritarian resilience and intimate Chinese connections.
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 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...
In April 2025, Brice Oligui Nguema was formally elected as president of the Gabonese Republic. Two years on from the coup d’état that overthrew the Bongo dynasty in August 2023,...
The death of former president Muhammadu Buhari has put President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a precarious political position where he risks losing the support of the north, which can cost...
We all grew up hearing about ‘June 12’, but how well do you know what really happened? Let’s find out together. The first episode of The Republic is now available...
This episode will establish M. K. O. Abiola as a major actor. It will examine his personal life; his initial foray into business and politics; and areas of his life...
In this episode, we take a look at the key election candidates and what platforms they ran under. We compare their profiles and proposed agendas for Nigeria, highlighting what political...
After eight years of anticipation, and eight years of promises from General Ibrahim Babangida’s junta, Nigerians were finally about to have their say at the ballot box. In this week’s...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Since 2021, France has witnessed a decline in economic growth. A key question is whether France’s ailing economy has any connection to the recent spate of coups and subsequent loss...
The United Nations’ celebration of its 80th anniversary provides an opportunity to investigate the institution’s involvement in Africa and analyze an age-old academic question that has made its way into...
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?
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.