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, Reimagining Nigerian Heritage, focuses on the unknown and underdiscussed stories that reflect the richness of Nigeria’s heritage across its different cultures.
Purchase an annual print + digital subscription, and get unlimited access to The Republic. We ship worldwide.
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 print + digital subscription is 50% off.
Our latest issue, Reimagining Nigerian Heritage, focuses on the unknown and underdiscussed stories that reflect the richness of Nigeria’s heritage across its different cultures.
Purchase an annual print + digital subscription, and get unlimited access to The Republic. We ship worldwide.
Our top analyses, debates, ideas and stories of the week.
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.
In her narrative feature debut, Mambar Pierrette, Cameroonian documentarian, Rosine Mbakam, captures life in crisis-stricken Cameroon and the resilience and fortitude that Cameroonian women must embody every day.
Nigerian poet and author of ‘The Last Time I Saw My Father’, Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto, believes many African stories are underappreciated: ‘The literary landscape is vast, and countless voices and stories have yet to receive the attention they truly deserve. It is not always about a single book but rather the collective body of work from diverse regions, cultures, and languages.’
Climate change is heating up the globe, causing poverty, destroying livelihoods, and making life unbearable. Addressing this crisis in Africa requires democratizing climate action and simplifying its messaging to make it accessible to everyone.
The African continent was rife with different protests in 2024. With many of the triggers that caused the protests not attended to, 2025 may see these protests skyrocket.
Cameroon is currently led by the world’s oldest president, who, in recent years, has taken significant steps to ‘modernize’ the state through digital technology. With Paul Biya seeking re-election in 2025, Cameroonians have an added reason to pay critical attention to his national technological agenda.
The role and perception of fact-checking in regions with fragile trust in media and government has sparked recent debates, as analysts question its effectiveness amid partisan exploitation by political actors.
In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of books that will convince you that good men exist. From the former colonial officer who turns against the empire to care for a tortured native woman to the loving father whose unwavering support encourages his daughter’s intellectual curiosity, the men in the books on this list challenge the prevailing stereotypes about men.
How have the Ogoni people been able to come to terms with the execution of the Ogoni Nine, and deal with the unresolved environmental crisis caused by oil exploration till this day? What does the crisis in Ogoni and the Niger Delta more broadly tell us about what it means to be Nigerian? The seventh episode of the second season of The Republic is now available wherever you listen to podcasts.
At the heart of Congo’s prolonged crises is a scramble for its natural resources, similar to the precolonial scramble for Africa. All hands must be on deck this time to protect the over 100 million Congolese lives caught in this unfortunate unending war.
For the first time since we officially launched in 2018, The Republic is opening up its platform to advertisers. But we’re not doing it the usual way.
Nigerian pop icon Onyeka Onwenu died earlier this year. With an iridescent career spanning decades, Onwenu’s knowledge of Nigeria’s failings ran as deep as her capacity to imagine and believe in a better Nigeria.
If the media plays an important role in the extreme portrayal of the West as a haven in the mind of the African, we might also assume that the same...
With sonic versatility and global reach, Rema is rewriting the rules of Afrobeats. But does that earn him a place alongside Burna Boy, Davido and Wizkid?
In Kenya, three young queer men built a family from stolen kisses, cheap alcohol, and poetry read aloud on thin mattresses, until the world that refused to make space for...
Zimbabwean writer and author of 'The Polygamist', Sue Nyathi, was motivated to write her latest novel, 'An Angel’s Demise', by the lack of knowledge about African history: ‘I realized that...
Now Available: Our November 2024 – January 2025 Print Issue
Featuring:
Republic editor, Wale Lawal, in conversation with Museum of West African Art director, Ore Disu; Emmanuel Esomnofu on the magic of musician, William Onyeabor; Kéchi Nne Nomu on the legendary influence of pop icon, Onyeka Onwenu, who died earlier this year; Ozoz Sokoh on the foods inspired by novelist, Buchi Emecheta; Yusuf Omotayo on the timelessness of Tunde Kelani’s Yoruba film classic, Ṣaworoìdẹ; and much more!
Now Available: Our November 2024 – January 2025 Print Issue
Featuring:
Republic editor, Wale Lawal, in conversation with Museum of West African Art director, Ore Disu; Emmanuel Esomnofu on the magic of musician, William Onyeabor; Kéchi Nne Nomu on the legendary influence of pop icon, Onyeka Onwenu, who died earlier this year; Ozoz Sokoh on the foods inspired by novelist, Buchi Emecheta; Yusuf Omotayo on the timelessness of Tunde Kelani’s Yoruba film classic, Ṣaworoìdẹ; and much more!
For whom is the transformative potential of feminism new? Our latest issue, An African Feminist Manifesto, considers the imperatives for Black African feminism(s) in our uniquely uncertain times, plus more.
Untruth, injustice and the Nigerian way. A lesson in the difference between a ‘human’ connected Nigerian man and the everyday Nigerian/woman as reflected in the Ibom Air and Comfort Emmanson debacle.
To encounter a body in collage is to momentarily believe the human form is physically and even gesturally incapable of coming up against its own limitations. Frida Orupabo’s collages do this so well. They haunt the viewer with fond, familiar and unexpected shapes.
Though the presence of Abrahamic tradition within global Black consciousness often finds expression through male-dominated narratives, a closer examination uncovers Black women at the very centres of the most path-altering moments in the tradition, offering analogues with which Black women have interpreted, reimagined and reclaimed their past, present, and future.
In 1974, Buchi Emecheta’s novel, Second-Class Citizen, was published. While this novel has inspired a generation of African writers, the themes Emecheta explored—such as Black immigrant life in the UK and the ills of a patriarchal society—remain as relevant today as ever.
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.
We get it. Sometimes the headline stories are just not enough.
If the media plays an important role in the extreme portrayal of the West as a haven in the mind of the African, we might also assume that the same...
With sonic versatility and global reach, Rema is rewriting the rules of Afrobeats. But does that earn him a place alongside Burna Boy, Davido and Wizkid?
Zimbabwean writer and author of 'The Polygamist', Sue Nyathi, was motivated to write her latest novel, 'An Angel’s Demise', by the lack of knowledge about African history: ‘I realized that...
In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of books that will convince you that good men exist. From the former colonial officer who turns against the empire...
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...
President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy and push to recalibrate the dollar has affected global capital flows, especially economies tethered to the dollar system. In Nigeria’s fuel sector, this manifests as...
Nigeria’s restrictive financial policy is hindering payments for its rising digital workforce, keeping many locked out of the global economy.
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,...
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.
African societies have, over centuries, had to deal with a cleavage of their present from their pasts by foreign powers. In the face of such cultural imperialism, how invested are...
The Gadaa system of the Oromo people of Kenya and Ethiopia offers an indigenous method of governance in Africa, as the adopted Western democracy seems to be failing the continent.
The world’s closest capital cities—Kinshasa and Brazzaville—sit within two modern-day states, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo, that once reigned as a united Kongo...
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 its founding in 1847, the story of Africa’s oldest republic, Liberia, has been entwined with that of the United States. Centuries later, in 2025, is Liberia’s relationship with America...
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...
The emerging Chinese-funded ECOWAS headquarters in Abuja has sparked attention on the possibilities ahead for China’s bolstered relations with the subregion. What’s in it for West African states?
In a period of dwindling pan-Africanism, Ibrahim Traoré has risen as one of Africa’s most favourite leaders, raising questions about whether he represents a new breed of pan-Africanism.
