Truth to power
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Last year I shared a panel with Nigeria’s deputy electoral commissioner, who assured our audience without reservation that everything would be ready on time for the 2015 presidential election. It is apparently…
The Zambian presidential election of January 20, held to choose a president to eke out the late Michael Sata’s term, were conducted amid thunderstorms that struck the entire country. Thanks to the awful…
The Roman god, Saturn, ate his children, but was overthrown by one who got away. For politicians, the moral of the story is that you have to keep eating them, and hunt down all who might escape. That is…
I was living and working in Africa at the time of Band Aid 1984. I found the song Do They Know it’s Christmas? cloying, but I recognised that it was mobilising ordinary citizens towards concern and compassion…
To Zambians, the international community’s astonishment that, for 90 days, the acting Zambian president will be a white man seems remarkable. The first fully white president of an independent majority-ruled…
The word Ebola is conjuring up fear around the world; breakdowns in Western infection control procedures have led to cases in Spain and the US, and have given the non-African world a taste – or a foretaste…
There are many African presidents whose age far outstrips that of their peers on other continents. David Cameron (47), Barack Obama (53), François Hollande (60), Merkel (60), Vladimir Putin (61) – these…
The US-Africa summit held last week in Washington DC was a damp squib. Barack Obama had to host at least one such summit, given how successfully the Chinese have used such meetings, but the occasion was…
Nigeria and Algeria both fell out of the World Cup at the last 16 stage, competing heroically against France and Germany and showing amazing discipline and shape for 70 of the 90 minutes. Then tiredness…
It has been an interesting month for leaders across Africa. Goodluck Jonathan finally declared a “total war” against Boko Haram despite not having the means to wage one, and after a puzzlingly sluggish…