Rogue Chiefs

ONE thing every Acholi person (in northern Uganda) wants to avoid is being associated with a witch doctor, but I took courage and informed the bodaboda (motorbike taxi) man that I was heading to the witch doctor’s …

Now the world’s second largest movie producer, Nigeria's Nollywood has displaced the USA's Hollywood and India's Bollywood as the most important movie industry on the African continent.

Known to his fans as Tuku, he was a cultural icon. His aura and presence had a global resonance with fans around the world, yet the man remained humble and magnanimous.

Now the world’s second largest movie producer, Nigeria's Nollywood has displaced the USA's Hollywood and India's Bollywood as the most important movie industry on the African continent.

Known to his fans as Tuku, he was a cultural icon. His aura and presence had a global resonance with fans around the world, yet the man remained humble and magnanimous.

The “Rainbow nation” seems to have revealed all its ugly stripes over the past few years: a rise in incidents of racism, tribalism, xenophobia, factionalism and continued high levels of gender-based violence.

The author has been in the room during the big peace talks in the Horn of Africa, interviewing and befriending the region’s Big Men. The result is indigestible but brilliant.

The women empowered to talk about their concerns openly in WhatsApp discussion groups, and had more access to information.

Ethiopia’s rate of 2.4 million new internally displaced people in 2018 far exceeded Syria’s. Reformist Abiy's aggressive reform agenda has won praise, but shaking up Ethiopia's government risks exacerbating several long-simmering ethnic rivalries.

Whether it is translators being leaned on for “simplified” accounts or bad-faith corporate social responsibility purporting to involve a marathon trip from Kenya to South Africa in a wheelchair, cautionary lessons abound.

Mnangagwa is no born-again democrat. He was Mugabe’s hatchet man for 37 years, and now half of the country’s US$10 billion domestic debt has been run up under his administration.

In a continent where only 6% of arable land is currently irrigated, Ethiopia aims to allocate US$15 billion to irrigation development by 2020.

Ethiopia’s rate of 2.4 million new internally displaced people in 2018 far exceeded Syria’s. Reformist Abiy's aggressive reform agenda has won praise, but shaking up Ethiopia's government risks exacerbating several long-simmering ethnic rivalries.

Boko Haram offers relatively better life for some women than north Nigerian society. Many women have looked to religion for a space of relative autonomy, generating the apparent paradox of female support for sharia law

Some services that NGOs supported tended to focus on sexual violence from a stranger and not the overwhelmingly more common forms of sexual violence such as intimate partner violence.

Only 38% of women and 48% of men in Kenya knew of a vasectomy for family planning. And only 0.01% of the men interviewed in Zimbabwe admitted having a vasectomy.

There have been some bright spots, like the rise of more resilient opposition movements in the DRC and Uganda. But elsewhere on the continent, as in Tanzania and Zambia, repression is on the rise.

A well-loved Congolese dance of 2005, Kisanola, (meaning a comb) also involves a movement representing the shaving of one’s hair to the bone – a metaphor for how the DRC people have had everything taken from them.

The US has detained suspects without trial for nearly two decades at Guantanamo Bay, far longer than South Africa’s apartheid state ever detained anyone without trial.

The reported falls in the rates of FGM are far greater than previous studies have suggested.

Whether it is translators being leaned on for “simplified” accounts or bad-faith corporate social responsibility purporting to involve a marathon trip from Kenya to South Africa in a wheelchair, cautionary lessons abound.

Boko Haram offers relatively better life for some women than north Nigerian society. Many women have looked to religion for a space of relative autonomy, generating the apparent paradox of female support for sharia law

Africa needs to heal the psychological effects of “centuries of alienation and enslavement” to regain self-esteem and self-respect.

The elder Nyarota’s world-weary schadenfreude contrasts vividly with Ndlovu’s youthful exuberance.

Some services that NGOs supported tended to focus on sexual violence from a stranger and not the overwhelmingly more common forms of sexual violence such as intimate partner violence.