Biafran separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu attends a court hearing at the Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria, Jan. 29, 2016 (AP photo).

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Africa Watch, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about the African continent. Subscribe to receive it by email every Friday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. Last month, news emerged that Nnamdi Kanu had been arrested and repatriated to Nigeria to face charges of terrorism and unlawful possession of firearms, among other alleged offenses related to his role as the leader of the separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra, or IPOB. Kanu was first detained […]

A nurse at Kenyatta National Hospital fills a syringe from a vial of the Covid-19 Covishield vaccine in Nairobi, Kenya, March 24, 2021 (AP photo by Robert Bonet).

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Africa Watch, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about the African continent. Subscribe to receive it by email every Friday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. We are all in this together. COVID-19 is the great leveler. The pandemic knows no borders. Build back better together.  The coronavirus pandemic has yielded enough shopworn cliches to last an entire lifetime of Model United Nations speeches. Yet, nearly 18 months after Africa’s first recorded case […]

Women pack up their roadside food stall in Alexandra Township, north of Johannesburg, South Africa, July 15 2021 (AP photo by Ali Greeff).

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Africa Watch, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about the African continent. Subscribe to receive it by email every Friday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. South African civil society campaigners and social activists have long cautioned about the perils of the country’s extreme levels of economic inequality. Now the violent uprisings in parts of South Africa, initially triggered by the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma for his refusal to testify before […]

Looters outside a shopping center alongside a burning barricade in Durban, South Africa, July 12, 2021 (AP photo by Andre Swart).

South Africa is in flames over its graft-plagued former president. After the 79-year-old Jacob Zuma turned himself in to authorities to begin a 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court on July 8, violent protests and riots erupted in parts of the country, and at least 72 people have been killed in the unrest so far. Earlier this week, President Cyril Ramaphosa deployed the military to the worst-hit parts of the country.  Underneath the riots and looting, Zuma’s prison sentence—which the Constitutional Court handed down in late June after he refused to testify before the official commission of inquiry charged […]

A gathering during the 2014 uprising against Burkina Faso’s former president, Blaise Compaore, in Ouagadougo, Burkina Faso, Oct. 29, 2014 (Sipa photo by Sophie Garcia via AP Images).

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Africa Watch, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about the African continent. Subscribe to receive it by email every Wednesday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. If you’re a regular reader of Africa Watch, it’s possibly because you were tired of reading about “Africa” as if it were a monolithic country of 1.3 billion people with all the same traits, habits and perspectives. Or better yet, that might have been your own impression […]

Eswatini’s King Mswati III addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 25, 2019 (AP photo by Craig Ruttle).

Many years ago, an acquaintance told me a story from her childhood in the country then known as Swaziland that sounded like something from out of the distant past. One day, she said, officials from the king’s palace came to her high school and left with one of her friends, a beautiful girl, in tow. The country’s king, Mswati III, had caught sight of the girl and decided he wanted her as one of his many wives, who now number 15.  As startling as Mswati’s predatory marital practices are, so too is the fact that the depth of his despotism, […]

African leaders pose for a group photo at the opening session of the 33rd African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Feb. 9, 2020 (AP photo).

One of the most important problems in modern African history is also among the most widely misunderstood. For decades, both journalists and scholars have lamented that Africa’s borders were drawn up by outside powers, beginning with Europe’s so-called Scramble for Africa, between 1881 and World War I. This threw all sorts of linguistically, religiously and politically disparate groups into newly formed colonies and, soon afterward, new African nations, in which they were suddenly forced to try to get along together in the task of building independent republics. The mistake in this logic isn’t that these things didn’t happen. If one […]

Malians supporting the overthrow of former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, in Bamako, Mali Friday, Aug. 21, 2020 (AP Photo).

Editor’s Note: This is Andrew Green’s final week authoring our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Africa Watch, although he’ll continue to be a valued contributor and friend of WPR. We’d like to thank Andrew for having done such an amazing job with Africa Watch since taking it over. Tune in next week for an update about the newsletter moving forward. You can subscribe to receive it by email every Friday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. After more than two years and 100 newsletters, I’ll be signing off from Africa Watch. […]

Zimbabwe’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, in Harare, Zimbabwe, Jan. 21, 2021 (AP photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi).

One day in April 2016, the Zimbabwean pastor Evan Mawarire was sitting in his office, frustrated at the persistent economic crisis in his country that was making it difficult to provide for his family. So, he decided to vent. He took out his phone, propped it up against the Bible on his desk, and recorded a video in which he spoke about the symbolism of the Zimbabwean national flag, and how the promises of freedom and prosperity that it symbolizes had been violated by the regime of then-President Robert Mugabe. The video quickly went viral, inspiring a hashtag, #ThisFlag, and […]