Your Essential Guide to Africa Through Nigeria
This Week’s Essentials
Ijapa O
Rethinking the United Nations’ Role in Africa’s Development
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 mainstream consciousness: Does the UN prioritize locally defined African needs or external northe
Olayinka AjalaNov 9, 2025
Is the Spate of African Coups Affecting the French Economy?
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 of key long-term allies in Francophone Africa.
Oyindamola Depo-OyedokunNov 2, 2025
A Yoruba Woman’s Notes on Language as a Barrier, Bridge and Bedrock
‘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 language? Why would my default language be one that was imposed by brutal colonialists on my ancestors’ lips?’
Podcast
Anjola OlusolaNov 2, 2025
From Nigeria With Love
‘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 is heartbreaking, having them troop out one after the other, like soldiers off to battle, is decimating.’
Maggie LoWillaNov 9, 2025
African Feminist Futures Beyond the UN Workshop Industrial Complex
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 exceeded these scripts. This decolonial feminist politics is both the product of 80 years of UN g
Explore by Region
Abuja
VICTOR UNWUCHOLAOCTOBER 26, 2025
Finding Rest on All Souls’ Day
‘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 their immaculate number, I hope you are among them.’
CHIBUEZE ANUONYEOCTOBER 19, 2025
‘The Human Spirit Naturally Resists Oppression’
Editor of Who Gave The Order: The History of a People’s Movement, Chibueze Darlington Anuonye, believes that 20 October 2020 stands as an indictment of the Nigerian conscience and urges Nigerians to remember that day: ‘What happened at the Lekki Toll Gate could be described as a country waging war a
OLOLADE FANIYISEPTEMBER 28, 2025
Nigeria’s Anthems of Division and the Promise of Democratic Feminist Nationalism
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti showed that political organizing could transcend ethnic divisions while staying culturally rooted. Yet despite the vision of democratic nationalism her work offers us, today’s elite capture of democratic possibilities cloaks anti-democratic politics in the language of ethnic v
ADEYEMI ADEBAYOSEPTEMBER 14, 2025
Diaspora’s Struggle to Belong Home and Away
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 media largely has a role to play in the making of the self-perception of Africans.
ANDRÉA NGOMBETSEPTEMBER 7, 2025
The Rocky Independence of Congo-Brazzaville
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.
YASMINE ZOHDIAUGUST 24, 2025
The Absence of Stains
‘Mariam doesn’t know whether Dina’s a virgin, but if she were in her place, she now thinks—under the threat of her family finding out that she wasn’t—she would say she had been raped. To them, that would be better than knowing she had sinned willingly.’
VICTOR UNWUCHOLAOCTOBER 26, 2025
Finding Rest on All Souls’ Day
‘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 their immaculate number, I hope you are among them.’
CHIBUEZE ANUONYEOCTOBER 19, 2025
‘The Human Spirit Naturally Resists Oppression’
Editor of Who Gave The Order: The History of a People’s Movement, Chibueze Darlington Anuonye, believes that 20 October 2020 stands as an indictment of the Nigerian conscience and urges Nigerians to remember that day: ‘What happened at the Lekki Toll Gate could be described as a country waging war a
OLOLADE FANIYISEPTEMBER 28, 2025
Nigeria’s Anthems of Division and the Promise of Democratic Feminist Nationalism
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti showed that political organizing could transcend ethnic divisions while staying culturally rooted. Yet despite the vision of democratic nationalism her work offers us, today’s elite capture of democratic possibilities cloaks anti-democratic politics in the language of ethnic v
ADEYEMI ADEBAYOSEPTEMBER 14, 2025
Diaspora’s Struggle to Belong Home and Away
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 media largely has a role to play in the making of the self-perception of Africans.
ANDRÉA NGOMBETSEPTEMBER 7, 2025
The Rocky Independence of Congo-Brazzaville
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.
YASMINE ZOHDIAUGUST 24, 2025
The Absence of Stains
‘Mariam doesn’t know whether Dina’s a virgin, but if she were in her place, she now thinks—under the threat of her family finding out that she wasn’t—she would say she had been raped. To them, that would be better than knowing she had sinned willingly.’
Explore by Topic
Climate Change
DIEKETSENG NZHADZHABAOCTOBER 26, 2025
How African Women Are Fighting Climate Capitalism Today
African women are refusing to remain passive victims or data points in corporate climate monitoring. Instead, they are retooling their embodied knowledge of environmental destruction to build continental intelligence systems that challenge the very foundations of climate capitalism.
DAWN CHINAGOROM-ABIAKALAMAUGUST 24, 2025
Africa’s Role in the Future of Artificial Intelligence
As artificial intelligence transforms global systems, Africa remains sidelined in its design; even as its labour and resources power the very infrastructure that makes AI possible. The emergence of AI on the continent raises urgent questions about equity, inclusion and how to ensure Africans benefit
IMAD MUSAAUGUST 24, 2025
Who Will Own and Control Africa’s AI Energy Future?
As Africa races to power its digital future with Chinese solar panels and AI-ready data centres, it risks becoming both the supplier of critical minerals and the dumping ground for toxic waste in a new form of green extractivism, wrapped in the language of digital and climate progress.
FOYIN EJILOLAJULY 12, 2025
The Bushmeat System, Hunting and the Conflict of Ethics
There is growing concern about the depletion of wildlife in Nigerian forests. Local hunters who have been blamed due to over-hunting argue otherwise.
DIEKETSENG NZHADZHABAOCTOBER 26, 2025
How African Women Are Fighting Climate Capitalism Today
African women are refusing to remain passive victims or data points in corporate climate monitoring. Instead, they are retooling their embodied knowledge of environmental destruction to build continental intelligence systems that challenge the very foundations of climate capitalism.
DAWN CHINAGOROM-ABIAKALAMAUGUST 24, 2025
Africa’s Role in the Future of Artificial Intelligence
As artificial intelligence transforms global systems, Africa remains sidelined in its design; even as its labour and resources power the very infrastructure that makes AI possible. The emergence of AI on the continent raises urgent questions about equity, inclusion and how to ensure Africans benefit
IMAD MUSAAUGUST 24, 2025
Who Will Own and Control Africa’s AI Energy Future?
As Africa races to power its digital future with Chinese solar panels and AI-ready data centres, it risks becoming both the supplier of critical minerals and the dumping ground for toxic waste in a new form of green extractivism, wrapped in the language of digital and climate progress.
FOYIN EJILOLAJULY 12, 2025
The Bushmeat System, Hunting and the Conflict of Ethics
There is growing concern about the depletion of wildlife in Nigerian forests. Local hunters who have been blamed due to over-hunting argue otherwise.
