Facing the biggest threat to his 30-year old monopoly on power, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir finds his regime entangled in a crisis entirely of its own making: the economic meltdown triggered by Western sanctions for the Darfur atrocities, and the loss of South Sudan, itself the result of the Islamisation of the state. The bigger question for the continent is: why do small states fare better than big ones? Here’s a clue: centralising power, especially in politically fractious Africa, is always a bad idea. By DAVID NDII.
In the wake of the US newspaper’s refusal to withdraw that gruesome Dusit photograph, RASNA WARAH reflects on the logic of Western media’s enduring application of racist double standards.
Did the shooting down of a plane on 6 April 1994 trigger the Rwandan genocide? In this article, CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO shows that, far from being a spontaneous act of retaliation, the genocide in Rwanda was a premeditated strategy that was linked to events that took place at least four years earlier.
For more than a generation the term ‘Africanist’ has meant an implicit stranglehold by a mostly white and male cadre of academics and Western institutions on the tenor and direction of discourse on African affairs in the global academy and sectors such as conservation. RASNA WARAH argues that authentic African voices and narratives are and will continue to demonstrate the absurdity of this situation and herald the beginning of a substantive change of the old order.
Ultimately money is a social contract DAVID NDII argues. And though Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies may yet emerge as transformative disrupters of human and economic relations, certain fundamentals need to be in place if they are not to go the way of other fads past. History teaches us that ultimately monetary delinquency is one of the more reliable harbingers of revolution. If government makes a mess of our money, we can always behead the King.
What does a recent spat between the IMF and the Central Bank’s Prof Patrick Njoroge, himself a veteran of the Fund, tell us about the state of the Kenya shilling? By DAVID NDII.
The UN’s internal benchmark of success is the amount of money raised, not the successful execution of a programme. War and poverty remain necessary for the functioning of a system of phantom projects characterised by waste, mismanagement and corruption. And since the Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal of the early 2000s, in which billions went missing and the perpetrators scot-free, senior management has waged a silent war against its own whistleblowers. Who will police the world’s watchdog? By RASNA WARAH
Once upon a time, financial recklessness was the preserve of resource-rich nations. Now, resource-poor African nations, their thoughtless leaders seduced into taking printed money circulated by the US Federal Reserve after the global financial crisis a decade ago, have become the new sultanates of debt distress. DAVID NDII ponders a different path.
The conviction in New York of Patrick Ho Chi-ping, a former Hong Kong foreign minister, for allegedly bribing President Museveni and his foreign minister, Sam Kutesa, bring to light the seamy underbelly of the US-China contest over Africa. Museveni has long been the West’s man in East Africa, who jettisoned most of Uganda’s public resources to pursue regional military adventures. But 2018 was the year Ugandans shook off their docility. Confronted by debt and protest, will the old man crack? By MARY SERUMAGA.
DAVID NDII pulls apart the old myth of Central Kenya’s economic dominance.
MIRIAM ABRAHAM on the epidemic of rightwing populism abroad, the new power games of the ruling elite at home, and how to nurture genuinely popular movements for the future.
Borrowing a leaf from other dubious anti-corruption campaigns engineered by beleaguered African regimes, the current Noordin Haji-led clean-up has targeted allies and lieutenants of Deputy President, William Ruto. Will it work? By JOHN GITHONGO.