Aliko Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest individual, with a net worth standing at a cool $23-billion-plus, last month stepped down as chair of Dangote Cement, the bedrock of his business empire, just... 

South Africa has the dubious distinction of being the world’s most unequal country, with a Gini co-efficient – a measure of inequality based on per capita consumption – of 0.63. The broader... 

The electoral clock is ticking in Malawi. Voters head to the polls on September 16 to elect new municipal councillors, new MPs and a new President – if they choose not to renew the mandate of the... 

A chartered Global Crossing Airlines flight touched down at Eswatini’s King Swati III International Airport on the morning of July 16, carrying five passengers described by a US official in... 

Corrupt African political elites that plunder their countries’ coffers and stash the loot abroad –  with Western capitals their favourite vaults – have developed an astonishing sense of... 

Generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT are hailed as some of the most disruptive innovations in recent memory, promising – or already delivering – sweeping gains across countless fields. But... 

Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi and Uganda have one thing in common – all are preparing for Presidential elections in the coming months, and in the running are political veterans well past... 

When Western governments sneeze, development projects in Africa catch a cold. In 2024 alone, these governments disbursed $42-billion in official development assistance (ODA) to Africa. But the aid... 

There is a fallacy many of us have carried since childhood, just like many generations before us, stretching back centuries. It has to do with how Africa is depicted on the maps that hung on... 

I must confess – quite out of character for me, I immensely enjoyed the fallout between once best buddies Donald Trump and Elon Musk, which played out across Truth Social, Trump’s personal... 

The literary world is in mourning following the death late last month of Kenyan-born writer Ngūgī wa Thiong’o at the age of 87. Although I had long known of his battle with chronic kidney disease,... 

Before Donald Trump hurled the term ‘fake news’ like a grenade at a journalist in 2016, and the world watched it explode into mainstream lingo, it was largely the jargon of ivory-towered academics... 

A pet peeve of mine is the woefully low levels of investment in Africa’s public healthcare sector – a reality that doesn’t seem to trouble the ruling elites, who hop on the next overseas-bound... 

Two days from today, Africans at home and abroad will mark the sixty-second anniversary of Africa Day, which commemorates the 1963 founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was... 

They say democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people. Increasingly, however, it seems the people – particularly in  Africa – are losing faith in the idea. Nowhere is... 

Africa contributes just 3% to global emissions yet endures a wildly disproportionate share of the climate fallout – from deadly heatwaves to floods, cyclones and relentless droughts. Now, as the... 

The African Union (AU) and regional blocs such as the Economic Community of West African States consistently wax indignant each time men in fatigues shoot their way to power, threatening all manner... 

Although views to the contrary have occasionally been aired – sometimes underpinned by what seems to be solid empirical research hinting at African involvement in the drawing up of the continent’s... 

Remember Alfred Nzo? He was a stalwart of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, serving as secretary-general of the African National Congress in exile from 1969 to 1991, before becoming a... 

When someone asks if “you are coming with” to establish whether you are joining an activity or event, it’s a sure-fire sign they hail from this great Mzansi of ours. Try saying that elsewhere in... 

While Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah – who has been at the helm of the Namibian State for the past fortnight – may not be Southern Africa’s first female President, she stands out as the first to win the... 

US President Donald Trump is no stranger to putting his foot in his mouth. He was at it again earlier this month, describing Lesotho as a country that “nobody has ever heard of” while announcing to... 

Ever wondered how African countries – and some of the continent’s cities – got their names? The origins of some of these names might just surprise you. While some nations adopted new names after... 

When Donald Trump was elected for a second term as US President, he became only the second former President in the nation’s history to stage a comeback after an electoral defeat. The first was... 

In the lead-up to the election of the African Union Commission’s (AUC's) new leadership team on February 15, veteran Kenyan politician Raila Odinga appeared poised to take the chairperson’s job in... 

He was the last man standing among Southern African liberation heroes – those who fought for independence and became founding leaders of their nations. Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel Nujoma, a towering... 

Donald Trump will always be Donald Trump, frequently attacking those he disagrees with. President Cyril Ramaphosa found himself in his crosshairs earlier this month – for assenting to the... 

Prominent Nigerian economist Kasirim Nwuke recently penned a thought-provoking opinion piece on the varying dispositions of three high-profile Nigerian women – each of whom has made a significant... 

True to form, Donald Trump didn’t waste a minute in unleashing a fresh round of controversy at his January 20 inauguration as the forty-seventh President of the US, marking his return to the While... 

A Kenyan human rights activity recently shared a memory from his childhood, recalling how he used to think his peasant grandmother was a magician. Every year, she seemed to know exactly when to... 

Television coverage in the recent past of the drama unfolding at an abandoned mine shaft in Stilfontein, in the North-West province – where police launched an operation in October to force illegal... 

Cybercrime has exploded into a menace of epic proportions – and Africa is no safe haven. In fact, the digital underworld on the continent has been so busy that more than 1 000 offenders were caught... 

When negotiators from Africa headed to Baku, Azerbaijan, last month for this year’s iteration of the global climate jamboree known as the Congress of the Parties, they – like their counterparts... 

I'm part of a WhatsApp group for journalists from across Central, East and Southern Africa, where we share serious news and insider titbits and occasionally dive into debates ranging from... 

Among the first to tweet (or should we now say to “X”?) their congratulations to Donald Trump following his victory over Kamala Harris in this month’s US elections were African leaders such as... 

When the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) was founded in 1980, it was a coalition of postcolonial States bound by the noble dream of economic cooperation. By 1994, the... 

Mention of Somalis – as in Somali nationals – conjures up images of the unstable Horn of Africa nation that has known little peace since the flight into exile in Nigeria of erstwhile President... 

Imagine this: every single day, the world loses the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of passengers to malaria – a staggering 1 600 lives snuffed out by a relentless disease. That’s 600 000 lives each... 

Africa has long been the belle of the ball when it comes to overseas development assistance. But now, as donor countries turn inward thanks to economic hiccups from the Covid-19 pandemic and the... 

This year’s iteration of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has come and gone. What stood out was the noticeable absence of the familiar spiel from African leaders railing about how the “economic... 

As I noted last week, it’s been about nine months since Ethiopia became the first country to ban the importation of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles, decisively shifting gears towards a low-carbon...