In Uganda, there is a similarity between this year’s Easter week and that of 1979 – unstable power supply. In 1979, the blackouts were related to an external (military) force entering Uganda; today they are related to an external (business) force exiting Uganda.

The war that removed Uganda’s military government with the overrunning of Kampala on April 11 had started six months earlier in Kagera, the north-western region of Tanzania.

On the eve of Uganda’s Independence Day, October 8, 1978, the Tanzania Peoples Defence Forces finally returned the fire to the plundering Uganda Army which had earlier invaded and annexed Kagera region, even provocatively naming a Ugandan district commissioner for it.

In February 1979 as the war advanced northwards on Ugandan soil, the country started experiencing power blackouts. Rumours attributed this to sabotage by Ugandan guerrillas working with Tanzanians to overthrow President Idi Amin.

By the time of the Catholic Centenary in Uganda on February 17, power cuts had become daily. Guests from all over the world including the main celebrant from the Vatican (it was a world Catholic event courtesy of the 22 Uganda Martyrs) had a taste of what celebrating amid wartime darkness is like.

As Amin fled eastwards after losing power on April 11, a new fear arose over the safety of Owen Falls Dam at Jinja and its vital bridge that connects Mombasa/Kenya to Kampala.

For in his last broadcasts over Radio Uganda, he had promised dire consequences should he lose power to invaders and their “unpatriotic collaborators”. However, Amin passed Jinja without blowing up the dam and exited Uganda to exile where he died peacefully 25 years later.

After Amin’s exit that 46 years ago threatened to reduce Uganda’s hydro electricity generation from 150MW to 0, the country’s generation continued deteriorating for two decades, until the Museveni government with partners like HH The Aga Khan got production capacity growing again and has now grown 15 times higher to over 2,000MW.

Partnering with the Commonwealth Development Corporation, Uganda expanded power distribution that had shrunk due to a deteriorating grid network, now 10 times up from 250,000 to now 2.5million connections.

Then this April, with the exit of the CDC-led distribution consortium called Umeme, the long-forgotten power outages returned, hopefully temporarily. But citizens aged 50 and above can relate this Easter season to the power cuts of April 1979 when Amin was exiting.

Read: Uganda scrambles to fund Umeme exit as deadline looms

The power cuts related to the Umeme exit of March 31 could have been due to two or more reasons. First, the expected physical stripping by junior technicians unsure of their jobs under new management could have ‘disappeared’ a few kilometres of wire from the grid and a few thousand litres of transformer oils and other consumables.

Second is the stalled investment in grid maintenance (which should be constant) that must have arisen during the lengthy uncertain transition when the distributor was on the way out.

The replacement —the state agency for whose mandate Umeme had been executing —the Uganda Electricity Distribution and Corporation Ltd (UEDCL) — is subject to government procurement procedures that are lengthy and bureaucratic.

But grid maintenance and expansion are all about procuring transformers, wires, poles and securing passage across thousands of kilometres, period.

Last week UEDCL was engaging the government procurement agency to waive bureaucratic delays, otherwise the vultures that influence public tenders can reverse the gains of grid expansion and consistent power supply backwards by three decades in a short time, aggravating inconsistent lighting this Easter to widespread blackouts by Christmas and total darkness by the time of the general election time next year. We don’t want that, do we?

Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. Email: [email protected]

In 1977, Kenya police banned the performance of Ngaahika Ndeenda by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ngugi wa Mirii. The actors were small-scale farmers and workers in and around Kamirithu Village.

The play, directed by Kimani Gecau, was performed in an open-air makeshift theatre in the middle of the village. Before its stoppage, thousands of people had travelled from afar to watch the play.

The play showed how the church allied with the political class to keep the poor in subjugation. It narrated the story of how ordinary people rose up against British colonialism. It disputed the depiction of African culture as savage.

The play showed that the anti-colonial ideals were the true basis for a more progressive and democratic country. The play utilised the dramatic resources of art to tell its multi-themed story.

The banning of the play was the less harsh response by Jomo Kenyatta’ s regime. Ngugi wa Thiong’o was abducted at night and detained without trial at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison.

Kimani and Mirii evaded a police dragnet and escaped into exile. Later, the police descended on the theatre in Kamirithu and in avenging fury razed it to the ground.

In 2022, Ngaahika Ndeenda was performed at the Kenya National Theatre. I took my Gen-Z daughter and nephew to watch the performance. I listened carefully to their assessment. They remarked on the dramatic and comedic elements.

Neither of them said they were inspired to commandeer a tank to storm government buildings. We emerged from the theatre to find throngs of mostly young people excitedly debating the merits and demerits of the performance.

The play was an artistic experience, not a call to arms. If there was any revolutionary seed planted, it was in their understanding of history, and the hypocrisy of individuals and society.

History has repeated itself. A few days ago, armed Kenya police raided the venue of a secondary schools' drama festival to stop the rehearsal and performance of a play.

Echoes of War by Cleophas Malala was to be performed by Butere Girls School. Police threw tear gas to disperse the girls and reporters.

Echoes of War talks about the cultural and political divide between the older and younger generations. The characters decry bad governance.

Like their real-life Gen-Z counterparts, the characters use social media to criticise bad governance and corruption. In the end, the dictator in the play agrees to listen to his youthful critics, and they all resolve to work together for the good of the country.

Echoes of War, like Ngaahika Ndeenda, does not call for violent rebellion. The play is a simple dramatisation of normal political discourse we have daily on TV and radio. Only fully fledged or fledgling dictatorships can be so thin-skinned.

The violent overreaction even embarrassed the ODM side of the regime. Had the regime allowed the play, we might never have heard of it, and Ruto’s regime would not have dug itself even deeper in the hole of ignominy.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political and social commentator.

The story of Easter is an interesting phenomenon which carries several messages applicable to the lives we live today, the tribulations we endure, and the victories promised us.

To Judaism, this is the period of Passover, the season when the evil ruler of Egypt decides to do a massacre of all male children of the Israelites. Why? The ruler of Egypt, depicted as a non-democratic and all-powerful ruler with vast resources at his disposal has been told that the Jews have become too powerful and too wealthy in his realm, and so he decided to exterminate them.

The Jews had multiplied in Egypt because one of them, Joseph, had become prime minister to the pharaoh because of his wisdom, sagacity and clairvoyance, even saving Egypt from famine.

When a new pharaoh who came after Joseph had disappeared from the scene--- a wholly different historical period—the new ruler wanted the Jews done away with because he did not know Joseph and his good work.

But at the same time, in those periods of adversity and dire need, a little boy called Musa is born, and he grows up to be strong and wise, with the magical powers to rival and best those of the pharaoh, and he leads his people to freedom.

But all that is part one of a long story, and it does not tell us that more than 3,000 years later, these same people who had a such a good god who directed them to fight and resist evil, would have the same god allow them to massacre women, children and old people in Gaza and the West Bank, and generally sow evil in their wake, in the very name of the very same god of Joseph and of Moses.

The Christian story turns the tale on its head and talks of the Jews killing one of theirs (a young, intelligent and likeable teenager named Immanuel) because he is telling them they have forgotten that same god who helped them to trounce the evil pharaoh.

They find him too uppity and iconoclastic and put him on the cross, but they soon find out that this little man has grown famous and his name has gone around the world and is now worshipped by a good slice of humanity, long after that warm little story in Palestine two millennia ago.

The Africans too would not be outdone in cosmological imagination, and they too weaved a yarn or two about how they were created and the deities who presided over their creation and which directed their lives and afterlives: Shango (Yoruba); Unkulukulu (Zulu); Nzambe-Mpungu (Congo); Waaq (Oromo-Somali); Faro (Bambara), and so on.

All these deities ruled over human lives and moderated their relations, bestowing power and wealth and, alternatively, meting out castigation and retribution, as the case may be, always put light as opposing darkness, good struggling against evil.

These gods could sometimes be capricious, for sure, but they hardly ever let a human run riot over their creation while they stood idly by.

They would visit the unrepentant hubristic ruler with thunder, plague, mice, or (for the really incorrigible) with unvirility, that ultimate punishment for a man!

What we are called upon to learn are issues and stories of power, opulence and vainglory and people preening themselves and lording it over other humans, and on the other hand the people resisting and overthrowing them.

These stories have never stopped, and they will continue to inspire mankind as long as there is still a mankind, and they all seek to teach us to respect each other and to do good by the people we live with, especially if the gods have allowed us to rule over them.

Today’s world still has these same examples for us to learn from. The Joseph in our earlier story was given power because he was good, but even pharaoh who was evil was a mighty ruler, until he was cut down.

Moses was given incredible power—even to part the sea and other miracles—but because of some infraction, he was not allowed to go to the promised land.

Those who are apparently worshipped today (basically because they wield what looks like power) will die tomorrow or thereafter and likely be declared to have been no more than celebrated scoundrels.

This power is transient, illusory and phantasmagoric, like the horror shows of mediaeval Europe. It will frighten only the timorous souls of some, not entire peoples, and not for long.

Now, Tanzania is hurtling headlong towards an election or a non-election, depending on how matters pan out, and we are likely to witness the same Manichean struggle between pharaoh and Musa…. those who wish to have an election and those who want to have a sham masquerade of “votes” cast by ghosts who want them counted and to declare our pharaohs as the declared “winners.”

All this is within the telling of the story of mankind, and the eternal struggle between good and evil, the Manichean dualism running across the world.

Easter, and Passover and the other stories of destruction and rebirth, tell us about the indestructibility of goodness and the futility of death, as demonstrated in the rising on the third day, wherein the “Third Day” could be actuated in the third hour, or third year, or the third decade, or in the third century, for humanity has the patience to wait as history weaves its fabric.

Tanzanians’ will also be observing their own home-grown pharaohs and their own home-grown Musas. A number of them are in prison.

Happy Easter, everybody!

Ulimwengu is now on YouTube via jeneralionline tv. E-mail: [email protected]

President William Ruto claims that his ex-deputy Rigathi Gachagua blackmailed him, demanding Ksh10 billion or else he would make him a one-term president.

In the same interview, Ruto recounted how he had to mediate several infantile clashes between his deputy and junior State House staff.

He painted Gachagua as an incompetent and petty man, who sensed slights that did not exist. Gachagua has hit back with damning claims of his own. He accuses Ruto of being the mastermind and beneficiary of major corruption.

It’s impossible to tell who between Ruto and Gachagua is telling the truth, which in itself is a grave indictment of the two. Perhaps this should not be surprising, given that both men did not start their political careers as altar boys.

Ruto began his career as a key member of the shady vehemently and violently pro-Kanu outfit dubbed YK’92. Gachagua was a vicious District Officer, mercilessly enforcing decrees of the Kanu dictatorship. Those are hardly training camps for nurturing truthfulness and integrity.

But that be as it may, the exchanges between the two, given our status as a poor Third World country faced with seemingly insurmountable problems, paint a picture of a leadership totally unsuited to the Herculean job at hand.

The exchanges beg the existential question: Kenya, where are we headed?

In the 1960s, Kenyan scholar, Abdilatif Abdalla, posed in a famous poem: ‘Kenya Twendapi” – Kenya, where are we headed? He was promptly detained without trial by the Jomo Kenyatta regime. But his question is more urgent today than it was then.

I say this because, even though by the late 1960s there was a universal sense that we were not headed towards prosperity, equity and freedom, the population remained largely subdued. The country was easily manipulated by tribal rhetoric.

Many were persuaded by government propaganda that democracy was divisive and would undermine development. Other people could still not believe that their own African government could betray the goals of the freedom struggle. By the time people began to speak out , the dictatorship was solidly entrenched.

Today however, we have an educated youthful population that has grown up in the post-Kanu era. They have tasted a little freedom, and now want all of it.

They do not want reduction in thievery; they want its complete stoppage. They do not want to replace one member of the current political class with another; they demand a generational change of leadership. They are not satisfied with traditional economic policies.

They want a rethinking , reimagining, and reinvention of the political economy. They do not want a piecemeal approach to development; they want an approach that will leapfrog into the future. They do not want token reforms of the broken system; they want its complete overhaul.

The present political class – ruling and opposition – are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

They are culturally and ideologically not equipped to lead a Kenyan renaissance.

US President Donald Trump has put my continuing education into overdrive. There are tabs open in my browsers on several devices covering topics like the persistent problem of neoliberal economics, mental illness in adult males, how the width of the Suez and Panama canals have an effect on cargo ship sizes.

I am including queries like “what are tariffs” even though I live in a port city where small retailers survive by asking questions like “do you want the receipt with that?”

Obviously, the good citizen answer is “yes!”, but you have to realise we ask each other these questions shamelessly because during such transactions we are really asking whether we believe our taxes work for us.

Obviously the good citizen answer to that question is “Bruh. Public school teachers are underpaid while politician spouses get allowances, and they keep firing the Auditor and Comptroller General. Receipt for what?”

But back to Mr Trump. This man has me questioning my sanity as I try to understand how he is able to do and undo all kinds of nonsense in a brief period of time with complete impunity.

Like: what even is a ‘mature and stable’ country if American systems can be punched in the face by a fully chaotic head of state, and they’re the current hegemon?

It. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.

The United States of America is an enviably well-documented polity. Their history has been recorded — complete with biases and omissions — ever since the first European genocidaires landed on what they hoped was ‘available’ land to do their thing. Of course, it is morally questionable — it is an empire complete with a deeply problematic habit of violence.

There is a school of thought that the American state is fragile because of the brutality of its birthing process that remains in its political DNA.

Perhaps, but remember how well-documented it insists on being? This transparency makes it easy to track their experiment in democracy as it grows over time, often through great effort.

That dead sexy belief in freedoms and rights and participation and laws helped sell democracy as a viable, desirable option for a modern nation state.

A large part of what gave this whole thing credibility over time was the squashing of hereditary privileges, literally trying to forge a new way of doing power that was the antithesis of monarchy.

Only to land in 2025 with a superannuated head of state with a hefty Mad King vibe, a handful of billionaires who have all the money and an anxious citizenry that is realising they’ve been herded into an economy in which they struggle to afford eggs.

That is why I have all these tabs open. The Trump presidency is happening in a polity with hundreds of years of experience trying to systematise government so that no individual could dominate it, and I am a systems girl.

The Trump apologists are utterly useless at explaining why they are flirting with potential state failure, and everyone else is having a hard time piecing the explanations together.

But we do need an explanation: there has got to be more to human striving than this ridiculous pendulum swing between long periods of deifying rich male tyrants and brief respites when we remember our dignity. I am sure the answer is online somewhere.

One last observation about ‘developed’ vs ‘developing’ countries: when “no taxation without representation” fails, self-inflicted tariff blitzes crush the working class and the State becomes obviously predatory? ‘Receipt for what?’ starts to make a grim kind of sense doesn’t it? Third world skills for a third world government. Don’t knock ‘em.

Scholarship as Comfort.

But we do need an explanation: there has got to be more to human striving than this ridiculous pendulum swing between long periods of deifying rich male tyrants and brief respites when we remember our dignity. I am sure the answer is online somewhere.

Recent weeks and days have seen several climate and environmental events and reports, small and big, that have left East Africa teetering between catastrophe and opportunity.

A toxic algae bloom in Lake Victoria, caused by the shameful level of pollution of the waters by the three East African Community countries who share it, left an unbearable stench along its shores in Uganda.

Several people, overcome by the smell, fled their homes. A South Sudan that is threatening to relapse yet again into war, reported drowning wetlands. Reports told of the dying glaciers of East Africa’s mountains.

Severe floods devastated the Democratic Republic of Congo, particularly the capital Kinshasa, due to torrential rains causing the Ndjili River to overflow. Nearly 40 people have died. Roads, and infrastructure were destroyed, displacing thousands and affecting over 200 households. Major roads, including Lumumba Boulevard, became impassable.

There has always been a cocktail of contradiction—an alliance of hopefuls and harbingers, of markets and mayhem.

Now, more than ever, the region finds itself on the edge, with nature, politics, and insecurity all conspiring to influence events. Here we look at five critical issues that might be off many people’s radars.

Al Shabaab climate crisis bounty

The climate crisis in Somalia, marked by severe droughts and floods, has intensified hunger, displacing millions and devastating livelihoods. This desperation creates fertile ground for al Shabaab, a militant group exploiting the crisis to gain support.

By controlling scarce resources like water and food, they exert influence over vulnerable communities, offering aid where the government fails.

Somalia’s accession to the EAC should have been a win. While the terror group isn’t about to sweep Mogadishu Taliban-style as seemed likely a fortnight ago, it still controls about 20–30 per cent of Somalia and is nibbling at the edges of reclaimed areas.

Somalia’s fragile institutions struggle to govern beyond the capital, and if al Shabaab regains even symbolic dominance, the EAC may find itself with a Trojan horse of insecurity in its fold.

Raising the scary question: If al Shabaab were ever to prevail, would EAC leaders give them a seat at the Jumuiya table?

How floods pose risk to South Sudan

While DRC’s capital has been ravaged by floods, South Sudan has been at it longer. It is a story that big media no longer see.

South Sudan is sinking—literally. Nearly 10 per cent of the country, particularly in the Sudd region, is submerged during peak flood seasons. And this is not your typical seasonal flood that dries up after a few weeks; climate patterns have mutated.

In 2024, reports showed that nearly 7.4 per cent of South Sudan remained underwater even during the dry season. That’s not flooding anymore - that’s a redrawing of the map.

The humanitarian consequences are brutal. If this flooding becomes permanent, and projections suggest it might, the EAC is looking at its first climate-induced state failure in real-time.

Lake Victoria is dying. Uganda may be dying with it

The toxic algae that is stinking up the Lake Victoria regions in Uganda, are just a small part of the crisis facing the lake.

Kisumu Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o might have said it best: Lake Victoria could be dead in 50 years. Frankly, we might not have that long.

Nutrient overloads, algal blooms, and fish die-offs are already routine. Uganda, which hugs 45 percent of the lake and leans on it for hydropower, fishing, and Kampala’s water supply, is skating on ecological thin ice.

In Kampala, parts of the lake are already so polluted they’re almost undrinkable without heavy treatment. Uganda’s dependence is near-total. Lose the lake, and you lose electricity, food, urban stability - and possibly political calm.

Kenya has options. Tanzania might pivot. Uganda? Not so much. In this aquatic tragedy, Uganda is the hero most likely to drown.

The vanishing glaciers: A metaphor and a warning

Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, Mount Rwenzori—call them what you will: icons, water towers, ancestral beacons. Now all of them are melting monuments. Kilimanjaro is reported to have lost 91 percent of its ice since 1912. Mount Kenya’s is by 96 percent. Rwenzori’s has dwindled by 95 percent.

It’s not just about aesthetics or tourism dollars, though those will go too. These glaciers feed rivers, which feed farms, which feed families. Less ice means less water, more drought, means more hunger. Add this to the already flaming climate volatility and the picture isn’t pretty.

Food: The Great East African lottery

The EAC is facing a food security crisis not seen since colonial famines—and this one is self-inflicted, nature-assisted. Droughts that used to occur every 12 years now hit every 2.5 years, the World Bank says. Over 9 million livestock died between 2021 and 2023 in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Floods displaced thousands from arable land. And yet, the hunger isn’t evenly spread.

South Sudan and Somalia are on the cliff edge, staring into famine. Ethiopia’s crop yields could crash by 40 percent if the next rains fail. But not all news is bad.

Tanzania, with 51 percent of Lake Victoria and a relatively stable climate, could become a breadbasket—if it invests in irrigation and storage. If food becomes power—and it will—then Tanzania might write the region’s next chapter.

East Africa doesn’t do boring. But this current moment feels different—more high stakes, more urgent. Nature is no longer a neutral backdrop; it’s an active participant.

Yet, there are opportunities. A rebalanced food economy could empower new players. Tanzania could lead with its water and land. But only if the EAC stops acting like a ceremonial club and starts behaving like a union forged in fire.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the «Wall of Great Africans». X@cobbo3

We want the coming elections to be open, transparent, fair, just and free that will do justice to all the participants without exception.

We want these elections to observe the laws, rules and regulations which our country has adopted as the norms of organising elections for some time now.

We want these elections to offer equal space to all the participants and not to discriminate against anyone on the basis of any criterion that is not based on a recognised law or norm.

We want these elections to be organised by a credible electoral organ that is and is seen to be fair, just and independent, and not only in name.

We want the electoral commission running these elections to be composed of Tanzanians who can be believed by fellow Tanzanians as being ethical, independent and desirous to be fair-minded and to do justice.

We want the electoral commission to be equipped with a public service of employees which will be answerable only to the responsible only to the electoral commission and to no one else, We want the electoral commission to have an autonomous budget and have no necessity to ask for financial support from any other body.

We want the electoral commission to have security of tenure to make it really independent.

We want all aspirants to be allowed to present themselves without unnecessary restrictions placed in their way.

We want all parties and candidates to have freedom of access to all the documents relating to the elections including voter registration rolls and to be able to raise any issues relating to the integrity of such documents.

We want to have domestic as well as international observers to witness how the elections are conducted and to make known their findings.

We want the police to play no role that interferes with the electoral process, specifically we want the police to desist from any illegal actions, such as introducing illegal ballot papers into the voting process.
We want the police to act legally under the instruction of the electoral commission officers.

We want school children and other children under voting age to have no part in the election, and for them not to be led by their school masters to carry out activities that sabotage the integrity of the elections. (Corrupting such young minds is a sure way to corrupt en masse a whole future generation, and our children should be protected from it).

We want our people to be and to feel safe during the whole period of the elections, not to be threatened, beaten up, arrested or killed because of elections, This is because we are tired of elections being periods of burials and orthopedic amputations.

We want police and national secret service agents to have no role which allows them to smuggle fake “votes” into the electoral process, and we want them to stay at a distance to carry out strictly law-and-order services.

We want the voters or their agents to observe the whole electoral process from start to finish and to witness every stage of the operation, such as it is done, for instance, in Ghana and in Botswana.

We want all the election results at all the levels of competition to be questionable in the courts of law, including the ward, parliamentary and presidential levels.

We want our people to enjoy their electoral processes as a festive process and to sing and dance, not to mourn and bury their dear ones.

We are making these demands with more vigour than before because in our experience in the past civic and general elections in 2019, 2020 and 2024 these demands, though duly stated by ourselves, were not met. This time we intend for them to be respected.

We want practical assurance that they will be met, and we state if they are not met we shall make this charade impossible.

These are, in brief, what I understand the opposition in Tanzania to be demanding under what they have termed “No Reforms, No Election,” and the campaign has been gathering massive attendance in those parts of the country where they have been able to go.

The Constitution and the laws and rules (such as they stand today) are supposed to govern the running of elections.

What is happening is that the opposition is demanding that the government do what is written down in the texts, and to eschew hooliganism no more.

It is true that government agents, including police officers and security agents, have been sabotaging elections, including introducing fake “votes” into the voting process, and not allowing the prescribed processes to take place.

This particular ball is squarely in President Samia Suluhu’s park, the buck stops right at her feet.

The whole reform agenda has been repeatedly sabotaged by the government that said it wanted to do reforms but has seemed to speak from both ends of the mouth, first by Jakaya Kikwete’s self-aborted constitutional reforms, and now by Samia’s “reforms and reconciliation” promise— all too sweet but containing nothing but air.

Still, if there is goodwill there is still time to save our country. There is still half a calendar year before the proposed election, enough time in which to push a draft of amendments through parliament – who said rubber-stamps are totally useless?—and get everyone to do these elections.

But watch this space.

The 2025 Global Terrorism Index released this week has confirmed what many African analysts, soldiers, and experts in general have long known: Africa’s war against terror is being waged without a map.

While global headlines have moved on, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa remain locked in a vicious cycle—governments weakened, jihadist groups emboldened, and foreign partners distracted or withdrawn.

What we are witnessing is not merely the persistence of terrorism, but the collapse of strategic coherence in African security policy.

In 2024, the Sahel shouldered the world’s deadliest wave of terrorism, with the region alone responsible for more than half of all terrorism-related deaths across the globe.

Among the hardest hit were five countries—Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon—where violence has become alarmingly routine and state authority is increasingly contested. Yet Africa’s premier continental institution, the African Union, remains several steps behind.

The scale of the crisis has outpaced the frameworks built to contain it. The reality is that Africa isn’t just being outgunned by insurgents—it’s being outmanoeuvred by its own outdated security architecture.
Over the Horn of Africa, the story is equally grim.

Al Shabaab, the Somali militant group, continues to hold territory, extort the public, and deepen its grip on southern and central Somalia. The AU’s latest mission—known as the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission (Aussom)—was meant to be a reset, a bold new chapter after African Union Transition Mission in Somalia.

Now, barely off the ground, it’s already faltering: underfunded, politically unclear, and strategically adrift. Instead of marking a shift in momentum, it risks becoming another hollow intervention. Without a clear doctrine, Aussom risks becoming another placeholder mission, rather than a turning point.

What links the Sahel and the Horn is not just rising jihadist activity—it is the absence of African strategic agency. The continent continues to outsource its security doctrine to external actors: France, the EU, the US, Russia, China, Turkey, each projecting influence through partnerships that fracture rather than unify African responses.

In the Sahel, this has led to the rise of the Alliance of Sahel States (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso), a new regional bloc that has rejected Ecowas and turned eastward to Russia and China for arms, training, and diplomatic cover.

But this pivot does not constitute strategy. Replacing one set of foreign dependencies with another is not sovereignty, it is substitution.

Africa’s failure is not due to a lack of capacity, but a lack of political will to build long-term institutions, coordinate intelligence, and assert continental ownership over peace enforcement. The African Union Peace and Security Council remains stuck in workshop mode, issuing communiqués while jihadist groups are redrawing national borders in blood.

While the AU debates mandates, terrorist groups have entered a new phase. AI-powered propaganda, encrypted networks, and cross-border economic lifelines through gold smuggling and extortion have transformed these groups into agile, resilient actors.

Read:  After six decades of foreign aid, time for Africa to chart own progress

Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISK) now produces multilingual recruitment videos—from Arabic and Urdu to Russian and English. They no longer need physical territory to recruit; they operate through broadband and belief.

And yet, across African capitals, there is no coordinated response to this threat environment. Ministries of Information remain outdated, national security strategies are locked in Cold War paradigms, and digital counter-narratives are relegated to donor-funded side projects.

If Sahel and Horn are to be reclaimed, Africa must redraw its security map, both figuratively and institutionally.

First, continental institutions must move from mission mandates to strategic doctrines. Aussom cannot succeed unless it is backed by an African vision of security, grounded in local legitimacy, political reconciliation, and state-building.

The same applies to the Sahel, where the African Union should mediate the fractured relationship between the Economic Community of West Africa (Ecowas) and the three Sahel states (Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso).

Second, Africa must reclaim control over its information domain. Terrorism thrives on narrative dominance. We need continent-wide strategic communications units, embedded in AU and RECs, to craft localised, culturally resonant counter-messaging.

Third, we must treat resource governance as a core security pillar. In the Sahel, gold and uranium are not just commodities—they are the currencies of insurgency. National resource maps should be part of national security strategies, and artisanal mining must be brought under state oversight through community-driven agreements, not elite contracts.

Fourth, we need pan-African security coordination.

The silence between Somalia’s intelligence agency Nisa and Nigeria’s DSS, or between Mali’s intelligence services and Kenya’s NIS, is the sound of failure. A continental intelligence fusion centre, with rotating leadership and secure platforms, must be built now—not in another summit report.

We are running out of time. As the index shows, terrorism in Africa is not just persistent—it is evolving, adaptive, and politically embedded. If we do not meet this evolution with African clarity, we will be forced to respond to its consequences with perpetual crisis management.

The strategic question is simple: Will Africa lead or be led? If we choose the former, we must shed the illusion that peace is imported. The AU and its regional blocs must wake up—not to new donor templates, but to a continental security consensus rooted in African reality.

Because if we fail to redraw the map, others will do it for us—with drones, mercenaries, and missions that outlast their mandate but not their usefulness.

Abdisaid M. Ali is chairperson of the Lomé Security Forum

This last weekend I was standing on the side of a mountain road watching some young boys in shorts and knock-off Crocs carrying hefty loads up rocky hills with the ease of long familiarity and I thought to myself: Where is their school? What are their dreams? Might they be future Nobel Prize winners?

Do they know that we adults are about to vote to try and determine their future? Is this what 60 years of Independence has got us? Is this it?

Our poverty as a society bothers me in a way that is hard to articulate well, perhaps because I have never found a way to move beyond my conviction that it is largely unnecessary.

I am told that this is a juvenile perspective, which is a compliment considering the justifications I have heard for why it is fine for us to spend on frivolities like a national airline when we cannot provide adequate childhood nutrition and basic literacy yet. Adults see the logic of this, which makes us folks of dubious character at best. 

I was standing on that mountainside having rode into town on a swanky new electric train from the metropolis of Dar es Salaam that delivered me unto this pristine landscape in which tough kids were carrying heavy loads up a hill.

The sheer wealth in the city that I had left behind is astounding. Going from the towers of glass and steel to the red soils and bare feet of the villages in the space of a couple of hours was jarring. Like, why do we withstand such discrepancies? Because “Tanzania is a poor country” as I have been told my whole life.

Read:  Why voting should be compulsory for us to enjoy fruits of democracy

Also, “Tanzania is a rich country” as I have been told my whole life. Schrodinger’s Tanzania, we exist in a state of economic superposition that is either great or not appalling according to the observer.

Ruling party politicians see an economy that has propelled us to middle-income country status. Teachers and doctors outside the major urban centres experience an economy in which textbooks and safe childbirth are still scarce.

Me? I wonder what we are doing. 

Of course Tanzania is rich — the European colonial project is absolutely correct in its estimation of the potential of this continent. When we got ourselves some measure of freedom from the yoke of direct colonial administration, I figured we would tackle inequality and underdevelopment with fervour. And maybe we did, for a couple of decades? Maybe? 

Then we took a wrong turn somewhere. It is evident in the world of difference between the convenient electric train that I took out of the metropolis, and the hinterland it delivered me to in such comfort. It is in the airplanes and the overpasses, the swanky new hotels and the immensely comfortable ferries to Zanzibar. 

We have much to show for the investments that we made in these past few years — but we invested heavily in things and not so much in people. What is that about?

My generation is finally coming of age to lead the country. We have been slaving away at the economy, raising the young and paying the taxes and we have the requisite grey hairs to prove it. Which makes the fate of the children of this country, and our future as a society, finally our responsibility.

I guess my question is, are we the political class who might have the courage to put people ahead of things, at the ballot and everywhere else? It made for a lengthy stare out the window, riding back from the Tanganyika of neglect to the Dar es Salaam of infinite and inequitable possibility. 

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report; E-mail: [email protected]
 

When a very senior assistant to the chair of Tanzania's ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), comes up with some explanation of why that party failed to observe the stricture that election campaigns should not kick off before parliament winds up its business, people will listen, and this time they did.

The issue was, apparently, an explanation as to why the ruling party had not followed its own rules governing the process of naming a presidential candidate, which requires that a national electoral conference be called with the specific agenda of electing one member who will be the presidential candidate.

This is the system that was followed all the election years since the reintroduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s, which rule was observed with unfailing regularity every five years since 1995.

Now the newly installed vice-chair of the CCM party recently found it necessary to explain why this aberration had taken place.

In a statement made at a public meeting, the veteran politician let it be understood that there had been a group within CCM that had intended to torpedo Samia’s candidacy, which prompted her (declared) supporters to take the unusual step of pushing the agenda of her candidacy in a meeting that had not been called for that specific purpose.

That is interesting for a number of reasons, but first of all, it comes as confirmation that all is not well within the long-standing ruling party, which should hardly be surprising. This is a 70-year-old arrangement that has led Tanzania forever and which shows all the signs of breathlessness and decay, and is hardly recognisable as the party Julius Nyerere founded.

From the early dream of social equity promoted by its founder, this party had frayed and collected rust and fatigue, having lost most of its appeal as a liberation movement and gone the way of other parties on the continent, mired in corruption and absentmindedness.

Read:  The electoral virus has struck; it’s not even election time yet!

From the erstwhile vehicle for the emancipation of the down-trodden, it slowly morphed into a vehicle for accessing state power, leading to easy enrichment in the hands of a small clique of individuals who cannot today explain their wealth.

There is no suggestion anywhere that this is unique to Tanzania, as it looks like the norm in every African set-up.

But what makes it especially unacceptable in Tanzania is the fact that despite the cluelessness of the ruling elite in finding solutions to the endemic economic problems of the country and its people, CCM has grimly held onto power, often using guile and brutality, mostly depending on a police force that has become the main force of that party.

By the admission of its own top dogs, elections are run in such a way as to ensure the foregone conclusion is never left in doubt, and that means results in favour of the ruling party.

Matters took a turn for the worse when John Magufuli was elected president in 2015 and vowed to do away with the opposition parties, not through persuasion but rather through coercion and police brutality.

It is thus that every election time since then has become a season for brutality in which opposition candidates are harassed, arrested, beaten up, or killed, anything to stop them from doing politics.

But now the main opposition, CDM, has this time around come up with a call to counter that situation by declaring a campaign to stop the holding of this year’s election unless steps are taken to reform the way the elections are organised.

However, they are running into difficulties with their own members who would like to bid for positions in these elections, and who see this campaign as threatening their political aspirations.

How that party handles that issue will be interesting to watch, but for the time being it has been made public that the old CCM veteran alluded to above has publicly stated that his party is willing to talk to the opposition to see how the issues raised by CDM can be resolved.

Read:  Election: Tale of the three wise monkeys in Tanzanian politics

That may lead the country to a place of hope, for otherwise the country might be in trouble, especially with the habit of excessive police force deployed against unarmed civilians. (In 2001 tens of Tanzanians from Zanzibar were killed and others ran as refugees to Kenya, for the first time creating Tanzanian political refugees).

It does not help matters this is a time when the economic conditions are becoming more dire, with inflationary trends becoming more acute, particularly the rise of fuel prices triggered by a lack of the US dollar.

Caught between the naysayers in her own party (who still resist her leadership) and the re-energised opposition (headed by Tundu Antipas Lissu, recently supported by ACT-Wazalendo), Samia’s CCM will increasingly find itself between the oven and a hot place.

A young and impatient population will not listen to the tired platitudes of old politicians whose only claim to fame is having “brought independence” half a century ago.

They want jobs and a decent life, and any government that cannot provide that had better be careful when trying to rig an election or spreading silly rumours about the opposition collecting Ebola viruses to sabotage the elections.

Watch this space.

Ulimwengu is now on YouTube via jeneralionline tv. E-mail: [email protected]

Few plane crashes have hit harder or faster than the one that killed Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994.

Habyarimana and Burundi’s Cyprien Ntaryamira died when their plane was shot down over Kigali.

Fingers quickly pointed at Habyarimana’s enemies, and by morning on April 7, Rwanda had become a slaughterhouse. Up to one million people—mostly Tutsi, along with moderate and opposition Hutu—were butchered in 100 days.

The rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and its armed wing, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), led by Paul Kagame, struck back. By July 4, 1994, they had toppled the genocidal regime, ending the Genocide Against the Tutsi and a war that had been raging since 1990.

The defeated government forces and their extremist ally, the Interahamwe—who later established the controversial Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)—fled and set up shop in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, fueling a conflict that still roils the region.

What’s surprising about Habyarimana’s death and its aftermath is how it created deep fissures within the international community and Africa. While many outside observers saw it as the ultimate failure of global diplomacy, others noted the slow and inadequate response of the United Nations and Western countries to the genocide that followed.

In fact, countries like France and Belgium were seen as aiding and abetting the killings. Habyarimana’s death and the genocide it triggered led to a profound shift in how the world handles humanitarian crises, eventually contributing to the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

On December 23, 2003, the UN General Assembly recognised April 7 as the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda via Resolution 58/234. In 2018, after Rwanda pushed to name the Tutsi as the primary targets explicitly, Resolution 72/550 refined it to “1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda.” Rwanda’s Kwibuka—remembrance—kicks off on April 7, runs for 100 days, and concludes on July 4.

That Kigali crash wasn’t Africa’s only sky-shaking tragedy. These weren’t just powerful men falling from the sky; they were geopolitical earthquakes, rattling borders, alliances, and global politics. Some sparked shifts no one saw coming, leaving marks long after the wreaths had withered.

Take Barthélemy Boganda, the Central African Republic’s independence torchbearer. On March 29, 1959, his plane exploded near Bangui, shredding CAR’s dreams mid-flight.

Read: OBBO: Faye, Ruto and Malema have same political father, different mothers

The official cause was put down to an explosion—possibly sabotage—but the failure to determine who was behind it left an air of conspiracy that would haunt CAR for decades. Was it the French, desperate to maintain influence? Rivals within the CAR leadership? The lack of answers fueled distrust, not just of France but among Africans themselves.

Boganda’s death gutted CAR’s trajectory. His absence left a void soon filled with weak and corrupt leaders. Without its independence icon, the country slid into division, misrule, and brutal dictatorships. That crash seeded a cycle of chaos that still spins today.

Two years later, on September 18, 1961, the world lost Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN Secretary-General, when his plane crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).

He was chasing peace in Congo’s messy crisis—a success that might have reshaped post-colonial Africa. Instead, the circumstances surrounding his death—ranging from accusations of sabotage to suspicions of CIA or colonial involvement—left Africa trapped in geopolitical uncertainty.

Hammarskjöld’s fall didn’t just kill a mission; it strained the UN’s credibility in Africa. The lack of clear answers cast doubt over its peacekeeping role, scepticism that persists today, especially in places like Congo, where outside powers have deep vested interests.

It mirrored Africa’s post-independence dilemma—self-rule versus foreign meddling. Leaders and citizens alike wondered: Could the UN be trusted? Some argue that this scepticism nudged Africa toward Pan-Africanism, pushing for homegrown solutions over foreign promises.

Machel: A revolutionary dies, apartheid’s shadow grows

Africa’s skies weren’t done.

On October 19, 1986, Samora Machel, Mozambique’s revolutionary president, died when his Tupolev Tu-134 crashed near Mbuzini, South Africa. A towering figure in the anti-apartheid struggle, Machel’s death screamed foul play—South Africa’s apartheid regime topped the suspect list, though pilot error got the official nod.

If Hammarskjöld’s crash made Africa wary of global peacekeepers, Machel’s turned the lens inward. Was this apartheid’s bloody reach?

The South African government was already waging a brutal guerrilla war against liberation movements in southern Africa. What many saw as a targeted attack on Machel showed the violent lengths apartheid forces would go to maintain control.

Machel’s death ultimately fueled the global isolation of South Africa. His passing, along with those of other African leaders, became a rallying cry for stronger sanctions against the apartheid regime.

His death—whether accident or conspiracy—had global reverberations, further pushing the apartheid state toward its inevitable collapse.

These crashes—Habyarimana’s, Boganda’s, Hammarskjöld’s, Machel’s—weren’t just tragedies. They were pivot points in history.

Habyarimana’s death sparked a genocide, but from its ashes emerged a new Rwanda. Boganda’s demise plunged CAR into turmoil from which it has never recovered, along the way opening a path for the bizarre spectacle of Jean-Bédel Bokassa crowning himself emperor without an empire.

Hammarskjöld’s fall shook Africa’s trust in international peacekeeping, and left the UN in a tangled relationship with Congo in which it still trapped. Machel’s death intensified the final push against apartheid.

Africa’s skies have a brutal way of rewriting the script. And no one ever sees it coming.

Charles Onyango-obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the «Wall of Great Africans». X @cobbo3

Two recent incidents have revived debate about the place of traditional culture in a modern society: The killing of a 17-year-old girl in Wajir County and the brutal assault of a widow in Kisii.

The girl’s “crime” was refusing a forced marriage to a 55-year-old man. The husband and his associates beat her and then set her on fire.

Her family was complicit in the forced marriage. Deep inside, the family must have known that the marriage violated the girl’s humanity, but they went along with it in the name of culture.

The widow in Kisii was brutalised for refusing to perform a traditional ritual at the burial of her husband. She was whipped and punched by a bunch of men as a crowd of mourners watched. The crowd was restrained by a belief that the torture was necessitated by culture.

Why does culture, a social construct, override an innate sense of justice? People believe that culture is a set of truths given to their community on creation day and passed down generations. These cultural truths are immutable and unerring.

Breach of these truths is seen as inviting a curse on the transgressing individual, her family and community. Quite often, cleansing rituals – some comical and others dehumanising - are reenacted. In the 21st Century, “voodooism” still holds captive millions of people in Africa and the world.

Read:  The church is not wrong on this culture of lies

And yet nothing could be as false as the notion of an eternal cultural truth passed down through millennia. Culture is a function of worldview, which in turn is a function of historical change. No society on earth has retained its worldview and attendant cultural practices since its creation.

Societies have always reinvented themselves to cope with historical change. A society that fails to reinvent itself in the face of historical change either stagnates or perishes. Therefore, the culture, in the name of which you torture and kill non-conformists today, might not even have existed a century ago.

If we could go back in time, we would be shocked to discover that, a few centuries back, our communities had totally different cultural practices. Along the way, they invented new practices or borrowed some from neighbouring communities.

There was no creator who gave your ancestors the “10 commandments” of your culture; your ancestors have all the time been inventing, borrowing and discarding cultural practices. The practice of forced marriage might not have existed in that cultural community centuries ago. The ritual, for which the widow was tortured, might not always have been part of that cultural community’s customs a century ago.

Many people were incensed by the two gruesome events and called for justice for the victims. Police have arrested the perpetrators.

Hopefully, these calls for justice will inspire renewed activism against other crimes committed in the name of culture, like FGM, disinheritance of widows, or forcing widows to sleep in the same room with their dead husbands.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator

How wonderful to be alive today! This year’s Easter could symbolise the most realistic Resurrection for Africa since colonialists came to the land they called the Dark continent and demonised all things cherished by the natives, many of whom started hating themselves and wishing they were Europeans.

The 90-day suspension of foreign aid by the new US administration was announced on January 20, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting US foreign assistance programmes.

This period is therefore set to end as the feast-loving Africans conclude the Easter festivities which start after the 40 days of Lenten introspection, prayer, and preparation for renewal.

There couldn’t be a better opportunity for African leaders, many of whom profess Christianity, to reassess their relationships with foreign “donors” and moneylenders, and work towards real independence and sustainability.

The dawn of the second Trump administration that hit the ground running with its Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) should have alarmed Africans who had got accustomed to US aid, as it was not targeted at Africa alone, but the whole world.

If that was not enough, the way the European governments went into emergency planning mode on realising that even their political alliance called Nato was not spared Trump’s cash-trimming knife, should have jolted even the most complacent African leader into mental hyperactivity.

So the 40 days of reflection should have been dominated by figuring out the future without US aid, except maybe for those who just do not care about the future of their countries.

For the days of blatantly arrogant African leaders are largely gone, and we no longer expect a president to declare himself emperor and proceed to physically crown himself. Nor do current presidents make a big show of importing their drinking water from Europe.

So, we expect them to individually and collectively come up with inspiring post-aid plans for their countries and the continent respectively.

Read:  Aid cuts will not change African rulers; try proving they can kill

Mr Trump’s January 20th Executive Order should also have sparked enough mental activity to start melting the ice coating the brain of African economists who rely on foreign money lenders to think for them.

Forty days are enough to thaw the ice around the thickest skull, so different national economists should by April 20th have at least provisional plans on how to move on with zero aid/foreign loans on their budgets.

And suppose Mr Trump magnanimously declares at the end of the 90 days that the US will resume half, or most or all of the aid, Africa should even be more suspicious.

For a man who set out to ‘help’ American taxpayers stop throwing away their money like drunken sailors cannot after three months just resume throwing it around. Not after the early exposures his team did regarding the obscene ways some of the aid billions are allocated. Aid resumption could thus be be a sinister bait, hiding a deadly hook from which Africa would require centuries to resurrect.

So April 20 should find African leaders and economists standing courageously on their feet, no longer writhing on the floor like a spoilt kid whose mom has said No to more ice cream. It is indeed a wonderful time to be alive.

For if the leaders and economists make the right moves, then we can rejoice.

But if they start looking for and begging new foreign donors who sympathise with them, then we should still rejoice for we shall know for sure it is now every individual soul for itself of the 1.5 billion of us all on the continent. And the truth will set each of the souls free to adjust for the new slavery rebranded, here or abroad.

Either way it is a turning point this Easter, but don’t be shocked if African leaders don’t rise to the occasion.

Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. E-mail:[email protected]

Six years ago, I protested about climate injustice in my hometown of Kampala, Uganda. I was alone. But not for long.

I never imagined that protest would lead to the incredible opportunities I’ve had, from speaking on global stages to meeting the daughter of the inspirational Prof Wangari Maathai.

But what gives me most hope is knowing that I am not alone in the fight for climate justice.

Today, thanks partly to the grassroots activism of thousands of youth-led networks across the continent, millions of Africans are effecting and demanding a fairer future and for developed countries to pay their climate debt and do their fair share in ambitious climate action. 

Next week, the sixth Africa Climate Talks take place in Kampala building up to the second Africa Climate Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and COP30 in Belem, Brazil. 

These talks are a crucial component of Africa’s voice in the debate, and with children in 98 percent of African countries at high or extremely high risk of the impacts of climate change according to Unicef, African children have more at stake than anyone. 

My message to those negotiating on their behalf is to have these children in your minds and your hearts.

Africa has the world’s youngest population and children comprise around 50 percent of many African nations. Climate talks need to better consider the unique needs of children, who are disproportionately affected by and uniquely susceptible to climate impacts, from babies being stillborn due to heatwaves, to schools closing during natural disasters.

Children and young people will inherit a planet stripped of biodiversity with record temperatures and increasingly severe floods, droughts and cyclones. It’s only right that their voices and needs are heard in this debate.

Read: Africa needs a climate action centred on people, not carbon

Despite this, children – comprising half of those living in extreme poverty – are often treated as an afterthought in the global response to climate change. 

Less than half of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in Africa are evaluated as child-sensitive and just 2.4 percent of multilateral climate financing was allocated to child-responsive projects between 2006 and 2023.

It was encouraging that COP28 called for the first ever expert dialogue on the disproportionate impacts of climate change on children and to explore related solutions, something Unicef has campaigned for so that children can be heard in the negotiations.

 Unicef has also supported national networks of young climate activists across the globe so their perspectives and solutions can be heard. 

As a Goodwill Ambassador, I stand with Unicef in calling for governments to better plan for children’s survival and futures under a changing climate, and call on all countries, particularly developed countries, to show climate leadership and ambition in their third generation NDCs ahead of COP30.

The statistics and projections can be daunting, but children and young people are clear on their rights and understand the cost of inaction will be higher.

We cannot afford for world leaders to backtrack on their promises when storms are destroying our schools, wildfires are harming our lungs, consecutive droughts are amplifying water and food insecurity and malnutrition for millions of children, and our homes and health services are being washed away.

Last year, at COP29, the target agreed for climate finance was $300 billion per year, with ambition to mobilise $1.3 trillion per year.

Read: At COP29, Africa bets on $1.3trn in demand for climate justice

$300 billion is far from what is needed to tackle the climate crisis, but, even so, this target must be followed by concrete action – action which is desperately needed by the world’s 2.4 billion children. I hope to see the unique and disproportionate impacts of climate change on children thoroughly addressed in the upcoming Global Goal on Adaptation.

As a young African woman, I will be watching to check that the needs of my generation and future generations are well represented at the upcoming talks. I know millions of young people will be doing the same because we know our voices matter. 

Climate justice isn’t just about adaptation, it’s an opportunity, and one that Africa could seize to its fullest potential. We have the fastest growing youth population in the world and by 2025 this young workforce will be bigger than China and India’s.

 The green transition is an opportunity for new skills, more jobs, stronger communities and safer environments. We come from countries which in some cases are already operating with 80-90 percent renewable energy. 

We grew up knowing the price of extraction and exploitation. We know the cost of living on the frontlines of climate change. 

Our government's climate negotiators know that we are the continent that is leading on green innovation and entrepreneurship. All eyes should be on Africa as we make a green and just transition, which is possible, if rich countries live up to their commitments and invest in the children and young people who are already leading the way. 

Vanessa Nakate is a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador

For over sixty years, the United Nations and the global development machinery have operated across Africa, bringing with them an ever-growing network of aid missions, donor agencies, and international NGOs.

These actors arrived with the stated mission of fighting poverty, strengthening governance, and accelerating growth.

Yet after decades of generously funded programmes and meticulously crafted strategies, the impact on the ground tells a different story. Progress has been patchy at best, and in many places, painfully absent.

The distance between what was promised and what people actually experience in their daily lives has grown so wide that it’s no longer just the failures being questioned—but the very purpose and priorities of the aid system itself.

This is not due to African incapacity, nor to a lack of effort. It is the result of a fundamentally flawed model of development—a model designed elsewhere, delivered from above, and rooted in managerial bureaucracy rather than in the historical, political, and strategic realities of the continent.

The international development system has institutionalised a hierarchy of power that places African governments in a subordinate role to donor agencies. In many countries, the UN and international NGOs operate not as partners of the state but as parallel structures.

They establish massive offices in capital cities, hire foreign technical experts at salaries often exceeding that of entire government departments, and control strategic sectors through external funding channels. The very institutions that should be empowering African states to lead their own transformation have instead replaced or weakened them.

Read:  Aid cuts will not change African rulers; try proving they can kill

The gap between Europe’s post-war recovery and Africa’s development experience is glaring. After World War II, the US launched the Marshall Plan in 1948, channeling aid directly to European governments. The assumption was simple: recovery had to be led from within.

There was no army of foreign consultants or parallel agencies—just a clear trust in national leadership to steer the reconstruction process. These resources helped rebuild industries, repair shattered infrastructure, and revive essential public services, all under the control of domestic institutions that were empowered, not bypassed.

Crucially, it was a strategy rooted in sovereignty, one that treated European states as capable partners in their own recovery. Africa, by contrast, was drawn into a vastly different aid regime—one that cast its governments not as drivers of change, but as passive recipients of external assistance and support.

In Africa, the opposite became the norm. Donors bypassed the state, created non-state implementing partners, and established elaborate systems of control.

Over time, this led to the atrophy of domestic institutions and a distorted incentive structure in which ministries compete for donor attention rather than public legitimacy.

What emerged was a sprawling aid industry that measures progress by activities—workshops held, strategies launched, reports written—rather than by tangible outcomes such as water access, electricity coverage, road networks, or education quality.

This dynamic is not accidental. It reflects a broader attitude problem: a view of Africa not as a partner but as a project. As Francis Fukuyama has argued in his critique of post-colonial state-building, institutional capacity must come before external reform agendas.

Without a strong, coherent state, development initiatives become fragmented and unsustainable.

Yet, the development system has persistently focused on peripheral issues—trainings, sensitization campaigns, consultative meetings—while the core functions of government remain hollowed out and underfunded.

In many African countries, the UN presence resembles a parallel sovereign entity. These agencies maintain their own priorities, their own communication channels, and their own development goals, often with little coordination with the actual government. The result is fragmentation, duplication, and inefficiency on a massive scale.

Read: Africans should take Trump's aid cuts in stride

The energy of reform is channeled not into public institutions but into donor-funded “projects” that disappear the moment funding dries up.

This must change. The time has come for a radical restructuring of the international aid system in Africa—one that begins by acknowledging that the old model has failed. African governments must reclaim their centrality in the development process.

The UN and other aid agencies must limit their in-country presence to a skeletal administrative footprint, with the rest of their personnel seconded to government ministries where they work under local leadership and in line with national plans. No international office should replicate or override the role of a public institution. The goal must be to strengthen the African state, not substitute for it.

This also means abandoning the fixation on soft, symbolic programming. Development aid should no longer be spent on workshops, conferences, “awareness” initiatives, or endless pilot projects.

These have created a culture of motion without movement. The real needs of African communities—access to healthcare, electricity, clean water, roads, and functioning schools—remain unmet, even as millions are spent on capacity-building sessions and donor coordination retreats.

Africa does not need saviors. It needs partners who respect its sovereignty and who are willing to invest in the long, complex, and often difficult process of building state institutions.

This requires trust, patience, and a willingness to transfer control—not just funds. It means recognising that true development cannot be outsourced, and that no amount of external expertise can replace the legitimacy of local leadership.

The failures of the past 65 years must not be extended into the future. Africa is not a blank slate. It is a continent of layered histories, contested sovereignties, and evolving institutions. Any development effort that does not engage these realities with seriousness and humility is doomed to fail.

As African strategists, policymakers, and thinkers, we must push for a new consensus—one that centers African agency, dismantles the aid-industrial complex, and insists on a development approach grounded in sovereignty, meritocracy, and service delivery.

The future of Africa will not be built in donor coordination offices. It will be built in the halls of African ministries, in the streets of our cities, and in the everyday struggles of our people to claim the dignity they have long been denied.

When the final chapter of the March 23 (M23) rebellion in eastern DRC is written, it will either tell of the birth of the Kivu Republic, a federalised Congo, the fall of President Félix Tshisekedi, or a power-sharing deal with the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC). Two meetings will stand out as turning points.

There is another possible outcome—M23’s defeat. However, this seems improbable. Unlike in 2012, it now dominates North and South Kivu, controlling much of the DRC’s mineral wealth.

Militarily, it outstrips Kinshasa in recruitment and efficiency. Tshisekedi lacks the guile of his predecessor, Joseph Kabila, whose experience in guerrilla warfare helped him fight previous rebellions to a draw.

As an article in The New York Times reported last week: “M23, once a ragtag militia, now behaves like a governing entity in buzzing cities… mines and strategic border crossings. Its immigration officers stamp passports… M23 has imposed strict public order in newly conquered territories,” it said.

The article also noted a demoralised and corrupt DRC army, which often flees in the face of M23, and reported that experts see the group as “growing more powerful and sophisticated.”

Perhaps one of the most telling remarks came from Vivian van de Perre, deputy head of the UN peacekeeping force based in Goma, who told the publication: “I have dealt with the Houthis in Yemen and rebel groups in the Central African Republic, but this [M23] tops everything I’ve seen.”

The DRC army, riddled with corruption and battlefield desertions, can no longer keep up. M23 is the dog that has sunk its teeth deep into the bone—and isn’t letting go.

These realities loomed over two major meetings. The first was the historic February 8 joint summit of the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Dar es Salaam.

Read: DR Congo says still open to direct dialogue with the M23 rebels

With M23 in full control of Goma and closing in on Bukavu, African leaders grasped for a plan. The summit emphasised direct talks involving all parties, including the M23 rebels, and proposed merging the stalled Luanda and Nairobi peace processes, potentially with additional facilitators from across Africa.

The Luanda process, led by Angolan President João Lourenço, has been mediating the DRC conflict since July 2022. The Nairobi process was initiated in April 2022 by then-Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who continued leading it after leaving office in August 2022.

The summit condemned “uninvited foreign armed forces” in the DRC—probably a veiled reference to Rwanda and FDLR, an eastern DRC-based force comprising elements who committed the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

The fact that the summit even took place was seismic. African disunity is a cliché, but this meeting, bridging two regional economic blocs, rattled observers.

However, its momentum faltered. The EAC-SADC military chiefs, ordered to meet within five days, failed to do so, fuelling whispers of external sabotage. When they finally convened in Harare on March 17 (together with defence ministers)—more than a month late—Kinshasa and M23 were en route to Luanda for long-awaited direct talks.

Then, the dominoes fell. On the same day as the Harare meeting, the European Union—firmly in Kinshasa’s corner—slapped sanctions on M23 and Rwanda.

These included asset freezes, and travel bans on nine individuals, such as M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa, Rwandan Defence Force commanders, and the North Kivu governor.

Additionally, the EU sanctioned the CEO of Rwanda’s Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board and Gasabo Gold Refinery in Kigali, accusing them of illicitly exporting Congolese minerals.

These measures aimed to pressure Rwanda to end its alleged support for M23 and address the exploitation of DRC resources fuelling the crisis. The sanctions instead backfired, souring Africa-led peace efforts and hardening positions.

Meanwhile, in the shadows, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani was brokering an audacious diplomatic gambit: A direct meeting between Kagame and Tshisekedi in Doha.

Among the agreements reached was a commitment to an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” in eastern DRC, borrowing a line from the EAC-SADC joint resolution. The fact that the meeting had taken place stunned many, and evidence of it only emerged when a photo surfaced of Al Thani with Kagame and Tshisekedi, accompanied by a brief statement—not one of those lengthy 10-page communiqués—describing the encounter as “cordial.”

They also supported the integration of the Luanda and Nairobi peace processes and the EAC-SADC mechanism as the primary framework for resolving the conflict.

Read: How shift in regional forces killed Congo peace bid

With the EU sanctions undermining Luanda, M23 walked away. In a scramble to regain the initiative, EAC-SADC leaders convened a virtual summit on March 24, led by Kenya’s President William Ruto and Zimbabwe’s Emmerson Mnangagwa, the current SADC chair.

But just as quickly, another card dropped—Angola abruptly quit its mediator role, citing a shift in focus to African Union priorities under President Lourenço’s chairmanship.

And so, the great Congolese chessboard remains in motion. M23 holds sway, the West fumbles yet another intervention, and Africa—caught between unity and self-interest—watches, wondering whether another peace effort will stagger into uncertainty.

A recent report showed AFC/M23 leader Corneille Nangaa meeting UN officials in Goma. His beard was neatly trimmed back, and he wore a sharp blue suit in an office befitting a president rather than a rundown bush headquarters.

There was no sign of uncertainty in his demeanour nor among the M23 troops swarming eastern DRC. They are likely feeling, as the Ugandans say, that the “gods who gave them (this time), didn’t lie to them”.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. Twitter: @cobbo3

Togolese President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé has many friends in the Great Lakes region. They include Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Congolese counterpart Felix Tshisekedi and Angola’s João Lourenço.

Now it seems these contacts could come in handy, or the friendship will be tested.

This week, he formally took up the position of African Union-backed mediator in the Congolese crisis, where Kinshasa and Kigali have traded barbs over the years.

He made a whirlwind visit to Kinshasa, where he had a face-to-face meeting with President Tshisekedi. Earlier on Wednesday, President Gnassingbé was in Luanda, where he met President Lourenço, the former mediator in the crisis between the DRC and Rwanda.

Gnassingbé is thus taking over from the Angolan Head of State, who is now the AU chairman. Until last week, the Togolese leader hadn’t been a top name on mediation matters. Now, he has come to take the pulse of the Great Lakes conflict and understand the contours of the Luanda Process as led by Angola, which has since been merged with the Nairobi Process led by former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta

“This choice, far from being symbolic, confirms a leadership recognised for its discretion, consistency and effectiveness in the peaceful resolution of conflicts,” the Togolese Presidency said on April 16.

The work will not be easy in this region where diplomatic initiatives are multiplying without ever extinguishing a crisis that has been shaking the region for 31 years now.

First, he has to overcome the rivalries between the parties involved and win the trust of Rwanda, the DRC, the rebels (M23/AFC and other armed groups).

Read: New track for Congo talks? AU proposes Togo leader as new mediator

On his latest visit to the region, he avoided Kigali.

Nicaise Kibel Bel, an expert on military issues in the Great Lakes region, said this should not pose any problem to his mission.

“Everyone knows that the Togolese Head of State has great respect for President Paul Kagame,” he said.

On January 19 this year, Gnassingbé paid a working visit to Kigali, where he signed cooperation agreements with Kagame on agriculture, trade, green financing and energy.

The Togolese president has inherited a task that Mr Kenyatta and Mr Lourenço failed in, not because they did not try, but because they came up against a multifaceted conflict. The first complexity lies in the geographical position of the DRC.

The country belongs to both the SADC and East African Community, as well as to the Community of Central African States and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, organisations with sometimes divergent views and agendas on Congo.

The Congo seems to be opening up more favourably to the SADC, whose armed mission (SAMIDRC) is still on Congolese soil in spite of being ordered to pull out by the bloc’s Summit.

The EAC is seen by Kinshasa as an axis dominated by countries with evil designs against Congo. Rwanda is accused of supporting the M23/AFC with arms and troops.

Speaker of National Assembly Vital Kamerhe and others have also accused Uganda of participating in the aggression against Congo.

This mistrust extends to Kenya, whose president William Ruto is accused of partiality towards the Rwandan president in the conflict with the DRC.

RedRead: Ruto chairs Congo peace facilitators

As chairman of the EAC, Ruto will certainly be one of Gnassingbé’s interlocutors on the Congolese question. The Togolese leader will also have to talk with the SADC. What will he do to remove himself from the influence of the two blocs to conduct effective mediation?

The AU is attempting to regain control of a conflict in which diplomatic initiatives and the names of mediators seem to collide.

On the one hand is the Emir of Qatar, whose diplomacy has been silent, but who in a very short time seems to have moved the peace process forward, managing to bring together Kagame and Tshisekedi on March 18, to everyone’s surprise.

Türkiye had offered mediation but its proposal was rejected by the DRC, which argued “African solutions to African problems.” The EAC and SADC initially proposed mediation led by Kenyatta, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and former Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

But a five-party mediation was chosen instead. It comprises former presidents Sahle-Work Zewde (Ethiopia), Kgalema Motlanthe (South Africa), Catherine Samba-Panza (Central African Republic), Obasanjo and Kenyatta.

All this, added to the Security Council’s initiative, with Resolution 2773, which calls for peace.

The United States of America is not to be outdone. The Joe Biden administration was very active in pushing ceasefire. And the Donald Trump administration recently sent an envoy to the region. Despite all these initiatives, dozens of ceasefires have been violated.

Even today, “the situation has not changed, the fighting continues, and the humanitarian situation is as dramatic as ever in North and South Kivu,” Congolese Foreign minister Thérèse Kayikwamba told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Gnassingbé is certainly aware of Rwanda’s concerns about the FDLR rebels in the DRC, and DRC’s accusations about Kigali’s support for the M23/AFC.

DRC now says it is open to talking peace directly with the M23/AFC. But the rebels have spelt out conditions, among them that Tshisekedi makes a solemn declaration expressing the political will of his regime to conduct direct negotiations, the cancellation of all death sentences, prosecutions, arrest warrants and the offer of a reward to anyone who helps the Kinshasa regime to arrest the leaders and cadres of the AFC/M23.

They also want him to "put an end to and criminalise all hate speech, which is often followed by acts of oppression... to put an end to all acts of discrimination and denial of nationality against the above-mentioned communities; the immediate release of all civilians or military personnel arrested and/or accused of collusion with the AFC/M3 on account of their race or ethnicity, or their professional, friendly or commercial relations with members of the AFC/M23; the repeal of all other restrictive measures taken by the Kinshasa regime against the AFC/M23.”

Brigadier General Brice Oligui Nguema, Gabon’s interim leader, has emerged from last weekend’s election with a resounding mandate, securing 90.35 percent of the vote. His closest rival, former Prime Minister Alain Claude Bilie By Nze, garnered a mere 3.02 percent. Voter turnout reached 70.4 percent, a significant increase from the 56.65 percent recorded during the disputed August 2023 polls.

Nguema seized power on 30 August 2023, in a swift military coup staged moments after Gabon’s electoral commission declared Ali Bongo Ondimba the victor. That election, now annulled, was over before the ink had dried. The coup dismantled state institutions and abruptly ended the Bongo dynasty’s 56-year grip on power.

Ali Bongo ruled for 14 years, succeeding his father, Omar Bongo, who held sway for 41 years. Nguema, notably, is Ali Bongo’s cousin—a twist suggesting the family’s political DNA still flows through Gabon’s veins, albeit cloaked in new attire.

Yet, Nguema’s approach diverges from the playbook of Africa’s other coup leaders. He was the last of the continent’s new junta class to seize power and has become the first to organise elections.

Whether this was a genuine act of democracy or a strategic recalibration, it marks a departure. In a region where juntas often chant pan-Africanist slogans and rail against imperialist powers while postponing electoral timelines, Nguema’s approach stands apart.

Contrast this with the so-called “coup belt.” In Mali, Colonel Assimi Goïta, after orchestrating coups in August 2020 and May 2021, remains averse to elections. Guinea’s Mamady Doumbouya, who ousted Alpha Condé in September 2021, keeps deferring the vote.

Sudan’s General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who seized power in October 2021, is embroiled in a brutal war with his former deputy, Mohamed “Hemedti” Dagalo.

Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré, in charge since September 2022, shows no inclination to give it a democratic varnish at the polls. Niger’s Abdourahamane Tchiani, who toppled President Mohamed Bazoum in July 2023, has scarcely mentioned elections.

Nguema, however, eschewed exhibitionist fiery rhetoric. Instead, he projected calm, spoke of reform, put on some deadly dance moves on stage and —crucially—delivered a vote.

Whether motivated by a quest for legitimacy, international approval, or a firmer grip on power, the result is here: another coup leader now dons a presidential sash.

This spectacle, though, is a subplot in a broader African drama unfolding for decades: the rise and reign of the soldier-statesman. The focus on this “new wave” of coups obscures a larger truth. Soldiers and guerrilla commanders have long been the architects of African power.

Africa comprises 54 internationally recognised states (55 if you include the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, an AU member but denied statehood by many due to Morocco’s occupation).

Among them, the most formidable bloc is neither a regional alliance nor an ideological faction. It is the men in uniform. Twenty-three African heads of state are current or former soldiers or guerrilla commanders.

Consider the roster: João Lourenço (Angola, guerrilla commander), Ibrahim Traoré (Burkina Faso, military), Évariste Ndayishimiye (Burundi, guerrilla commander), Mahamat Idriss Déby (Chad, military), Azali Assoumani (Comoros, military), Denis Sassou Nguesso (Congo Republic, military), Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egypt, military), Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (Equatorial Guinea, military), Isaias Afwerki (Eritrea, guerrilla chief), Abiy Ahmed (Ethiopia, guerrilla and military), Brice Oligui Nguema (Gabon, military), Mamady Doumbouya (Guinea, military), Umaro Sissoco Embaló (Guinea-Bissau, military), Assimi Goïta (Mali, military), Mohamed Ould Ghazouani (Mauritania, military), Abdourahamane Tchiani (Niger, military), Paul Kagame (Rwanda, guerrilla chief), Julius Maada Bio (Sierra Leone, military), Salva Kiir Mayardit (South Sudan, guerrilla commander), Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (Sudan, military), Yoweri Museveni (Uganda, guerrilla chief), Emmerson Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe, guerrilla commander), and Brahim Ghali (SADR/Western Sahara, guerrilla chief).

Read: Gabon coup leader Nguema elected president with landslide victory

These are not merely coup-makers or victorious rebels; a few have turned out to be state-builders and narrative-shapers. Some govern with technocratic finesse, others blend wartime mystique with the sharp edge of realpolitik.

And it is not romanticism. Africa’s fascination with men in uniform stems from structural dysfunction. In fragile states, the barracks often outlast parliaments. Soldiers are perceived—by some—as decisive, efficient, and even incorruptible. They may rule with iron fists, but they seldom dither.

The reality therefore is more complex than stereotypes suggest. Some of these leaders do not simply seize power; many possess an instinctive understanding of their nations’ pulse.

In a region where colonial legacies left fragile institutions and “independence” often became an elite monopoly, the commander, not the consensus-builder, frequently prevailed.

Even in countries with elections, the uniform retains its allure. Sometimes, ballots ratify coups already staged. Other times, the soldier transforms into a suit-clad statesman, long after the rifles fall silent. The electorate, caught between disillusionment and pragmatism, often acquiesces.

There are risks, of course. Abiy Ahmed swept into office on reformist zeal, only to be tested by war and criticism. El-Sisi has solidified power with unrelenting machinery. Sudan’s descent into civil war in 2023 and South Sudan’s earlier conflict from 2013 are stark reminders of the fallout when former comrades clash.

This entrenchment of khaki politics has also distorted the democratic script in some countries. Elections occur, yes—but the ballot often becomes theatre, not transformation.

Thus, the soldier-statesman persists, not because Africa adores coups or rebellions, but because it has not yet weaned itself from commanders. As long as democracy’s dysfunction breeds fatigue, there will be space for uniforms to be rebranded, not retired.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. X@cobbo3

In a not completely surprising outcome, a London-brokered meeting to attempt a peace deal in Sudan this week ended without an agreement.

The chaos and subsequent collapse of the talks appeared to vindicate independent observers and Afro-sceptics, who have long doubted the current approaches to the ending the two-year-old conflict.

Unsurprisingly, the talks collapsed not because of disagreements between the warring factions, but rather their proxies. International media reports indicate that the Tuesday talks broke down after the United Arab Emirate (UAE), Egypt and Saudi Arabia disagreed about Sudan’s future governance framework.

The latest collapse reflects a common thread that runs through all previous and ultimately futile efforts to silence the guns in Sudan. The agenda for peace has tended to be limited in scope, short-term and somewhat shallow.

At some point, all that was sought was to open access for humanitarian aid to those in desperate need of help. Other interventions have tried to achieve a ceasefire without an overarching agenda of what would follow once the guns are silent.

In between both approaches and often ignored is civil society or other representatives of the Sudanese masses, who are the real victims of the deadly war. This begs deeper inquiry into who is fighting whom and to what end.

If Egypt and Saudi Arabia are behind the Sudanese Armed Forces, why is the UAE involved in the conflict and what does it hope to achieve by, say, backing the RSF, an outfit accused of atrocities against civilians?

For a ceasefire to work, there needs to be an agreement of basic principles by the principal protagonists and their backers. For now, it is difficult to understand what the RSF and SAF stand for, since they were complicit in toppling the civilian-led administration in April 2023.

Read: Sudan bloodshed sparks the worst refugee surge in East Africa

Even though, as its name suggests, the Sudan Armed Forces might pass off as the legitimate defender of the state of Sudan, they abdicated that responsibility when they participated in the coup against the Abdalla Hamdok-led hybrid administration. Until it renounces the military’s claim to power in the country, the SAF will rightly be seen as just another contender to power by its rivals.

To set Sudan on the course to productive dialogue, the conversation needs to shift and focus on returning the country to the status quo of April 2023, rather than assuaging the fears and selfish interests of the warring parties.

Any credible agenda for peace should start by committing both the RSF and SAF to the idea of restoration of civilian rule in Khartoum. How to achieve such a laudable if difficult goal can then form the basis for negotiating de-escalation and ultimately peace.

Mediators should play the role facilitating dialogue. They should also be prepared to be enforcers of the agreement by making the backers of the various factions accountable to the victims of the conflict and the international community.

History will judge harshly those allowing the dogs of war to fragment Sudan into fiefdoms, lorded over by egocentric and murderous individuals.

External actors who gathered in London on Tuesday failed to secure the much-needed ceasefire in Sudan, disappointing rights watchdogs who had hoped for a turning point in the conflict.

The conference co-hosted by the UK, France, Germany and the African Union ended with pledges of $1 billion in humanitarian aid but political differences among stakeholders hindered discussions on ceasefire.

The UK had hosted the meeting with intent to establish a ‘contact group’ that would push for a ceasefire especially since participating countries would carry some form of influence on warring sides. But that effort collapsed due to deep disagreements between Arab and Western countries on the text of final communiqué.

A major diplomatic setback emerged as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates refused to endorse the joint statement, highlighting the growing rift among key international players over how to handle Sudan’s nearly two-year-long civil war.

Read: Sudan bloodshed sparks the worst refugee surge in East Africa

The absence of a consensus statement reflected the international community’s inability to unite around a political path forward, despite the worsening humanitarian catastrophe.

“The hosts’ closing statement didn’t even mention the massacre unfolding in El Fasher. Gathering with the UAE, Turkey and Egypt who have flooded the country with weapons, made it feel more like an arms fair than peace talks - yet there was no mention of stopping arms shipments. At best this was a vanity project for leaders who have been asleep at the wheel,” said Will Davies, the head of war monitoring group, Avaaz’s Sudan team. He was referring to the recent shelling of el Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one of the warring sides.

“David Lammy promised Sudan would not be forgotten. Today was a test of that commitment - and of the Foreign Secretary he intends to be, especially in the absence of US leadership. He failed dismally,” he added, referring to the UK Foreign Secretary who was the main host of the event.

According to critics, lobbying by players involved in the conflict played a role in weakening a united stance.

While Western powers pushed for a unified stance that rejected foreign interference and called for an inclusive political solution, efforts were derailed by Arab countries’ objections to certain language concerning Sudan’s future.

The impasse led to the release of a separate joint statement by Western nations, the African Union, and the European Union, reaffirming support for a peaceful resolution and opposition to any actions that might escalate the conflict or contribute to Sudan’s fragmentation.

“The AU calls, once again, on all the Sudanese actors to demonstrate political will by committing to a durable ceasefire and to engage meaningfully in a comprehensive, inclusive, and Sudanese-led political process,” said a statement issued by the AU Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf.

“The AU remains committed to working with Sudanese stakeholders, regional partners, and the international community to protect civilians and restore peace, stability, and democratic governance in Sudan.” Ali was represented in London by Bankole Adeoye, the Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security.

Yet for some African countries at the meeting, the feeling was that an Arab rivalry in Sudan was eclipsing the role of African institutions in seeking the peace.

“I underscore the need for consolidating the several peace tracks in Sudan into a well-coordinated and harmonised process preferably under the African Union and driven by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), with the support of the United Nations,” said Kenya’s Foreign and Diaspora Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi.

“We welcome the other efforts aimed at pacifying Sudan, while also advocating for a unified and coordinated response from all, including IGAD, the African Union, the Arab League, the United Nations, and the broader international community but we need to mainstream into an African led process,” he added.

Yet Kenya’s participation, alongside Chad had been controversial because the SAF had accused the two of aiding the RSF. Mudavadi used the accusation to refute the allegation, saying Kenya had opened the door for all Sudanese groups to negotiate peace.

Sudanese entities at war, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were not invited to the meeting in which the UK government explained was meant to establish consensus among external backers of the warring sides.

But the political landscape took a darker turn after the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, announced the formation of a rival ‘Government of Peace and Unity.’

Read: More intrigue as Sudan’s RSF declares parallel government

This move signalled direct challenge to the authority to the army-backed administration under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, undermining prospects for negotiations and raising concerns about a de facto division of the country.

The conflict had started as internal power struggle, but a complex war has since entangled regional rivalries and international interests, which have fuelled both the military escalation and the diplomatic stalemate.

On the ground, violence has intensified, particularly in Darfur, where RSF forces have taken control of major displacement camps as part of a broader campaign to capture El Fasher - the last major city in the region not under RSF control.

In a related development, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan has reported that RSF forces have prevented their young members from leaving Zimzam Camp in North Darfur, even as 400,000 displaced people managed to flee the area.

RSF troops seized control of the camp - located 12 kilometres southwest of El Fasher - just three days after overrunning the site, where residents have been suffering from famine conditions since August 2024.

Refugees moving from Zimzam to El Fasher face extremely dire humanitarian conditions due to severe shortages of food, clean water, and other essential supplies.

The head of the Episcopal Conference of Angola and Sao Tome and Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saurimo, José Manuel Imbamba, has mourned Pope Francis, saying he was a good shepherd.

Archbishop Imbamba, who spoke to state-owned television TPA Notícias, described the Pope as one who “knew how to interpret evangelical values and who embraced poverty as a way for his missionary work.”

Angolan legislators observed a minute's silence in honour of the late Pope, who died in an Italian hospital on Monday.

In Lusaka, President Hakainde Hichilema said Zambians were deeply saddened to learn of the death of a man he described as “a man of great humility and compassion, who led the Catholic Church by example.”

“We join Catholics and fellow Christians across the world in mourning today. In a Jubilee year, on the most important day of the year for the Catholic faithful, Pope Francis has been promoted to glory. May his soul rest in eternal peace,” the President posted on his official Facebook page.

In Mozambique, President Daniel Chapo said: “At this time of grief, we join in prayer with the Catholic community in expressing our sincere condolences. May faith and hope comfort the bereaved hearts, and may the legacy of Pope Francis continue to enlighten our path.”

Archbishop Cláudio Dala Zuana of Beira in Mozambique recalled the legacy of brotherhood espoused by Pope Francis. The cleric told O País newspaper that “if we could summarise Pope Francis' life in one word, it would be fraternity.”

Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera wrote: “We will always remember him for his courage in advocating for reform in governance worldwide, which he himself led by example through the radical reforms he advanced in the Catholic Church.”

Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina said that Pope Francis would be remembered for his simplicity and wisdom, which “will always remain in my mind and heart, especially the love that always guided his steps.”

“I remember the legacy he left when he visited Madagascar. Malagasy people united in brotherhood and unity,” President Rajoelina wrote.

The Somali government last week relaunched a national identification and voter registration programme that, if completed, would mark a step towards a return to universal suffrage.

Some were excited about having ID cards. Mohamed Sharif, whose family settled in the Shangani district of the capital Mogadishu, shortly after the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, was among those eager to register. He joined the long registration queue on Tuesday.

“I am happy to register for voting to choose leaders to run my city (Mogadishu),” Sharif told The EastAfrican. “I am not sure how it will work, but I am glad to collect my card as a registered voter.”

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre joined the queues in Shangani to register.

But he and the Mogadishu administration will need to win over everyone to the government’s approach to the Constitution and elections.

The National Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (NIEBC) has scheduled municipal elections to take place in June across the country.

The last election in post-independence Somalia was in March 1969. Multiparty democracy was then in place, and citizens of voting age were allowed to go to the polling stations and vote without pre-arranged voter registration.

After 55 years, the government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud appears determined to reinstate multiparty democracy, starting with municipal elections in 2025 and parliamentary and presidential elections in 2026.

Read: Somalia cabinet approves bill for universal suffrage

4.5 formula

President Mohamud pledged last year to end the complex clan-based power-sharing electoral system, where indirect elections adopt a 4.5 formula, representing the four main clans and smaller minorities. This has been in place since the rebirth of the republic in 2000, following the Arta Conference for Somalia in Djibouti.

Under the clan system, four major clans and a collective “half-share” for minority groups collectively share out 275 members of Lower House of Parliament, who in turn elect the president together with members of the Upper House, who represent Somalia’s Federal Member States (FMS) -- Jubbaland, Southwest, Hirshabelle, Galmudug and Puntland.

Salad Muse Ali, president of a political organisation, Somali Citizen, expressed enthusiasm about Somalia edging toward multiparty elections.

“I have no doubt that all citizens will eventually support moving our political system from clan-based selection to one-person, one-vote,” he said.

Puntland and Jubbaland

But some federal states, such as Puntland and Jubbaland, have expressed their displeasure about how President Mohamud has pushed through the exercise “without wide consultation.”

Puntland leader Said Abdullahi Deni quit the National Consultative Council (NCC) in early 2023.  The council is a forum where the federal states and the federal government consult on policies. Puntland did not attend several NCC meetings on key political issues, such as the review of the provisional constitution and resource sharing. It then “suspended” cooperation with Mogadishu and has since adopted its own local identification system.

Ahmed Mohamed Islam Madobe, the leader of the Jubbaland state, also left the NCC in September 2024, accusing President Mohamud of manipulating the process in his favour.

Madobe’s actions angered the federal government so much that a court in Mogadishu issued a warrant for his arrest. In response, a court in Kismayu, the interim capital of Jubbaland, issued a similar arrest warrant against President Mohamud.

The federal government then deployed forces to Ras Kamboni, a settlement in Lower Jubba region, where a violent confrontation with the Jubbaland forces ensued. Some of the Somali soldiers escaped to Kenya, from where they were rescued by the federal government.

Read: Madobe rebellion threatens Somalia’s political reform agenda

Lack of consensus

Some analysts doubt that a political process marred by a lack of consensus will bear fruit.

Former presidents Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo and Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, former prime ministers Hassan Ali Khayre and Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke, and outspoken lawmakers Abdirahman Abdishakur and Dahir Amin Jesow have all criticised the constitutional amendments passed by the federal government in 2024 that led to the formation of the new electoral commission.

Dr Afyare Abdi Elmi, a university lecturer and researcher in Mogadishu, says Somalia must prevent the emergence of parallel administrations and further fragmentation of the nation. He criticises what he sees as President Mohamud’s winner-takes-all approach.    

On Thursday, Mohamed Hussein Al-Qaadi, governor of Gedo region, one of the three regions that have formed a coalition called Jubbaland, warned the NIEBC that any voter registration or elections held without Jubbaland’s participation would be considered illegitimate.

The death of Pope Francis in an Italian hospital on April 21, 2025, marks the end of a significant era for the Vatican and the global Catholic following of 1.3 billion faithful.

The first pope from the Americas and also the first to come from outside the West in the modern era, Pope Francis was elected leader of the Catholic church on March 13, 2013.

By the time the Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope in 2013, there was a general feeling that the Catholic church was reaching the end of an era. At the time, the church was beset by crises, from corruption to clerical sexual abuse.

Some of the challenges facing the church, which the ageing Pope Benedict XVI could no longer handle, included:

• the readmission of a Holocaust denying bishop into the church

• mounting evidence of corruption in the Vatican Bank

• multiple cases of clerical sexual abuse in many parts of the world

• the confusion created in the English-speaking world with the translation of the New Roman missal into English.

Moreover, the church was reeling from the revelation of papal secrets of his predecessor Pope Benedict by the papal butler. A book detailing these secrets portrayed the Vatican as a corrupt hotbed of jealousy, intrigue and underhanded factional fighting.

The revelations caused the church a great deal of embarrassment.

It meant therefore that Cardinal Bergoglio was elected by the Catholic cardinals with a mandate to clean up the church and reform the Vatican and its bureaucracy. He was to institute processes and procedures for transparency, accountability and renewal of the church and its structures, and address the lingering scandals of clerical abuse.

The Pope’s global legacy

Three key things defined his papal role and legacy.

First is concentrating on the core competence of the church: serving the poor and the marginalised. This is what the founder of the Christian religion, Jesus Christ, did.

Francis focused the Catholic church and the entire world on one mission: helping the poor, addressing global inequalities, speaking for the voiceless, and placing the attention of the world on those on the periphery.

He also chose to live simply, forsaking the pomp and pageantry of the papacy.

Secondly, he changed the way the Catholic church’s message is communicated. In his programmatic document, Evangelii Gaudium, he called the church to what he calls “missionary conversion”. His thinking was that everything that is done in the church must be about proclaiming the good news to a wounded and broken world.

His central message was that of mercy towards all, an end to wars, our common humanity and the closeness of God to those who suffer. The suffering in the world continues to grow because of injustice, greed, selfishness and pride. He also focused on symbols and simple style to press home his message, like celebrating mass at a wall that divides the United States and Mexico.

In 2015 he made a risky trip to Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic, during a time of war and tension between the fighting factions of the Muslim Seleka and the Christian anti-balaka. He drove on the Popemobile with both the highest ranking Muslim cleric in the country and his Christian counterpart and visited both a Christian church and a mosque to press home the message of peace.

The third strategy was restructuring the church and reforming the Vatican bank.

He created the G8 (a representative council of cardinals from every part of the world) to advise him, calling the Catholic church to a synod for dialogue on every aspect of the life of the church. This effort was unprecedented.

He also overhauled the procedures for the synod of bishops, making it more participatory, and gave women and the non-ordained voting rights. He shook up the membership of the Vatican department that picks bishops to include women. He appointed the first woman (Sr Simone Brambilla) to lead a major Vatican department and to have a cardinal as her deputy. Another woman (Sr Raffaella Petrini) was named the first woman governor of the Vatican City State.

Pope Francis and Africa

The pontiff’s legacy will be keenly felt in Africa. Three things stand out.

First, he reflected the concerns of people on the continent with his message against imperialism, colonialism, exploitation of the poor by the rich, global inequality, neo-liberal capitalism and ecological injustice. Pope Francis became a voice for Africa. When he visited Kenya in 2015, he chose to visit the slums of Nairobi to proclaim the gospel of liberation to the forsaken of society. He called on African governments to guarantee for the poor and all citizens access to land, lodging and labour.

In a sense, Pope Francis embodied the message of decolonisation and was driven in part by the liberation theology that developed in Latin America. This theology tied religious faith with liberation of the people from structures of injustice and structural violence.

Secondly, he encouraged African Catholics to develop Africa’s own unique approach to pastoral life and addressing social issues in Africa. Particularly, Pope Francis believed in decentralisation and local processes in meeting local challenges. He said many times that it is not necessary that all problems in the church be solved by the pope at the Roman centre of the church.

In this way, he encouraged the growth and development of African priorities and cultural adaptation to the Catholic faith. He also encouraged greater transparency and accountability among African bishops and gave African Catholic universities and seminaries greater autonomy to develop their own educational priorities and programmes.

Thirdly, Pope Francis had a very deep connection to Africa’s young people. He encouraged and supported initiatives and programmes to strengthen the agency of young people, to give them hope and support their personal, spiritual and professional development. For the first time in history, on 1 November 2022, Pope Francis met virtually with more than 1,000 young Africans for an hour. I helped organise this meeting. He answered their questions and encouraged them to fight for what they believe.

A reformist agenda

The reforms of Pope Francis could be termed a movement – from a church of a few where priests and bishops and the pope call the shots to a church of the people of God where everyone’s voice matters and where everyone’s concerns and needs are catered to.

He quietly changed the tone of the message and the style of the leadership at the Vatican.

Granted, he did not substantially alter the content of that message, which is often seen as conservative, Eurocentric, and resistant to cultural pluralism and social change. But he constantly chipped away at its foundations through inclusion and an openness to hearing the voices of everyone, including those who do not agree with the church’s position. In doing this, he shifted the priorities and practices of the Catholic church regarding such core issues as power and authority.

Pope Francis opened the doors to the voices of the marginalised in the church — women, the poor, the LGBTQI+ community, and those who have disaffiliated from the church. Many African Catholics would love to see more African representation at the Vatican, and many of them also worry about the widening division in the church, particularly driven by cultural and ideological battles in the West that have nothing to do with the social and ecclesial context of Africa.

Why his papacy mattered

Pope Francis was the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit pope, the first to choose the name Francis and the first to come from outside the West in the modern era. He chose the name Francis because he wanted to focus his papacy on the poor, emulating St Francis of Assisi.

In a sense, Pope Francis redefined what religion and spirituality mean for Catholicism. It’s not laying down and enforcing the law without mercy, it is caring for our neighbours and the Earth. This is the kind of religion the world needs today.

Stan Chu Ilo is a research professor, World Christianity and African Studies, DePaul University.

When a pope dies, the Roman Catholic Church begins a series of elaborate rituals that mark the end of one papacy and the start of the next.

Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has died, the Vatican said in a video statement on Monday, ending an often turbulent reign marked by division and tension as he sought to overhaul the hidebound institution.

He was 88, and had recently survived a serious bout of double pneumonia.

Here is a guide to what will happen following the death of Pope Francis:

• The pope’s camerlengo (chamberlain), Irish-American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, has to officially confirm his death, traditionally by tapping the pontiff’s head three times with a silver hammer and calling out his name. He then seals the pope’s private apartment and prepares the funeral.
• The camerlengo and three assistants chosen by lot from among the cardinal electors decide when the pope’s coffin will be taken into St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing. They also make sure the pope’s “Fisherman’s Ring” and his lead seal are broken so they cannot be used by anyone else. No autopsy is performed.
• Mourning rites last nine days, with the date of the funeral and burial to be decided by the cardinals. The funeral would normally be expected to be held four to six days after the death in St. Peter’s Square. Francis has said that, unlike many predecessors, he will not be laid to rest in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica. Instead, he said he would be buried in Rome’s St. Mary Major Basilica. Popes are traditionally buried in a casket of cypress wood sealed inside a larger lead casket and then covered with an outer pine box.
• The College of Cardinals oversees day-to-day business during the interregnum. Their power is limited, and much of the central Church administration grinds to a halt.
• The conclave to elect a new pope starts in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel between 15 and 20 days after the death. The cardinals, confined to the Vatican for the duration of the conclave, decide the exact day. They stay in the hotel on Vatican grounds where Pope Francis chose to live.
• All cardinals under the age of 80 can take part in the secret ballot. They need a majority of at least two-thirds plus one to elect the new pope, so the voting can take several rounds spread over numerous days. When the conclave has elected a pope, he is asked if he accepts and what name he wishes to take. Once this is done, he dons papal vestments and sits on a throne in the Sistine Chapel to receive the other cardinals who file up to pay homage and pledge obedience.
• The world will know a pope has been elected when an official burns the paper ballots with special chemicals to make white smoke pour out of the chapel’s chimney. They use other chemicals to make black smoke indicating an inconclusive vote.
• Soon afterwards, the dean of the College of Cardinals steps onto the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to announce “Habemus Papam” (We have a pope) to the crowds in the square. The new pope then appears in his papal robes and gives the crowd his blessing.