A massive government crackdown on protestors and dissidents is underway in Ethiopia, but the international community has turned a blind eye to this reign of terror. The first, and possibly most far-reaching and effective, response by the international community should be to openly condemn the regime in Addis Ababa and withdraw the unwavering support for the repressive government.

Last week’s local government elections in South Africa were marred by racial slurs, ethnocentric witch-hunting, mudslinging and outright physical elimination of political opponents. The country’s electoral commission remained indolent and incapable of taking bold steps to put an end to the blatant abuse of citizens’ right to choose their own leaders. Free and fair elections remain a big challenge in the rainbow nation.

Nigeria’s problem, which has led to the current calls for restructuring of the country, is failure by the ruling classes to meet the basic needs of their people. There is no evidence that restructuring, whatever it means, would solve this basic problem. Official corruption, mass unemployment, ethno-religious conflicts, an economy that over-relies on oil, are Nigerian realities that cannot be addressed by restructuring.

Swaziland’s King Mswati III passes suppression, unaccountability and royal opulent spending in the face of drought, starvation and poverty, as traditionally “Swazi” values.  Sonkhe Dube, a young exiled activist, begs to differ.

Talk of breaking up Nigeria is lazy. The country should restructure in a way that every part will, at all times, be appropriately represented in government. This was the central idea in the late General Sani Abacha’s well-thought-out provisions that would have restructured Nigeria from a country of contending ethnic nationalities into a modern nation-state in just 30 years.

Nigeria is an artificial country that was put together by non-Nigerians.  No one sought the consent of the people that were literally gaveled into existence as “Nigerians” when the state was originally constituted. With the resurgence of demands for secession of the Igbo nation to form the Republic of Biafra, the time has come for a candid discussion about the future of Nigeria.

What sort of intellectuals would write a book about a genocidal war in which more than three million lives of their own brothers and sisters were wasted without even acknowledging in the index that the word ‘genocidal’ was used in the text by some authors to objectively describe the atrocities?

Sanders squandered his most important historical moment. He had a chance, one chance, to take the energy, anger and momentum, walk out the doors of the Wells Fargo Center and into the streets to help build a third-party movement.

This book is a useful contribution that will enlighten those people who want to understand why Nigeria is not working and what needs to be done. Persons in positions of leadership in the country may find it a useful guide in tackling some of the problems troubling the nation.

As he did last year, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has announced another recruitment of Africans. But this is a PR gimmick meant to cover up deeply rooted racial discrimination against Black staff at the Bank. The Bank’s latest diversity report stresses that the Bank will not make substantive progress in eliminating subtle as well as overt racism unless more systemic changes are made.

Inside the deeply corrupt, incompetent and brutal dictatorship in Zimbabwe, brave voices can still be heard risking life and limb to question the regime and rally the people towards the change they desperately need. With these efforts, Zimbabwe shall rise again. The spirit of Nehanda who inspired the nation’s liberation struggle still lives.

Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli has captured global attention for his zealous pursuit of accountable and reformist government. But Magufuli is no revolutionary. His many years as a key minister in a neoliberal Tanzania tied to the apron strings of Empire speak volumes. Some of his current policies support the private sector while in fact pushing the poor deeper into destitution.

Isn’t it an interesting coincidence that Britons have voted to leave the European Union exactly 50 years after the British government helped ruthlessly crush the Biafra secession in Nigeria? Aren’t all people, whether Biafran or British, entitled to the same right of self-determination?

There seems to be consensus that Nigeria is not working for Nigerians. This is not because Nigeria is unworkable, but because it has been rigged to fail. Forty-six years after the atrocious Biafra War, low-intensity conflicts by state and non-state actors are raging across the country. Nigeria needs to be renegotiated.

The struggle for self-determination of the Biafran people will not end until they fully break away from Nigeria, a creation of British colonialists that has never worked. Unlike during the first failed attempt to secede, for the new territory to work it should not include any non-Igbo people.

A humanist per excellence, Eddie brought panache and mathematical meticulousness in explaining even the most complex of historical, political and ideological issues in Nigeria.

African cultures contain elements that may enhance or undermine democracy and development. Because cultures change over time, it is up to Africans to critically examine their own beliefs and practices to see how best they can use these to advance the interests of their people.

Kenya seems to be hurtling inexorably towards another round of politically instigated violence connected to the 2017 elections. Hate speech is on the rise and there are even reports of groups arming themselves. Polarization is especially deepening between the Luo community on the one hand and the Kikuyu-Kalenjin ethnic alliance that rules Kenya.

In his new book, South African academic Ndangwa Noyoo contends that Africans can longer continue to attribute their underdevelopment to the machinations of Europeans and other foreigners. Africans themselves are to blame for their own failings. An excerpt.

The importance of poverty eradication characterises African and global development priorities, and seems to lie at the foundation of Official Development Assistance. Africa, the region with the greatest number of the world’s poor, should be the logical focus of development cooperation partnerships. Yet only 20% of reported ODA is spent in Africa, and there’s evidence that it’s getting less.