What do you do with numbers so big that
They stop being people
And start being data
And you put them on paper
And make life or death
With tired calculators
What do you do with your heart so big
Do you put it on freeze
Shun the bleeding disease
Do you take it in stride
Would you still feel alive
Do you sustain
A million little bolts of pain
Or deny that bitter refrain
and Stay Calm?

The Kenyan people cannot have leaders who don’t have their interests at heart, writes redINK, ‘We must organise ourselves and identify a genuine alternative leadership.’

Fifty years after ‘18 African countries allegedly gained their “independence” from colonialism’, it is ‘safe to state that most of Africa suffers from the delusion of being independent’, argues Hama Tuma. ‘Colonialism played many tricks on gullible Africans,’ writes Tuma, ‘and its most damaging joke has been to declare that it has left…while actually rushing back in through the back door.'

The commitment of African finance ministers to continental integration, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the declarations of their own heads of state has come into question after national delegations from South Africa, Rwanda and Egypt succeeded in deleting any reference to budgetary targets for education, health, agriculture and water in the report and resolutions of the annual meeting of the African Union and Economic Commission for the Africa Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, which took place in Malawi at the end of March. Geoffrey Njora explores the possible consequences of their actions.

Much of Kenyan civil society wants politicians to leave the current draft of the constitution alone, fearing that they will make only those changes that benefit themselves, and that disadvantage ordinary citizens, writes Yash Ghai. As various groups put pressure on the politicians to change specific provisions, from a gender, religious or other perspective, Ghai argues that if Kenya is to get a new constitution at all, it may be worth accepting compromises on some issues.

In a piece written for Pambazuka News in 2007, Annwen E. Bates looked at how Africa’s lack presented as spectacle is used ‘to legitimise Euro-American programmes of salvation – from colonialism to aid involvement’. With South Africa in the spotlight ahead of the football World Cup in June, Bates revisits some of the ideas raised by her original article.

Al-Qaida claiming responsibility for Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano, Omar al-Bashir's notion of 'free and fair elections' for Sudan, and inspecting Umara Yar'Adua as a guard of honour all feature in this week's cartoons from Gado.

People born after 1980 have benefited little from 30 years of Zimbabwe’s independence, writes the Youth Alliance Democracy, thanks to the government’s continued failure to empower young people, rather than seeing them as equal partners in politics. Half of political representatives – from local government to the cabinet – should be ‘youths below the ages of 35, who can forward and address the youth concerns and youth mainstreaming in all national policies and processes’, the alliance argues.

As South Africa prepares to celebrate Freedom Day on 27 April, Motsoko Pheko warns that the negotiated settlement that ended apartheid 16 years ago failed to take into consideration ‘the primary objectives for which the liberation struggle was fought’. The country’s constitution may be the best in the world, but isn’t it time it was amended on the fundamental issues that affect the majority poor, Pheko asks.

Cuba’s offer to rebuild Haiti’s entire national health service is arguably the most ambitious and impressive pledge made at the UN’s recent donor conference, write Emily J. Kirk, John M. Kirk and Norman Girvan, so why then have its efforts been largely ignored by the media, while those of other governments have been praised?

In May, disarmament organisations will assemble alongside government delegations meeting for the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference. But the ‘discussion, analysis and political course of action that bring real disarmament will not come from refining the discourses dominated by those who currently hold power and control debate, but by rendering them irrelevant,’ argues Andrew Lichterman – it’s time for conversations that chart a new way forward.

‘Humanitarian intervention’ in Haiti, South African attitudes to HIV/AIDS and condom use, police killings in Lagos and everyday life in the aftermath of an earthquake are among the stories covered by Sokari Ekine in this week’s overview of the African blogosphere.

Twenty years after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, the majority of black South Africans remain excluded from the country’s land and formal economy. Udo W. Froese asks whether the talk of national reconciliation and nation-building is simply propaganda.

The following is an with Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri, conducted by Zahra Moloo. Commenting on the influences on his writing, Okri discusses a writer's 'natural journey' and the importance of drawing upon as wide a set of literature as possible.

Economist David Ricardo's theory of 'comparative advantage', despite being highly dubious, continues to exert a high degree of influence on Tanzanian policymakers, writes Chambi Chachage.

The late Fatima Meer was 'was to me like that elusive relative is to you', writes Azad Essa, a person who lived an incredible life whom you never got to know and who lacks the genuine recognition they deserve.

While Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi may insist on his country's booming economic performance, the evidence speaks differently, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. With the International Monetary Fund (IMF) strangely indulgent of the Ethiopian financial institutions' statistics, the picture is one of glaring exaggeration and inaccuracy that does a huge disservice to the Ethiopian people, Mariam concludes.

Once a respected and professional example of high legal standards around the world, the Nigerian judiciary has now entirely lost its way, writes Sabella Ogbobode Abidde. The judiciary is plagued by lost case files, tampered evidence and inmates seemingly locked up indefinitely, Abidde stresses, a picture of decline that mirrors that of Nigerian society as a whole.

As religious fundamentalists in Kenya stress homosexuality to be 'ungodly', Audrey Mbugua asks 'so what?' Religious-based delusions paralyse 'otherwise rational people', Mbugua argues, and religious fundamentalism 'fosters criminal activities by coating them with spirituality and messages of madness'.

In the wake of serious doubts around Sudan's ability to oversee free and fair elections, Sudanese civil society networks 'believe that the voters of Sudan were unable to freely express their will and select their representatives'. Spelling out the range of problems impeding the current election, the group outlines a set of recommendations rooted in ensuring genuine representation for the Sudanese electorate.