In the recent elections, citizens posted results from location almost simultaneously with the counting, making it impossible for unscrupulous players to attempt to tamper with the outcomes. Social media is now a powerful tool to protect democracy.

Some £600 million in UK aid money courtesy of the taxpayer is helping big business increase its profits in Africa via the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. In return for receiving aid money and corporate investment, African countries have to change their laws, making it easier for corporations to acquire farmland, control seed supplies and export produce.

Some say the tree of corruption in Kenya was planted by Jomo Kenyatta, watered by Moi, looked after by Kibaki and its fruits are now being harvested by the government of Uhuru Kenyatta.

Western countries have relied heavily on military force in their purported war against terrorism, but the root causes of the proliferation of terrorist activity will not be addressed solely by military means. Social, political and economic factors need attention.

The danger of focusing solely on Zuma, and seeing all of the scandals as simply being linked to his clearly flawed personality, is that it runs the risk of missing the point that the events surrounding him are symptoms of much deeper problems.

Goodluck Jonathan has earned the dubious distinction of being the first president in Nigerian history to lose an election. In many ways, Jonathan was the architect of his own downfall. He made critical mistakes that turned the public and allies against him, and led them to gravitate towards the opposition. Here’s where it all went wrong:

Africa has been rising a long time. This is the continent that liberated itself from the shackles of European colonialism. It is the land of glorious ancient civilizations. But the new ‘rising’ parroted around nowadays is merely about the monetary fortunes of foreign looters and their local lackeys.

Since the events of 11 September 2001, US policies that were supposed to prevent further atrocities have in fact encouraged them. The US, aided by its ally nations, has committed untold numbers of human rights violations under the guise of ‘the war on terror’. These policies need to be re-examined.

Changing the situation of Africa’s youth will require high levels of commitment both within the nations of Africa and the rich countries of the world. Fortunately, across Africa, there is growing recognition of the centrality of youth issues in the development agenda

The South African police force still carries with it the brutally violent culture and practices which characterised apartheid policing. These trends are unlikely to be reigned in by a government that is progressively paranoid of people power, leaving the boys in blue to become further removed from the law that they are supposed to uphold.

Nigerians are already looking beyond the March 28 presidential election, which the opposition All Peoples’ Congress and its presidential candidate General Muhammadu Buhari are expected to win.

Russia is looking to extend its footprint in Africa by supporting the construction of a huge nuclear power plant in Egypt. Nuclear energy is seen as a viable option for African economies.

The development of South Africa’s renewable energy sector provides a case study for understanding the inter-relationship that exists between social and economic development.

In spite of communities such as Jane-Finch being in the low-to-medium range for violence-related requests for law enforcement’s intervention, they are targeted and over-policed by the cops, especially the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy police division, an occupation army-like formation.

Obama is wrong to say that the country must remain united at any cost because he does not understand that underlying the fear of violence is the fact that Nigeria is a failed colonial fiction. Break up is the only way.

The intervention by President Mugabe’s wife in vendors’ clashes with the police is just talk. Vendors have become the vanguard of Zimbabwe's informal economy, but they lack recognition, support or protection from a State that disproportionately invests more in the formal economy and draws resources away from the poor.

While some African countries have made significant strides in expanding opportunities for women and girls, continued inequalities remain, particularly in the areas of women's political participation and economic opportunity. Gender inequalities are still deeply entrenched in many societies.

The recent diktat by Nigeria’s first lady that her husband’s political opponents be stoned is yet another red flag that the bungling government in Nigeria is not sincere in conducting violence-free elections.

Every neo-liberal ideology promotes the false belief that there is no alternative to capitalism. But although socialism has been persistently assaulted by imperialists over the years, people who live under this system are by far better off than those who do not.

What was the real intention behind Morocco’s decision to hold an international forum in occupied Western Sahara, Africa’s last colony? Peter Kenworthy judges it to be a legitimization of Morocco’s occupation by both the occupier and the attending heads of state and international figures.