A rolled leaf, a stolen future
I keep thinking about how a society can collapse quietly. Not with bombs. Not with tanks. With a small rolled leaf passed from hand to hand, smoked in full daylight, and strong enough to...
Why M23’s Warning Should Terrify the Global Economy
“Uvira est tombée. Nous mettons le cap sur le Katanga.”
That was the message attributed to M23 after they captured Uvira, a strategic town hugging Lake Tanganyika. To many Congolese, it sounded like...
What Nyerere Would Have Said Today
I have walked the streets of Dar es Salaam enough times to understand why Tanzanians still whisper Mwalimu’s name with a reverence that borders on spiritual. Julius Kambarage Nyerere was not a man of...
Cotonou at Dawn: A Memory, A Question, A Warning
My only encounter with Benin was brief, almost whispered. I was in transit through the Cotonou Cadjehoun International Airport on my way to Lagos. I was heading there to write two...
On December 9th 2025, the people of Tanzania spoke more powerfully than the government expected. They did not need large crowds or dramatic clashes to express disapproval. Their message came through a national shutdown so complete that it turned...
A Baby in Flight and the Truth Behind a Signature
In the first week of December, as three presidents smiled for cameras in Washington, a young mother named Aline Sambuka was running for her life in South Kivu. She clutched...
Entrepreneur Jenifer “Niffer” Jovin and Pan Africanist Mika Chavala walked free on December 3, 2025, after treason charges against them were suddenly withdrawn by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Their release has been framed as a routine prosecutorial decision,...
There are moments in a nation’s history when a single life becomes a mirror, forcing an entire people to confront who they have become. The murder of 18-year-old Maria Mathew is one such moment. She was not a criminal....
In Mbeya, south-western Tanzania, near the borders with Zambia and Malaw, a man’s tired voice is echoing across Tanzania.
“I am tired. Your father Clemence Mwandambo. I am tired. Because all of you are my children. Bye bye. I have...
Tanzania is standing on a political fault line. President Samia Suluhu Hassan has appointed her daughter Wanu Hafidh Ameir as Deputy Minister for Education and her son-in-law Mohamed Mchengerwa as Minister for Health in her new cabinet. These are...
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