Africa Daily

This episode contains graphic description of violence. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ “I do not know when I will die maybe it’s today or tomorrow - but I felt if I died without forgiving him the burden would be on my children.” This weekend marks 30 years since the start of the Rwandan genocide. In 100 days, nearly 1 million people were killed based on their ethnicity. At 13...

"It's hard to live in Africa. It's hard to pay your bills. Public transport is hard... And it's hard to run a business in Africa." Alan got a belated Christmas surprise this year – when he found out he’d been named as one of New African Magazine’s list of 100 most influential Africans. He’s in good company… Senegal’s Ousmane Sonko, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu and Guinea’s coup leader and presi...

South Africa is one of the top wine producers in the world yet, nearly thirty years after the end of apartheid, the industry is still dominated by white-owned wineries. Black-owned brands account for less than 1% of wine sales per litre in South Africa, even though black South Africans make up over 80% of the population. But a determined group of black women wine-makers want to change this. They’v...

“Davy became our friend.” Tales of conflict between animals and people are all too common across Africa. People have been cast off their land to make way for wildlife parks for tourists. Animals have attacked humans, poachers kill for tusks and scales, and large animals like elephants trample on crops and destroy them. But today we’re travelling about 200 km west of Nairobi in Kenya to an area cal...

Approximately 26.3 million people in Africa have a form of visual impairment, and it’s estimated that 5.9 million are blind. Blindness in people can occur at birth or later in life, and many people across the continent who are blind face several daily challenges. Amidu Abubakar made history when he became Sierra Leone’s first ever blind law graduate. So what’s it like to study law as a blind perso...

The Ras al-Hikma peninsula on the north coast of Egypt is going to become a new city. But it’s going to be built and managed by another country, the United Arab Emirates. In a deal signed earlier this year, Egypt gave the UAE the right to develop this 170 square kilometre area in return for $35 billion dollars. The Egyptian economy was in a critical position, and needed a quick cash injection to g...

This month there have been six mass abductions in the north of Nigeria, many involving children. One school that was attacked by armed men was in the town of Kuriga in the North West. There, the parents of 137 children had to wait, helpless, for the next 16 days, not knowing where their children were, or how they were being treated by the kidnappers. The Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu, took a tou...

“Everybody wants to see you – everybody thinks this is an opportunity for employment…. a lot of people come into government believing they are there to enrich themselves.” It’s nearly three months since Joseph Boakai started work as Liberia’s new president. But in an interview with the Africa Daily podcast he tells Alan Kasujja that he’s still fielding enquiries from people wanting government jobs...

“Life here is difficult. You have to be a resilient person to survive. There’s no electricity. The roads are almost non-existent. In sunny days, the shack gets too hot. You can’t stay inside. When it’s cold, it gets very cold. When it’s raining, it gets flooded” – Lala Maria Sebetlele, a resident of a Johannesburg shanty town When Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress took over in 1994, it in...

It’s been 30 years since one of the worst atrocities in recent African history - the Rwandan genocide. In 1994, between 800,000 and one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in 100 days. Some Rwandans have worked hard to move on from the tragic events of 1994, but many - both in and out of the country - are still living with the trauma. Jean Paul Samputu was already an established m...

After a turbulent few years of disputes and protests, and accusations that President Macky Sall was trying to hang on to office, Senegal is holding its presidential election on March 24. Speaking to the BBC this week, the president refused to apologise for his attempt in February to postpone the vote by several months - saying he'd always acted according to the constitution and that he 'did nothin...

Female Genital Mutilation or FGM is a practice that divides people. In the countries where it’s common – it’s usually carried out for cultural or religious reasons - but in recent years many African countries have banned the practice saying it’s a violation of the rights of women and girls. It can cause serious health problems – including infection and complications in childbirth – and girls have...

For the last 10 years Libya has been split into two – East and West - each with its own government. And in 2021 an attempt at elections failed after some questioned the eligibility of the main candidates. But now three influential Libyan leaders have said they intend to try to form a new unified government. They say it's a 'necessity'. So why is this happening now? And could a coalition government...

So the question being discussed by Kenyans for the last 2 weeks: will the country really send police officers to Haiti or not? US citizens have been evacuated and aid groups have warned that millions of Haitians face acute food shortages, as well-armed gangs wreak terror on the capital, Port-au-Prince. It’s widely accepted that stopping the gangs will take determined international intervention – b...

Earlier this month an arrest warrant was issued for a Kenyan man accused of practising law without qualifications after he skipped court, according to the Law Society of Kenya (LSK). The case has captivated Kenyans ever since the man was outed as an illegitimate lawyer last October, there's been outrage, support and amusement. At the time, legal officials in Kenya urged police to arrest the man, w...

It’s like something out of a Shakespearean drama. A strongman in power. A cousin threatens his position only to end up dead. But this is Chad, 2024 – and the strongman is Chad’s military leader, Mahamat Déby. Recently his most vocal critic, Yaya Dillo, who was also his cousin, was killed in a shootout with security forces. So what is the relationship between different members of this powerful fami...

“As an ordinary Zimbabwean I have to be worried when my president is sanctioned, because an investor who is in Dubai will think twice before coming to Zimbabwe” – Dr. Alexander Rusero, Zimbabwean political analyst. The United States has imposed fresh sanctions, replacing a broader programme that was introduced more than two decades ago. Those targeted include president Emmerson Mnangagwa who is ac...

Nollywood is Africa’s biggest film industry. Many will associate it with lots of drama, addictive story-telling, the glitz and glamour of the red carpet. But a story that’s increasingly being told now is of financial hardship. John Okafor, who was also known as Mr Ibu, died a few weeks ago, last year he posted a video on Instagram asking his fans for help with his medical bills. And he isn’t alone...

Apologies: only part of this podcast was initially published because of a technical fault, but this has since been rectified. _______________________________________________________________________________ "They thought that paying fees for girls to go to school was losing money... We would not get husbands to marry us. People say that going to school is just building prostitution." When Marthe Wa...

Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema has declared a national because of the prolonged drought. He says 84 districts out of a total of 116 in the country have been affected. The President said almost half of the land used for planting crops had been affected by severe dry conditions. There are also fears that the country will struggle to meet its electricity demands, as most of its energy comes fr...

Africa's biggest multisport event - the African Games - get underway in Ghana tonight, with 49 nations competing in 29 different sports. This is the 13th edition of the games – which are held every four years, usually one year before the Olympic Games. But this time they’ve been delayed by 8 months - since August 2023 - because of a disagreement over marketing rights which delayed the completion o...

“If the Islamist extremist groups succeed in entrenching themselves in Cabo Delgado, they will launch attacks in different parts of the continent” – Professor Adriano Nuvunga of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights Just as Mozambique's authorities thought Cabo Delgado province in the north of the country was beginning to stabilise, trouble started again. Insurgents linked to the group, Islami...

In many parts of the continent, landing a job at a multinational company is a big deal – it promises growth and stability. But what happens when things go wrong? You get made redundant. Do you know what rights and protections you have? That’s the scenario that staff members in Ghana’s Twitter office found themselves in back in November 2022. Musk tweeted that "everyone" would get three months' sev...

“I think this community of BRICS is looking after each other and for sure it’s going to open more doors” – Gert Blignaut, South African beef exporter In August 2023, we brought you an episode on South Africa hosting about 70 heads of state from different parts of the world. They included China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi and Lula da Silva of Brazil, whose nations, along with Russia, form p...

“You just learn that the people who are against you… will always exist and they’ll always use every opportunity they can to amplify mistakes and actually very often try to portray them as deliberate. That’s part of the learning I’ve had to go through.” Being the mayor of Freetown is a tough job. Yvonne Aki Sawyer grew up in Sierra Leone but then went to the UK to study as a student. She stayed, bu...