Africanist Press Podcast Service

In this episode, we continue to examine the secret efforts of the Maada Bio regime to legalize abortion in Sierra Leone without public debate and public participation.  We also highlight the role of individual politicians in the past and present regimes in these efforts to legalize abortion in the country without public debate and consultation.

In this episode, we continue to examine Maada Bio’s effort to smuggle through Parliament an Abortion Law without the knowledge and participation of Sierra Leonean women. We also examine the differences between Ernest Bai Koroma’s 2015 Abortion Bill and Maada Bio’s 2024 Secret Abortion Bill.

Politicians in Sierra Leone have secretly tabled an Abortion Bill in Parliament and are working to speedily pass it into law without public consultation and debate. The proposed law gives married women and girls the sole right to abort any pregnancy; and to decide whether they want to have a baby or not; and the number and spacing of babies. The abortion law also proposes monetary fines and 12 mon...

In this exclusive interview, Africanist Press editor, Dr. Chernoh Alpha Bah talks to Kelley Lane, editor of the Assange Countdown to Freedom Series, about his more than 20 years work to expose multinational exploitation in West Africa, and his ongoing campaign against political corruption and state orchestrated violence in Sierra Leone today. This special episode is part of the events marking the...

In this exclusive interview, Africanist Press editor, Dr. Chernoh Alpha Bah talks to Kelley Lane, editor of the Assange Countdown to Freedom Series, about his more than 20 years work to expose multinational exploitation in West Africa, and his ongoing campaign against political corruption and state orchestrated violence in Sierra Leone today. This special episode is part of the events marking the...

Sherbro Island is one of Sierra Leone’s most beautiful touristic landscape. In 2019, the Maada Bio regime signed an undisclosed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Sherbro Alliance Partners, a company incorporated in early June 2019 as a private limited company (#12040217) under the UK Companies Act 2006 by Idris Akuna Elba and Siaka Stevens, the grandson of Sierra Leone's first president. The...

Few days ago, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) issued an indictment against executives of the Adani Group for orchestrating a massive bribery scheme to secure solar energy contracts worth billions of dollars in India. The indictment specifically states that, between July 2021 and February 2022, the Adanis and their associates promised bribes to Indian government officials to secure ag...

How is United Sates foreign policy affecting democracy in Sierra Leone? What is the difference between electoral democracy and tripartite democracy? Is the United States Embassy in Sierra Leone supporting democracy or helping to consolidate an illegal regime? In this episode, we discuss Sierra Leone's electoral coup of June 2023, and the ongoing international effort, led by the United States Embas...

Are there any parallels between the just concluded November 2024 United States elections and the June 2023 Sierra Leone elections? What lessons do the US elections offer to real democratic and genuine progressive forces in Sierra Leone? In this episode, we provide an analysis of the just concluded United States elections, pointing out the lessons and implications for Sierra Leone's democracy , and...

This episode spotlights the life and contributions of South African revolutionary leader, Stephen Bantu Biko to the Black Consciousness Movement and the struggle against Apartheid.

December 2024 will mark 22 years since the launch of the Africanist Press. The Africanist Press was established by journalists and academics in December 2002 as an independent media organization to defend free speech, expose corruption, and promote democracy and development in Africa. In 22 years, Africanist Press has grown into a robust media organization known internationally for its groundbreak...

This episode examines how World Bank's debts, and high interest rates, cripple African and Asian economies, deepening poverty and underdevelopment in the world's most impoverish countries. This episode is based on John Pilger's 1992 award-wining documentary, War by Other Means.   This episode honors the life and work of John Pilger, who passed away in December 2023. 

This episode examines how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank's structural adjustment policies affected Jamaica’s economic and political development from the early 1970s to the present.  The IMF's loan conditions required Jamaica to implement a range of economic reforms that included trade liberalization, privatization, and deregulation of its market. This internationally...

In this exclusive interview with KPFA, Dr. Chernoh Alpha Bah, editor of the Africanist Press , talks about the deteriorating democratic situation in Sierra Leone and West Africa, illicit economic flows in the Mano River region, and the threats and attacks orchestrated against the Africanist Press by government officials in Sierra Leone and allied groups. This exclusive interview was conducted by W...

This episode examines three key events to illustrate how political corruption undermined Jamaica's development and fueled the country's debt crisis. First, we look at how a US$9.5 million World Bank loan issued in 1966 to supposedly finance the construction of 50 junior secondary schools, expand four teacher training colleges, and develop Jamaica's School of Agriculture, and the Colleg...

Samora Machel was the first President of Mozambique, serving from the country's independence in 1975 until his untimely death in 1986.  A leading figure in the struggle for Mozambique’s independence from Portuguese colonial rule, Machel played a significant role in FRELIMO’s struggle for power in Mozambique.  As president, he embarked on socialist reforms and efforts to modernize Mozambique. H...

About a month ago, the United States International Development Finance Corporation’s (DFC) Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Nisha Biswal, attended a ceremony in Freetown to launch the “construction of an electricity infrastructure” in Freetown’s Kissy Dockyard, 4km east of the city center.  US Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Bryan David Hunt and DFC executives described the launching ceremony as “a sem...

Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, described as the forgotten leader of the South African independence struggle, was an anti-apartheid revolutionary and founding president of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) of Azania (or South Africa). Sobukwe and the PAC considered themselves “Africanists,” believing that South Africa should be led by Black South Africans, who constitute the majority population.  This e...

In this episode, we discuss the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)'s acquisition of the Western Area Power Generation Project and the role of the US-financed company, Milele Energy in Sierra Leone's corrupt energy sector. We ask, in particular, how Milele Energy Limited, and the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) took over the Western Area Po...

Launched in early December 2023, the Africanist Press Podcast aims to give voice to African communities through the production of weekly audio broadcasts that analyzes ongoing events in Africa as part of an effort to contribute to better understanding of key developments in the region. In the first six months since its launch, the Africanist Press Podcast produced over 30 episodes covering various...

In this episode, we continue to examine the privatization of Sierra Leone's National Power Authority (NPA) in 2011 and the history of the Western Area Power Generation Project. We discuss details of transactions between various agencies of the Sierra Leone government and multinational corporations like Blue Flare Power Ltd (BVI), TCQ Power Ltd, Copperbelt Energy Corporation Africa (CECA Sierra...

In this episode, we examine the role of the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) in Sierra Leone’s electricity corruption, showing how the DFC inherited a corrupt electricity contract from British financed corporations, and how US international investment is now financing corruption and deepening underdevelopment in Sierra Leone.    This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE comme...

In 2011, Sierra Leone politicians enacted a new electricity legislation that created two parallel institutions, the Electricity Generation and Transmission Company (EGTC) and the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) to replace the state-owned National Power Authority (NPA). Since 1982, NPA oversaw electricity supply in Sierra Leone, including the fixing of consumer tariffs. In 2016...

Sierra Leone's Energy Minister, Kanja Sesay announced on Friday that he is resigning from the Maada Bio regime because of the alleged failure to pay outstanding debts owed to the Turkish Karpowership contracted to sell electricity to Freetown residents. Kanja Sesay's resignation was later followed by Maada Bio's announcement that the energy ministry has now been placed under his direct...

The privatization program in postwar Sierra Leone was supposedly advanced by international financial institutions – the World Bank, IMF, African Development Bank – as a multi-sectoral development strategy aimed at reducing poverty and corruption, and improving economic growth and quality of governance and service delivery in the small West African country.   Since 2005, this World Bank and IMF sup...