Author: Azu Ishiekwene

More than one million Africans died. They were not in Danzig, Berlin or London. They had no idea what Hitler’s request was or why Britain refused to listen to him. They were enlisted for the war by force from Nigeria to Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta), and from Senegal to the Democratic Republic of Congo. On the 75th anniversary of that war two years ago, the few survivors on the continent still bore the scars like yesterday, yet not knowing the reason they went to fight in the first place.

Read More

Days to the party’s first national convention in four years, there is growing public interest in the outcome of the convention because how it ends may not only indicate if the party is over, it might also provide an indication of who the party’s flag bearer would be for next year’s presidential election.

Read More

But that’s not the story. While the police needed only 10,000 constables, about 130,000 candidates applied; that is, for every single successful applicant, 12 will not be considered, all things being equal. It evoked sad memories of the 2014 tragedy, when six million applied for 4,000 vacancies at the Nigeria Immigration Service, and thousands were locked in a stampede at one interview venue, leaving dozens dead; only this time the potential for such a deadly outcome seemed remote.

Read More

If there were any remaining doubts about COVID-19 racism, these countries shed it and showed the world they could not help wearing bigotry on their sleeve. Countries that were rightly opposed to labelling COVID-19 the “China virus”, were quick to target Africa, which is not the original source of the new variant, for detecting it among in-bound travellers and quickly reporting it.

Read More