AfricaIs aCountry

After the Bulldozers

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

After the Bulldozers

By
Sean Jacobs

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/11738776 w=500&h=281]

Beautifully shot short film about the fate of 10,000 residents displaced after a thriving market in Ajelogo, a neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, was destroyed by local authorities. The film is told through the perspective of one of the residents. The director is Charles “Stretch” Ledford, a University of Miami communications student and working photographer. (Be sure to also check out his work on Overtown, a black working class neighborhood of Miami.)

Via Jeremy Weate.

Further Reading

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.

Visiting Ngara

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.

Gen Z’s electoral dilemma

Long dismissed as apathetic, Kenya’s youth forced a rupture in 2024. As the 2027 election approaches, their challenge is turning digital rebellion and street protest into political power.

A world reimagined in Black

By placing Kwame Nkrumah at the center of a global Black political network, Howard W. French reveals how the promise of pan-African emancipation was narrowed—and what its failure still costs Africa and the diaspora.

Securing Nigeria

Nigeria’s insecurity cannot be solved by foreign airstrikes or a failing state, but by rebuilding democratic, community-rooted systems of collective self-defense.