Africa Is a Country

'Vote for Umblerra'

'Vote for Umblerra'

By
Sean Jacobs

Probably to deal with the stresses associated with next month general elections scheduled for next month–there’s a real threat of terrorist violence and vote rigging is widespread–Nigerians (online especially) are having too much fun at the expense of First Lady, Patience Jonathan, who has a history of mangling her words. An audio recording has emerged of Mrs Jonathan speaking at a rally of the ruling party. She was “trying to persuade her listeners to vote for the ‘Umbrella’, the unmistakable symbol of the Peoples’ Democratic Party. However, she er… well she might have inadvertently done just the opposite.”

Further Reading

Coming home

In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.

Imaginary homelands

A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.

Business as usual?

This month, Algeria quietly held its second election since Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted in 2019. On the podcast, we ask what Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term means for the country.

The complexities of solidarity

Assassinated in 1978, Henri Curiel was a Jewish Egyptian Marxist whose likely killers include fascist French-Algerian colons, the apartheid South African Bureau of State Security, and the Abu Nidal Organization.

From Naija to Abidjan

One country is Anglophone, and the other is Francophone. Still, there are between 1 to 4 million people of Nigerian descent living in Côte d’Ivoire today.

De Naïja à Abidjan

Un pays est anglophone et l’autre est francophone. Quoi qu’il en soit, entre 1 et 4 millions de personnes d’origine nigériane vivent aujourd’hui en Côte d’Ivoire.