Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Salah Ben Hammou, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Rice University

Guinea-Bissau has had nine attempted coups and five successful ones since its independence in September 1973. Salah Ben Hammou, a researcher with a focus on the politics of military coups, explains that the coup on 26 November 2025 appears to have followed earlier patterns of military intervention. It undermines Guinea-Bissau’s already fragile efforts to stabilise democratic governance.

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How does the latest coup fit into Guinea-Bissau’s history of military takeovers?

This latest episode fits into a pattern of electoral coups that the country has experienced in the last two decades. In 2003 and 2012 the armed forces intervened at moments of electoral uncertainty.

The 26 November coup followed the same logic. It came just one day before the electoral commission was due to release the results of the 23 November presidential election, a contest already mired in controversy. Major opposition parties had been barred from running and President Umaro Sissoco Embaló faced accusations of overstaying his mandate. Both candidates claimed victory before any official results were announced.

Given this backdrop, the coup’s timing strongly suggests that the intervention was intended to preempt or nullify one potential outcome: the victory of opposition candidate Fernando Dias da Costa.

Many observers suspect that Embaló may have helped instigate or tacitly approved the military’s move to prevent an opposition victory.

There is still no definitive evidence of Embaló’s role. But incumbents have, in some cases, instigated coups against their own governments to void unfavourable election outcomes or preempt mass unrest. Sudan’s 1958 coup and Bolivia’s 1951 episode are classic examples.

What are the implications of the coup?

The coup undermines Guinea-Bissau’s already fragile efforts to stabilise democratic governance in two key ways.

First, it entrenches the military as the ultimate arbiter of political power, privileging the barracks over the ballot box. Once the armed forces are viewed – by incumbents, opposition forces, or the public – as a legitimate referee in political disputes, incentives shift. Instead of resolving conflicts through elections or courts, political competitors are more likely to seek military intervention when outcomes appear uncertain or unfavourable. This dynamic has long plagued Guinea-Bissau, and the latest coup reinforces it.

Second, and closely related, by effectively vetoing a core democratic process, the coup deepens the institutional backsliding already underway. In the months leading up to the vote, Guinea-Bissau had seen the exclusion of major opposition parties, disputes over term limits, and allegations of presidential overreach. The military’s intervention now entrenches these anti-democratic practices.

Whether or not Embaló played a direct role, the signal is clear: electoral rules and constitutional procedures can be overridden by force when they are inconvenient. The new junta’s reliance on Embaló’s allies to staff the new government further suggests continuity, not rupture, from the previous administration.

Economically, the coup is unlikely to benefit the general population. Nearly 70% live below the poverty line, making it one of the poorest countries in the world. Instability deters foreign investment, disrupts trade and stalls development projects. Even recent gains in the cashew industry, around 5.1% this year, risk being undermined.

What are the regional implications of the coup?

For anyone following developments in west Africa, and the continent more broadly, over the last five years, Guinea-Bissau’s latest coup will come as no great surprise. It joins a growing roster of countries under military rule. Each successful takeover in this so-called coup wave sends a clear signal: such interventions are possible and, in some contexts, tolerated.

Yet the broader impact will hinge on the junta’s next moves. It is not just the initial seizure of power that matters. Jonathan Powell and I have highlighted a pattern in which military rulers now remain in power for long periods compared with coups in the early 2000s. Transitional timelines, like the one-year promise announced by Guinea-Bissau’s junta, are increasingly symbolic rather than binding.

As I noted earlier this year in Foreign Policy, efforts to consolidate power, from delaying elections to manipulating them, also embolden other junta leaders across the region.

Guinea-Bissau’s military leaders are likely to study the strategies of their counterparts in west Africa and adopt them. In turn, the tactics they employ will provide a template for others. This type of learning is what will continue to solidify the return to military rule.

What should Ecowas and the African Union do?

Coups are rarely isolated events; they are usually symptoms of deeper political challenges. In Guinea-Bissau, the environment leading up to the coup, marked by Embaló’s efforts to undermine the electoral process, largely went unchecked. That created conditions that made military intervention more likely.

Regional organisations like Ecowas also face real constraints in addressing these challenges. Embaló threatened to expel Ecowas mediators attempting to negotiate a resolution to the electoral timeline. The same constraints are usually present after coups take hold.

That said, Ecowas and the African Union cannot afford to look away from post-coup developments. Every step the junta takes, whether shaping electoral timelines or managing opposition activity, must be scrutinised.

Both organisations should coordinate a unified diplomatic approach alongside other regional actors to secure clear, credible commitments to free and fair elections. Any attempts to delay the transition, manipulate political competition, or suppress dissent must be met with swift and meaningful consequences.

A key component of this strategy should be a ban on electoral participation for anyone involved in the coup. Existing mechanisms already allow for such measures, but their effectiveness depends on consistent application. Regional organisations have yet to do that.

Without such consistency, coups carry minimal consequences. And those who orchestrate them continue to profit from their actions.

– Guinea-Bissau coup: election uncertainty has triggered military takeovers before
– https://theconversation.com/guinea-bissau-coup-election-uncertainty-has-triggered-military-takeovers-before-271368

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By John Joseph Chin, Assistant Teaching Professor of Strategy and Technology, Carnegie Mellon University

Military elements attempted to topple Benin’s government in early December 2025. However, unlike other coups across the Sahel and west Africa since 2020, this bid triggered a military response from Benin’s neighbours.

Benin is a west African state of 14.8 million people bordered by Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria.

Responding to two requests for assistance from the government of President Patrice Talon, Nigeria deployed fighter jets and the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) deployed elements of its standby force to target and dislodge the pro-coup forces.

Ecowas intervention likely played an important role in undermining the coup’s momentum and restoring order. The dozen or so putschists scored early tactical successes. They captured and broadcast from the national television station, occupied a military camp, and even took the two senior-most army officers hostage. But once Ecowas intervened militarily, any fence-sitters concluded that loyalists would prevail. Rather than a broad-based uprising, only 14 were arrested with a few plotters still at large.

I’m a scholar who maintains the Colpus dataset of coups and I have documented the history of post-second world war coups. As part of this work, I have sought to document the complex causes and effects of Africa’s post-2020 “epidemic of coups”, now entering its fifth year.

Though details remain scant on the motives of the coup plotters led by Lt. Col. Pascal Tigri, three structural factors likely contributed to the latest coup attempt:

From democratic backsliding to democratic u-turn?

Benin does not have a history of recent coups. It had not suffered a bona fide coup attempt since January 1975.

In the first 15 years after independence from France in 1960, Dahomey (as the country was then called) experienced nine coup attempts, making it one of the most coup-prone countries in sub-Saharan Africa during the early Cold War period.

However, political instability through the early 1970s gave way to the stable and durable personalist regime of Mathieu Kérékou (1972-1990). This was followed by electoral democracy after the Cold War.

Until recently, Benin had been heralded as one of Africa’s “democratic outliers” and success cases of democratic survival despite challenging conditions. Though poor, Benin has seen decades of improving average living standards. Economic growth in 2025 was 7.5%; the latest unrest cannot be blamed on poverty or an economic crisis.

However, data on three key dimensions of democracy shows that although electoral contestation and participation have endured, constraints on the executive (and thus liberal democracy overall) have declined in Benin since Talon’s election as president in 2016.

According to autocratic regime data from US political scientists Barbara Geddes, Joe Wright and Erica Frantz as well as the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project (which surveys experts about democracy worldwide), Benin slipped back into an electoral autocracy in 2019. That is when opposition candidates were prevented from competing in parliamentary elections. The polls were marred by repression of mass protests and an internet shutdown.

In 2021, an electoral boycott led to Talon’s easy re-election.

V-Dem data show a very partial and incomplete democratic rebound since 2022. The opposition was allowed to compete in the January 2023 parliamentary elections. And earlier this year Talon confirmed that he would not seek an unconstitutional third term.

The potential for a coup, however, was foreshadowed last fall when the regime alleged that it had uncovered a coup plot involving a presidential hopeful in 2026. Last month, parliament’s vote to create a Senate was condemned by the opposition as allowing Talon a means to influence affairs after he steps down.

With the main opposition party barred from running in next year’s presidential election, Talon is expected to hand off power to his ally and finance minister, Romuald Wadagni.

Though the political leanings of Tigri and coup plotters remain unclear, Tigri claimed to seek to “free the people from dictatorship”.

The coupmakers also presumably sought to block the upcoming 2026 parliamentary and presidential elections.

A growing jihadist threat

Among the coup leaders’ key complaints was Talon’s mismanagement of the country. In particular, they cited “continuing deterioration of the security situation in northern Benin and “the ignorance and neglect of the situation of our brothers in arms who have fallen at the front” due to worsening jihadist violence.

A number of coups in nearby countries since 2020 have been preceded by rising levels of political violence and deepening insecurity born of jihadist insurgencies. That was certainly the case in Mali, Burkina Faso and to a lesser extent Niger.

Since last year, it has been clear that the jihadist violence was spilling over from Sahel neighbours such as Burkina Faso and Niger into the borderlands of west Africa. This included Benin’s north. ACLED data show a major increase in political violence events since 2022. And a spike in political fatalities in 2024:

Much of this increased violence is attributable to the advance of operations by the al-Qaida affiliated group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). The group also managed to launch its first fatal attack in Nigeria at the end of October.

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Read more: Nigeria’s new terror threat: JNIM is spreading but it’s not too late to act

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Russia has become the primary security partner for the Sahel Alliance. The defence pact was signed in 2023 by post-coup juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to defeat jihadists and maintain power.

Nevertheless, Benin has continued to rely on western security partners to aid its counter-insurgency efforts and bolster border security. Notably, Benin continues to welcome military cooperation with France. Since 2022 Paris has pledged greater military aid to combat terrorism.

In September, US Africa Command commander General Dagvin Anderson visited Benin to underscore cooperation to oppose terrorism.

During the coup attempt, Tigri reportedly warned against French intervention and railed against “imperialism”. The speech reportedly ended with the phrase “The Republic or Death”, which echoes the new motto of Burkina Faso’s junta.

This suggests that the coup makers may have been inspired by others in the Sahel.

Risk of the coup belt expanding

The Benin events mark the third coup attempt and first failed coup this year in the Sahel region. There have been 17 coup attempts in Africa since 2020, including 11 successful coups. This makes the African coup belt stretching across the Sahel and west Africa the global epicentre of coups.

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Read more: Africa’s power grabs are rising – the AU’s mixed response is making things worse

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West Africa’s latest “copycat” coup attempt was condemned by the African Union, European Union and Ecowas. Yet it was praised by pro-Russian social media accounts, reflecting a growing cleavage between the Russia-aligned juntas of the Sahel Alliance and the remaining Ecowas-aligned civilian regimes of west Africa.

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Read more: Coups in west Africa have five things in common: knowing what they are is key to defending democracy

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Although Nigeria-led Ecowas threatened military intervention after the coup in Niger in July 2023, the regional body only actually militarily intervened to defeat the coup attempt in Benin. Nigeria, it appears, has drawn a line in the sand to retain a buffer from further instability – including JNIM operations. On the same day of the coup attempt in Benin, it was reported that Nigeria was seeking greater aid from France to combat insecurity.

– Benin’s failed coup: three factors behind the takeover attempt
– https://theconversation.com/benins-failed-coup-three-factors-behind-the-takeover-attempt-271540

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Richard Fosu, Lecturer in International Relations, Monash University

Hardly a month goes by without news of another unconstitutional change of government on the African continent.

These can take one of three forms.

The first is a military coup d’état or violent change of (democratically) elected government. The second is the refusal of an incumbent government to relinquish power after losing an election. And finally, manipulating constitutions to win or extend term limits of an incumbent government.

We study peace and conflict in Africa, as well as African Union law. We set out these three categories in a paper we published in 2023. In it we analysed unconstitutional changes of government in Africa between 2001 and 2022.

We found that there had been 20 coup d’états, six instances of constitutional manipulation and four attempts by incumbents to hang onto power after losing elections.

These patterns have persisted since the publication of our study. The most recent was the military takeover in Guinea-Bissau in late November 2025.

With the persistence of unconstitutional changes of government, particularly what has been described as a coup resurgence in Africa, we analysed the African Union’s stance on these three forms of regime change.

The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Good Governance of 2007 prohibits unconstitutional changes of government. It prescribes sanctions to restore constitutional order when they occur.

We found that for the majority of coup d’états (17 out of 20 in our dataset), the AU was strict in enforcing the sanctions prescribed by the charter to restore constitutional order. However, its response to incumbents’ attempts to hang onto power after losing elections and constitutional manipulations to extend term limits has been mixed at best.

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Read more: Presidential term limits help protect democracy – long ones can be dangerous

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These findings led us to look at how the AU can strengthen continental democratic mechanisms to prevent the so-called African coup belt from widening further.

We conclude from our findings that the AU needs to do two things.

Firstly, avoid unconstitutional changes of government. The way to do it is to:

• foster a true democratic culture in African states

• set clear rules on matters such as constitutional changes that are often manipulated by incumbents to stay in power

• enforce these rules without fear or favour.

Secondly, the AU, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and other regional bodies must apply firm sanctions to civilian leaders who manipulate the law to stay in power, just as they do to military coup makers.

A history of coups

The euphoria that swept across Africa following independence from European colonial rule in the late 1950s and 1960s was short-lived.

Many African countries plunged into decades of political instability, socioeconomic crises and civil wars. One of the major factors that drove this period was the lack of strong systems of democratic participation and peaceful transfers of power.

With no meaningful space for inclusive political participation and peaceful transitions, military coups and countercoups, rebel movements and other violent means of ascending power became the norm.

Between 1956 and 2001, there were 80 successful coup d’états, 108 failed coup attempts and 139 coup plots in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Read more: Coups in west Africa have five things in common: knowing what they are is key to defending democracy

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In 2000, African leaders decided at a summit in Togo to adopt the Lomé Declaration. This condemned coup d’états and other unconstitutional changes of government. It was the first continental instrument to lay out a framework for a collective African response to unconstitutional changes of government.

This was followed by the 2007 African charter on democracy and the Malabo Protocol on an African criminal court in 2014.

These three instruments provide for various sanctions targeted at African states and individuals complicit in breaching democratic principles.

Despite these, several African states have still recorded transitions of power that are unconstitutional. And the AU’s response has been mixed.

The AU’s mixed response

These are some of the examples we identified.

In 2010, the AU supported an international effort to remove Laurent Gbagbo after he refused to hand over power after losing elections in Côte d’Ivoire.

Yahya Jammeh’s refusal to step down from power after losing elections in 2016 in The Gambia was also met with a stern response from the AU. It said it “will not recognise” Jammeh. Ecowas considered “removing him using mililtary force” if he refused to hand over power peacefully.

But there have been some notable failures to take action.

For instance, Ali Bongo’s flawed electoral win in Gabon in 2016 did not attract concrete action from the AU. Nor was any action taken over the delayed elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo under Joseph Kabila in 2018.

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Read more: Who do Africans trust most? Surveys show it’s not the state (more likely the army)

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The most glaring failure in building democratic principles in Africa has been the lack of sanctions from the AU when incumbents manipulate constitutions to extend term limits.

From Burundi to Côte d’Ivoire, through Togo to Zimbabwe, we found no evidence in our dataset where the AU has directly responded to instances of constitutional manipulations.

Yet, in recent history, constitutional manipulations have been the major precipitants of military interventions. Recent coups in Gabon, Guinea, Chad and Sudan were all preceded by constitutonal manipulation to extend or abolish term limits.

We found that when the democratic space shrinks and people feel they have no way to express dissent, the risk of popular uprisings increases. The military often seizes on these moments to intervene.

What needs to happen

The continental treaties on democracy and good governance require strict adherence to democratic principles and respect for the principles of democratic changes of government.

For them to be effective, the following steps need to be taken.

Firstly, democratic principles must be clearly defined. For instance, does amending a constitution to abolish presidential term limits to benefit an incumbent violate these principles? How about engineering the disqualification of opposition candidates through machinations like politically motivated prosecutions?

Secondly, clear rules must be established on matters like term limits.

Thirdly, the AU, Ecowas and other regional bodies must stop coddling pseudo-democrats whose conduct invites coups. They must stop supervising and endorsing sham elections that keep these leaders in power.

Finally, the AU can demonstrate its commitment to democracy and good governance by refusing to reward autocrats. This could mean not appointing autocrats to important bodies, such as the AU Peace and Security Council (which is charged with monitoring democracy and good governance on the continent), or awarding them chairmanship positions.

Dr Christopher Nyinevi, who works with the Ecowas Court of Justice in Abuja, Nigeria, is a co-author of this article.

– Africa’s power grabs are rising – the AU’s mixed response is making things worse
– https://theconversation.com/africas-power-grabs-are-rising-the-aus-mixed-response-is-making-things-worse-271137

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Saheed Babajide Owonikoko, Researcher, Centre for Peace and Security Studies, Modibbo Adama University of Technology

The killing of Nigeria’s Brigadier General Musa Uba, in mid-November 2025, by the Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP, risks boosting the morale of insurgents while demoralising Nigerian troops fighting insurgency.

The rank of brigadier general is one of the highest in the military. A brigadier general typically commands a brigade, which consists of approximately 4,000 troops. Uba was the commander of the 25 Task Force Brigade in Damboa local government area of Borno State.

The death of an officer of this rank isn’t unprecedented. But it is rare. Brigadier General Zirkushu Dzarma was killed in November 2021 with four other soldiers when ISWAP rammed a bomb-laden car into his official vehicle.

Uba’s case differs, however. He was captured – and then killed – during active engagement with the insurgents.

The circumstances around his capture and killing provide insights into two aspects of Nigeria’s security challenges. The first is that it tells us a great deal about technological adaptability of ISWAP. The second is that it highlights the weaknesses in Nigeria’s counter-terrorism efforts.

I am a scholar researching terrorism and counter-terrorism in the Lake Chad region and I have been studying ISWAP’s terror activities and Lake Chad countries’ response.

Based on this work I would argue that the capture and killing of Brigadier General Musa Uba shows two things. First, it points to ISWAP’s increased capability in rapid intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Secondly, it underscores poor coordination between Nigeria’s military authority and counter-terrorism units, as well as poor technological improvements despite increased defence spending.

Accounts of what happened

According to media reports, Brigadier General Uba led his troops, along with members of the Civilian Joint Task Force, on a routine patrol in the ISWAP-dominated area of Damboa on 14 November 2025. They encountered an ambush by ISWAP around Wajiroko village. Two soldiers and two civilian task force members were killed.

The brigadier general managed to leave the point of attack but became separated from the forces and found himself alone in ISWAP territory.

He began coordinating his rescue using WhatsApp on his personal phone. As his WhatsApp messages published in the local media revealed, he had agreed with the rescue team on what to do and how to proceed. A helicopter was reportedly deployed to locate and rescue him, but he could not be found.

Three days later, ISWAP said it had captured and killed him. In its media outlet, Amaq, it claimed that as soon as it had received intelligence about the brigadier general, it deployed a group of fighters to search for him.

A key question this raises is: how did ISWAP determine Uba’s location while the army rescue team couldn’t?

I think that technology might have aided ISWAP in quickly detecting his hideout. This is based on evidence that shows ISWAP’s growing use of technology to enhance its activities in recent years. For example, it’s now using drones for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and attacks. In 2022 it released video of military camps and vehicles it filmed using drones to spy on the Nigerian army and the Multinational Joint Task Force in Wajiroko.

How the military responded

News broke in the local media in the early hours of 16 November that the brigadier general leading the ambushed troop was missing. This suggested that ISWAP might have kidnapped him.

The military leadership in Abuja rebutted the news, explaining that the troops were able to fight back and force the terrorists to withdraw. They also debunked the news of the abduction of the brigadier general by ISWAP, saying he successfully led troops back to base.

ISWAP said it had captured him on the morning of 15 November. The Nigerian Army leadership released their rebuttal around 1pm the same day.

Either the military leaders were deliberately covering the truth, or they were not in close and reliable contact with their counter-terrorism units.

This raises questions about communication between the military authority and various units which leads to the issue of the battlefield communication between troops and military authority.

In contemporary warfare and counter-terrorism, troops ought to wear a Global Positioning System (GPS) device attached to their uniforms or equipment.

GPS is one component of the broader positioning, navigation and timing system, which constantly transmits the locations of troops. If something goes wrong, commanders or rescue teams can quickly see exactly where they are without waiting for calls or searching blindly.

This appears not to have been the case.

Between the evening of 14 November, when the troops were ambushed, and early in the morning of 15 November, when the brigadier general was captured, Nigerian military leadership could not evacuate him from the dangerous location despite the short distance of 88km between Maiduguri, the headquarters of Operation Hadin Kai, and Damboa.

The most likely explanation for this is that it didn’t have the necessary intelligence to do so.

This raises the question of whether Nigeria’s military has been investing enough in its technological capabilities. The country invests heavily in the military. In the 2025 budget, 6.57 trillion naira (US$4.5 billion) – about 12.45% of the total budget – was approved for security and defence. The question is whether this money is being spent in ways that equip the military to fight ever-more sophisticed insurgency groups.

With the gradual shift in terrorism and counter-terrorism towards a technology war, the Nigerian military authority must understand that investing in technological capabilities, including tracking technology, is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

– Terror threat in Nigeria: what the killing of a general tells us about the fight against ISWAP
– https://theconversation.com/terror-threat-in-nigeria-what-the-killing-of-a-general-tells-us-about-the-fight-against-iswap-270644

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Busani Ngcaweni, Director: Center for Public Policy and African Studies & Visiting Professor, China Foreign Affairs University, University of Johannesburg

In the ongoing quest to understand South Africa’s political and economic stagnation, it may be helpful to look at other postcolonial states that have travelled further along the path of independence. This may help clarify the stagnation question that citizens, politicians and economists are grappling with.

Much of the analysis of postcolonial Africa and Asia has identified poor leadership, authoritarianism and misguided economic policies as determinants of stagnation. These factors do matter. But they do not fully explain why some new independent states collapsed into dysfunction while others achieved growth. The deeper question is how institutions are built, sustained or destroyed.

South Africa’s stagnation is not the complete absence of growth or democracy, but the inability to convert political freedom and economic potential into sustainable and inclusive growth manifesting in quality of life for the majority.

The World Bank calls this an incomplete transition. In its 30 years of democracy review report, the South African Presidency concluded that the economy was performing below its full potential, unemployment was high, poverty levels were persistent in pockets of broader society and inequality levels were stubbornly high and racially biased.

As we read in the World Bank’s Africa’s Pulse report, these challenges continue to trouble most of the countries on the continent.

I have encountered this in my economic governance capacity building work in government and through my affiliations with local and Asian universities. There is common concern about deteriorating statecraft and the weakening of institutions.

In that connection, this essay is framed as a comparative reflection. It situates Pakistan alongside Ghana, Malaysia and Singapore, then turns to former Pakistani civil servant and now academic Ishrat Husain’s book, Governing the Ungovernable. It is a detailed case study of institutional decline.

A former governor of the central bank of Pakistan and long-time government advisor on public sector reform, Husain offers an authoritative framework against which we can understand the performance of other post-colonial states. I use this framework to mirror South Africa, showing how elite capture, institutional weakness and cycles of reversal explain its present stagnation.

I chose Pakistan because its story of “ungovernable” institutions is similar to that of South Africa, compared to Singapore, whose success story is determined by the performance of its institutions.

Ungovernabilty in Pakistan

Husain identified ungovernability as a key determinant of Pakistan’s stagnation. By ungovernability he does not mean complete disorder (although there is too much political instability in Pakistan). He uses the term to describe a state where institutions exist but fail.

Pakistan, he writes, developed

a well entrenched system in which political, bureaucratic, business and professional elites collaborate in extracting rents at the expense of the larger society (p. 41).

Every major crisis could be traced back to this governance deficit (p. 43). Need we add, in many post-colonial states in Africa and Asia, institutions are either still being formed or they do not exist.

Institutions that should deliver services instead serve rent-seeking. Tax authorities, utilities and the police used their discretion for private gain (pp. 70–72). Elites blocked reforms because they benefited from dysfunction. Even when reforms began, they were quickly undone.

Ungovernable thus means institutions exist in name but not in substance.

Husain identifies coalitions that benefit from weakness and resist reform.

• Political dynasties dominate parties without internal democracy, using legislatures as platforms for patronage (p. 134).

• The military intervened in 1958, 1977 and 1999, stunting civilian institutions (pp. 140–144).

• Bureaucrats exploited their powers for rent extraction (p. 155).

• Business and landed elites resisted taxation and defended subsidies (pp. 160–165).

• Law enforcement was crippled by bribery and political appointments:

Law and order is bound to suffer when police officials are appointed… rather than professional competence. (p. 172).

Together, these groups made Pakistan ungovernable in practice.

Husain points to several interlocking causes: the vacuum after the death of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s first governor-general (1947–48) (pp. 22–24), repeated military dominance (pp. 140–144), weak dynastic parties (p. 134), corruption across key sectors (pp. 70–80), cycles of reform and reversal (pp. 112–115), entrenched patronage networks (pp. 180–182), and a systemic governance deficit undermining taxation, energy, law and service delivery (pp. 200–210).

South Africa reflects these same patterns

South Africa’s political and economic stagnation can be defined as a prolonged period in which the state struggles to generate growth, reduce inequality and renew governance capacity, despite the presence of democratic institutions and economic potential. This challenges the theory of South African exceptionalism, as we witness the same trend of political and economic elites whose decisions result in the capture of institutions and the destruction of public value.

In South Africa, the role of economic and political elites is central to understanding institutional fragility. The Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture (2018–2022) revealed how networks of political leaders, senior bureaucrats and business elites colluded to systematically weaken public institutions for private gain.

State-owned enterprises such as Eskom, Transnet and South African Airways were targeted through corrupt procurement, inflated contracts and political patronage, undermining their ability to deliver services and support economic development. The commission showed that elite capture distorted the functioning of key accountability institutions including the National Prosecuting Authority and law enforcement agencies, which were compromised to shield powerful individuals from scrutiny.

These practices eroded public trust, drained fiscal resources and entrenched political stagnation. Testimonies from the ongoing commission led by retired judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga are echoing stories told at the Zondo Commission, and now, like in Pakistan, showing the “ungovernability” of the criminal justice system.

Like in Pakistan, the police and the National Prosecuting Authority are politicised and weakened. The army, once a regional force, has declined under shrinking budgets and skills shortages. Immigration is compromised by incoherent policy, corruption at the Home Affairs department and porous borders. Local government is the weakest link, condemned by poor leadership, incompetence and failing services.

Therefore, in the South African case, ungovernability or institutional weakness cannot be explained solely by colonial legacies or structural constraints, although they do matter because the apartheid regime was corrupt. Ungovernability has been actively produced and perpetuated by elites who hollowed out institutions designed to safeguard democracy and development. They became machines of rent-seeking instead of agents of national development. They subverted the will of the people for the will of the elites who undermine accountability.

As in Pakistan, the institutions exist but fail. They are captured by elites. Reforms begin but rarely last. Why?

The comparison is instructive. Ghana fell into coups. Malaysia survived but with uneven governance. Pakistan allowed patronage to corrode its foundations. South Africa shows the same symptoms: revenue shortfalls, energy collapse, transport paralysis, policing failures, weakened defence, porous borders and failing municipalities.

Singapore deliberately built strong institutions and prospered.

Some answers

Husain warns against “sweeping reforms that collapse at each election cycle” (p. 245). Instead, he calls for “selective, sequenced and incremental reforms that enjoy broad consensus” (p. 246). The implication for South Africa is clear.

Political settlements must be reset so that institutions serve citizens rather than factions. Core institutions must be restored: courts, revenue authorities, utilities, police and prosecutors. Coalitions must be built around national goals of security, growth and fairness (p. 252).

Comparative lessons are instructive. Singapore shows the rewards of disciplined governance, while Malaysia illustrates the limits of partial reform. Above all, renewal will take decades, as decay did (p. 260).

From Pakistan’s partition in 1947 to Ghana’s independence in 1957, from the separation of Malaysia and Singapore in 1965 to South Africa’s democratic transition in 1994, post-colonial states have combined early promise with the test of institution-building. Some passed, others faltered.

Husain’s book shows that ungovernability is not chaos but the hollowing out of institutions until they exist only on paper. South Africa mirrors this reality.

The case of Pakistan also defies the idea that cultural or religious homogeneity guarantees cohesion and growth. Despite greater uniformity than many of its neighbours, Pakistan has struggled to sustain unity and development. Cohesion and growth, as Husain’s analysis confirms, are not products of identity but of politics. They depend on the presence of a developmental elite able to mobilise all productive forces in society, on effective institutions that secure delivery and accountability, and on coalitions that bring legitimacy to the national project while managing contradictions. Without these, even homogeneous nations fragment.

For South Africa, the lesson is clear. The future will not be saved by appeals to “organisational renewal” that leading political parties speak about, cultural unity or new slogans about reforms. It will be built through the deliberate reconstruction of institutions, the cultivation of developmental leadership and the forging of coalitions that sustain legitimacy across political cycles. And it requires stronger instruments of accountability and consequence management.

Only through such long and patient work can the country move from being ungovernable in practice to governable in fact.

– South Africa and Pakistan: countries brought to their knees by elite capture and economic paralysis
– https://theconversation.com/south-africa-and-pakistan-countries-brought-to-their-knees-by-elite-capture-and-economic-paralysis-265427

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Thulani Ningi, Research associate, University of Fort Hare

South Africa faces serious water, energy and food problems. Drought, overuse and ageing infrastructure strain water supplies. Coal-fired electricity is not sustainable in the long term and causes high greenhouse gas emissions. Tens of millions of people can’t afford enough food because of rising prices. These crises are interconnected: water is needed to grow food and cool power plants; and energy is needed to pump and treat water and grow food. Problems in one area affect the others. Agricultural economists Thulani Ningi and Saul Ngarava and environmental law specialist Alois Mugadza were part of a team that researched uncoordinated funding and planning in food, water and energy. They explain what needs to change.

What are South Africa’s water, energy and food problems?

Water: Millions of South Africans still don’t have reliable access to clean water, proper toilets, or steady electricity.

The country has limited water sources, and has experienced changing climate (floods and drought).

Energy: The country suffered from regular power cuts between 2007 and 2024.

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Read more: Woman-headed households in rural South Africa need water, sanitation and energy to fight hunger – G20 could help

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A big part of the problem is that South Africa still depends heavily on coal for energy. The transition to green energy is slow and largely depends on individuals, businesses and families to buy solar systems. However renewables are now cheaper in many parts of the country.

Food insecurity: High levels of hunger, with about one in four families going to bed hungry, show how the system isn’t working well. About 23% of children in South Africa live in severe food poverty.

How are food, energy and water funded now?

Apart from receiving government funding, these sectors are funded by institutions like the World Bank, European Investment Bank and African Development Bank, as well as local institutions such as the Public Investment Corporation and Land Bank.

Our research found that funding decisions about water, energy and food are usually made separately.

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Read more: Africa needs to manage food, water and energy in a way that connects all three

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This makes it difficult to get funding for projects that could solve problems across all three areas at once. For example, using solar power to pump water for irrigating crops could help with energy, water and food needs all at the same time.

Our research found that one of the main funding problems is that the current financing model is highly centralised. Decisions are taken in national offices about local projects. Big institutions like the Public Investment Corporation and Land Bank dominate decision-making.

Communities are rarely consulted, even though they understand their own challenges in managing drought or securing food best. They’re also not chosen to lead projects.

In addition, international funding tends to go towards big infrastructure projects, rather than helping local communities get basic services like clean water and toilets.

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Read more: South Africa’s scarce water needs careful management — study finds smaller, local systems offer more benefits

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Another problem is that local municipalities sometimes lack the technical capacity, skilled personnel and financial management systems to deliver effectively. For example, a national plan to roll out solar-powered water pumps in small towns might not happen if the municipalities lack the ability to procure the pumps or maintain them.

Many municipalities are also mired in corruption and mismanagement, which undermines their ability to act on plans or use funds appropriately.

The current financing model slows down progress, wastes resources, and fails to build the resilience needed for a just transition, away from coal and towards renewable energy.

How should water, energy and food projects be funded?

Water, energy and food should be funded through financing hubs. These could pool funding from different sectors and sources specifically to support integrated projects.

Development finance institutions should also use blended finance, which means combining public and private money, to fund climate-friendly infrastructure. In practice, this works by using government or donor funds to reduce the risk for private investors. This makes solar energy, water systems, or sustainable farming projects more attractive to private investors.

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Read more: Development finance: how it works, where it goes, why it’s needed

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We also suggest that decentralised funding instruments be set up. These include:

• Provincial green funds – locally managed public funds that support environmentally friendly projects, like renewable energy or sustainable farming, within a specific province.

• Local water, energy and food financing trusts – these would fund projects that meet the needs of specific communities.

• Water, energy and food communities – there should be localised funding mechanisms allowing communities to self-finance and self-govern their own initiatives. Communities could come together and decide on projects, and finance these themselves. But a proper framework needs to be in place to prevent abuse of finance going to these initiatives.

• Community development finance institutions – locally rooted financial organisations that provide loans and support to underserved communities for projects like small businesses, housing and basic services.

Banks and government agencies should check how big projects affect all three – water, energy and food – before approving a project in one area. Departments should share information, work together on projects, and keep track of money openly. These steps make the system clearer, fairer and easier to understand.

What needs to happen to get there?

Finance institutions must change how they work. Development banks should require different government departments to set up teams that work across departments. This will ensure that food, water and energy projects are rolled out in a coordinated way.

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Read more: African development banks need scale, urgently. Here’s how it can be done

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Local communities should have a say in how money is used. This helps make sure funding matches both national plans and the needs of local people. Community-based organisations like stokvels, cooperatives and catchment partnerships should be explored and developed as alternative funding structures.

Finally, development finance institutions should prioritise pilot projects involving women, youth and smallholder farmers. These can highlight how local leadership drives sustainability and equity.

– South Africa’s water, energy and food crisis: why fixing one means fixing them all
– https://theconversation.com/south-africas-water-energy-and-food-crisis-why-fixing-one-means-fixing-them-all-267374

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Federico Donelli, Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Trieste

Djibouti’s president, Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, pushed through constitutional changes removing presidential age limits in October 2025. The changes enable him to remain in power beyond 2026. He has already ruled for 26 years and is a shoo-in at elections in April 2026. Guelleh leads a country on the Horn of Africa where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean – one of the world’s most strategically important locations. Federico Donelli, who has studied Djibouti’s political landscape, unpacks the dynamics that have kept him in power.

Who is Ismaïl Omar Guelleh and what is his governance style?

Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, commonly known as IOG, has been the president of Djibouti since 1999. He succeeded the country’s first president, Hassan Gouled Aptidon, whom he served as chief of staff for more than two decades.

Now aged 77, Guelleh is one of the longest-serving leaders in east Africa.

He belongs to the majority Issa-Somali ethnic group, which has monopolised power since the country gained independence from France in 1977. Djibouti’s population is largely composed of two main groups – the Issa-Somali and the Afar. This demographic mirrors the context in Afar regional state of neighbouring Ethiopia. It’s mirrored even more closely in the de facto state of Somaliland due to clan and family ties.

Consequently, political dynamics in Djibouti frequently intertwine with developments in these neighbouring states. This is particularly true when it comes to security, cross-border mobility and clan-based networks.

In theory, Djibouti is a presidential republic with a multiparty system. In practice, however, political authority remains highly centralised, leaving little room for genuine political competition.

The ruling Popular Rally for Progress (RPP) party dominates parliament, holding 45 of the 65 seats. The broader pro-presidential coalition, the Union for the Presidential Majority (UPM), controls 58 seats in total, consolidating the executive’s influence over the legislative arena.

Opposition coalitions such as the Union for Democratic Change (UAD) and the Union for Democratic Movements (UMD) face significant constraints. They have occasionally boycotted elections. There have been five presidential elections and five legislative elections since 1999.

International organisations frequently highlight restrictions on the media and public dissent, with the majority of outlets being state-controlled.

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Read more: Media freedom and democracy: Africans in four countries weigh up thorny questions about state control

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Guelleh also owes his longevity to a close-knit network of officials, family members and political allies who occupy key roles in government and business. The coalition around him is not always entirely harmonious. Subtle rivalries have emerged among political figures and members of his inner circle from time to time. But these dynamics do not pose a political threat.

What accounts for his longevity?

Guelleh’s tenure can be attributed to a combination of institutional changes, geopolitical factors and elite dynamics.

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Read more: From Algeria to Zimbabwe: how Africa’s autocratic elites cycle in and out of power

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One such element is constitutional reform. Over the years, Djibouti’s parliament has eroded key democratic safeguards of the 1992 constitution.

First came the removal of presidential term limits in 2010. These changes enabled Guelleh to stand for re-election and reduced presidential terms from six to five years.

The November 2025 parliamentary vote to abolish the presidential age limit followed this pattern. This eliminated the last formal restriction on his eligibility for office come April 2026.

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Read more: Africa faces a new threat to democracy: the ‘constitutional coup’

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A second factor is Djibouti’s strategic importance. Located at the entrance to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital shipping lane connecting the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, the country is home to several foreign military bases. Represented here are the US, France, China, Japan and Italy. For many international partners, the stability of the Djibouti government has been viewed as a source of predictability in a volatile region.

Consequently, there has been limited external pressure for political reform. In turn this has reinforced the stability of the current leadership.

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Read more: Global power shifts are playing out in the Red Sea region: why this is where the rules are changing

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Thirdly, the cohesion of the ruling elite has played a central role in domestic politics. A network of influential figures, including members of the president’s family, long-standing advisers, and economic figures, has formed around Guelleh’s leadership. This group controls key state institutions and sectors of the economy, providing strong incentives to maintain leadership continuity.

Djibouti’s economy relies primarily on port and logistics services, particularly its international port which serves regional trade, as well as on the revenues generated from hosting multiple foreign military bases.

At the same time, the absence of an openly designated successor has sparked quiet competition within this circle. The prospect of a post-Guelleh era has, in recent years, encouraged various individuals to seek to increase their influence. This has ranged from family members to senior advisers and political figures.

Emerging rivalries do not openly challenge the president’s authority. Nevertheless, they do illustrate the complex internal dynamics that underpin the current political order.

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Read more: Weaning African leaders off addiction to power is an ongoing struggle

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What has he achieved; what does he promise?

Over more than two decades in office, Guelleh has presided over a period of relative stability in Djibouti. While neighbouring Somalia and Ethiopia have experienced ongoing insecurity and internal conflict, Djibouti has remained comparatively insulated.

The government frequently cites this stability as one of the defining features of his tenure.

Djibouti has also developed its position as a strategic hub. The presence of multiple foreign military bases, alongside port and logistics facilities, has generated significant state revenue.

Since 2016, Chinese investment and management have increasingly shaped the country’s main port infrastructure, further integrating Djibouti into global commercial networks. These factors have raised the country’s profile in international trade and security arrangements.

In addition, Djibouti has played a part in regional diplomacy. It is an important member of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). This is the regional organisation mandated to address conflicts rooted in resources, political competition and identity. Djibouti’s most recent engagement includes participation in the attempts to mediate the conflict in Sudan.

The government has also highlighted certain institutional reforms as markers of progress. An example is the abolition of the death penalty in 2010.

However, structural challenges remain significant. Djibouti has a very young population. Issues such as unemployment, high living costs and limited political participation persist.

What does the age-limit vote tell us about Djibouti’s politics?

The decision was adopted without public debate and with no dissenting votes among the 65 lawmakers present. This reflects the extent to which the National Assembly aligns with the executive.

The vote also highlights the central role of elite consensus in Djibouti’s political system. Key figures within the ruling coalition, including representatives from the Issa and co-opted Afar elites, supported the reform. For these groups, maintaining leadership continuity is often seen as a means of preserving access to economic and political resources. This is preferred to uncertainties associated with a change in leadership.

Bypassing a popular vote on the constitutional provision limits the opportunity to see the true levels of support or opposition. This has the effect of particularly excluding younger citizens who have only ever known one president.

Overall, the vote shows that constitutional provisions can be modified when they hinder leadership continuity. This reinforces a model in which formal rules adapt to political needs rather than constrain them. It also highlights the importance of elite cohesion in maintaining the current political order.

As the 2026 presidential election approaches, the government’s dominant narrative remains one of continuity, supported by those who view stability as essential to protecting national and regional interests.

However, socio-economic pressures and underlying concerns about the inevitable succession continue to influence public expectations, particularly among younger citizens.

– Djibouti’s democracy takes another knock as ageing president engineers yet another term
– https://theconversation.com/djiboutis-democracy-takes-another-knock-as-ageing-president-engineers-yet-another-term-271009

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Onyedikachi Madueke, Teaching Assistant, University of Aberdeen

The terrorism conviction and life sentence handed down by the Federal High Court in Abuja on Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, brings an end to a ten-year legal battle. But it opens up a larger political and security question for Nigeria.

Kanu has long championed the secession of Nigeria’s south-east region, a demand the Nigerian constitution forbids. The last major attempt at secession, in 1967, triggered a 30-month civil war that killed over one million people, mostly Igbo civilians.

Kanu’s campaign for Biafra as an independent Igbo state is rooted in decades of perceived political marginalisation and unresolved historical grievances of the Igbo.

The Igbo are one of Nigeria’s three largest ethnic groups – the other two are the Hausa and the Yoruba. Yet no Igbo person has held the presidency or vice presidency since 1999.

Additionally, Igbos feel marginalised because of the way in which Nigeria has organised its regional political groups. The south-east geopolitical zone that the Igbo live in encompasses only five states. The Hausa and the Yoruba have geopolitical zones that are made up of at least six states each. This structural imbalance is widely seen to weaken the south-east region’s political influence and reduce its share of federal resources and representation.

Such perceived marginalisation is what has driven the Biafra separatist movement.

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Read more: What drives the Indigenous People of Biafra’s relentless efforts for secession

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In protest against Kanu’s arrest in 2021, armed groups linked to the movement have imposed and violently enforced “sit-at-home” orders. A report shows that between 2021 and 2025 over 770 lives, including civilians and security personnel, have died in the subsequent violence.

This has contributed to the region’s transformation from one of Nigeria’s most peaceful zones into a centre of insecurity.

As a scholar researching security and separatist conflicts in Nigeria, I argue that a court judgement cannot resolve the political, economic and psychological grievances that underpin the Biafra separatist sentiment in Nigeria.

The region’s demands extend beyond any single personality. They include calls for greater political inclusion, equitable federal representation, improved infrastructure, economic revitalisation, and a national reckoning with the legacy of the civil war.

Until these issues are addressed, the ideology of Biafra will continue to resonate.

In fact, Kanu’s life sentence is more likely to escalate than de-escalate the Biafra agitation, for three reasons. Firstly, by providing an opening for more extremist leaders to emerge. Secondly, by turning Kanu into a martyr for the Biafran cause; and lastly, by potentially opening the door to greater violence.

Leadership removal rarely ends insurgencies

The expectation that harsh punishment will end the Biafra agitation misunderstands how separatist or insurgent movements behave. Decades of global research show that removing a charismatic leader, whether through imprisonment, exile or execution, does not necessarily weaken a movement. In many cases, it produces the opposite effect.

Nigeria’s own history with Boko Haram is an example. After the group’s founder, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed extra-judicially in police custody in 2009, Boko Haram did not collapse. Instead, it radicalised under Abubakar Shekau, who adopted a more extreme ideology and militarised the group’s structure.

The same pattern can be seen elsewhere. Research by Jenna Jordan and Ulaş Erdoğdu shows that Islamic State (ISIS) survived multiple leadership losses. Other terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab, the Taliban and the PKK have all endured and adapted despite strikes to remove leaders.

These cases demonstrate that leadership removal often fragments the organisation, empowers hardline commanders and intensifies violence.

Kanu’s life sentence risks producing similar dynamics. The Indigenous People of Biafra has already splintered into factions, some captured by criminal networks.

A life sentence may remove the last figure capable of restraining extremist or opportunistic actors. Before Kanu’s arrest, his organisation had no major factions, and south-east political leaders engaged directly with him to calm tensions.

Kanu alleged that he had set out conditions for ending the agitation, which the Nigerian government did not honour. His imprisonment removed this central point of contact. Meaningful engagement by the Nigerian government could become more difficult.

In addition, when movements lose central authority, they tend to fracture into smaller, less accountable groups, each pursuing its own agenda.

Elevation to martyrdom

Kanu is not the first leader of the Biafra agitation. Before the Indigenous People of Biafra emerged, Ralph Uwazuruike’s Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, founded in 1999, had mobilised thousands using largely non-violent methods. In 2010, the Biafra Zionist Front was formed by Benjamin Onwuka.

The sentiment that fuels these movements has persisted for more than five decades. Leaders emerge, are repressed, and are replaced by new voices.

What Kanu’s sentencing may do, especially if he dies in prison, is to elevate him to the status of martyr, a symbolic role far more powerful than that of an active leader. Martyrdom transforms political grievances into moral ones. When a community perceives a leader as unjustly punished, that figure becomes a rallying point for collective identity and resistance.

For example, the Niger Delta environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was extrajudicially executed by Nigeria’s military junta in 1995, and became a lasting symbol of regional marginalisation and injustice.

Many political stakeholders in the south-east now perceive Kanu’s sentencing as unjust, reinforcing existing grievances.

The ruling may worsen insecurity

The south-east is already experiencing its worst instability in decades. Armed groups, some ideological, others purely criminal, have used the emotive appeal of Biafra to justify assassinations, kidnappings, extortion and attacks on state institutions.

Kanu’s sentencing could intensify these trends.

Factions seeking to avenge him may escalate attacks on security forces or political figures.

Splinter groups may interpret the verdict as proof that peaceful agitation is futile.

Confusion surrounding Kanu’s future may weaken the few actors still capable of influencing extremists.

Criminals will likely expand operations under the guise of political resistance.

Pathways towards de-escalation

The conclusion of Kanu’s trial should have opened a window for political reflection. Instead, it risks deepening the mistrust between the south-east region and federal authorities.

Nigeria must consider three steps.

First, federal authorities should open structured political dialogue with south-east stakeholders.

Second, the government should develop a plan for the region that combines security and development. Development, not coercion, weakens separatist sentiment.

Third, Nigeria must confront the trauma of the civil war through a national truth-telling and reconciliation process. Without acknowledging past injustices, nation-building remains impossible.

– Nigeria has jailed Biafra separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu: why it risks backfiring
– https://theconversation.com/nigeria-has-jailed-biafra-separatist-leader-nnamdi-kanu-why-it-risks-backfiring-270643

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria

Ismail Mohamed-Jan – better known by South African jazz fans as Pops Mohamed – has passed away at the age of 75. His life in music represented a struggle against narrow, oppressive definitions – of race, instrumental appropriateness and musical genre.

A few days before his death, a remastered version of his 2006 album Kalamazoo, Vol. 5 (A Dedication to Sipho Gumede) had been released on digital platforms ahead of an official launch.

Mohamed was born on 10 December 1949 in the working-class gold-mining town of Benoni in South Africa. By his mid-teens, the Group Areas Act – which divided urban areas into racially segregated zones during apartheid – had forced his family to move to Reiger Park (then called Stertonville).

The suburb was allocated to residents of mixed heritage: Mohamed’s father had Indian and Portuguese ancestry; his mother, Xhosa and Khoisan forebears.

Influences

Significantly for his musical development, Reiger Park was a stone’s throw from the Black residential area of Vosloorus and the remnants of the historic informal settlement of Kalamazoo, where people of all racial classifications had lived side by side. He told me in a radio interview about travelling in the area with his father:

I used to witness migrant workers from the East Rand Property Mines coming with traditional instruments to the shebeens (taverns) and playing their mbiras (thumb pianos) and their mouth bows … and at the same time you’d have jazz musicians playing Count Basie stuff on an old out-of-tune piano … and these traditional guys would be joining in, jamming on their instruments.

At home, Mohamed’s family played music from LM Radio – which defied apartheid by broadcasting from Mozambique – and Springbok Radio – the first commercial station in South Africa, owned by the state (“I got attracted to Cliff Richard and the Shadows”).

As he became more interested in music, but still at high school, he’d take trips to central Johannesburg, to Dorkay House and the Bantu Men’s Social Centre, both famous as cultural centres for Black artists and thinkers. There he found his first guitar teacher, whose name he remembered as Gilbert Strauss. He heard legends like saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi rehearsing.

His first teenage band was Les Valiants (The Valiants). And by the early 1970s he was with The Dynamics, influenced by the assertive Soweto Soul sound of groups such as The Cannibals and The Beaters (later Harari).

Partly to pay school fees and partly out of a sense of adventure, those teenage bands sometimes played in white clubs, enduring the bureaucracy of special permits and sometimes playing behind a curtain while white men mimed out front. Apartheid laws prohibited venues from allowing racial mixing.

Something musically very interesting, he suggested, was emerging at that time from “how we copied the Americans and couldn’t get it quite right”. He was teaching himself to play a Yamaha keyboard with a ‘disco’ pre-set, falling in love with the sounds of Timmy Thomas and Marvin Gaye. “But then I was also influenced by Kippie Moeketsi and those melodies”.

Challenging boundaries

Introduced by As-Shams label founder Rashid Vally to reedman Basil Manenberg Coetzee, and together with an old Dorkay House friend, bassist Sipho Gumede, that eclectic mix went down on record as the first album by the band Black Disco, which produced the popular hit Dark Clouds.

Mohamed wasn’t yet confident to call himself a jazzman, but:

Sipho and Basil told me: just play what your heart is telling you. They were my mentors.

The success of Dark Clouds led to a second album, this time with drummer Peter Morake, called Black Discovery/Night Express – until the officious white minority apartheid censors blue-pencilled the first two words.

And after that the Black Disco band, with shifting personnel, was very much in demand at more upmarket clubs in the coloured townships.

Already the music was challenging boundaries:

We were bridging between a Jo’burg and a Cape Town feel – but still keeping the funk alive … But it was always very important for us not to stay inside the classification.

He explained:

The regime divided us – people classified coloured (mixed race) had identity documents; Black people had the dompas (pass book). We didn’t accept that separation. Black Disco was our way of saying: we are with you.

With work precarious and earnings uncertain, Mohamed played across genres and in multiple bands. Playing pop covers with his band Children’s Society did not satisfy him, but it provided some income. And he scored an even more substantial hit with them in 1975 with the original song I’m A Married Man.

It had been Black Disco that established the politics of his music. And in the shadow of the anti-apartheid 1976 Soweto uprising, with drummer Monty Weber, he established the project Movement in the City – a name he said was code for fighting the system.

Traditional sounds

He began exploring traditional instruments too, fearing that this heritage would be taken away.

So he mastered various mouth-bows and whistles, berimbau, didgeridoo, a range of percussion and the Senegambian kora, a stringed instrument with a long neck. On the kora, his style was unique, combining West African motifs, South African idioms and his personal, plaintive, tuneful melodies. It became his favourite instrument, “telling me more about what’s happening in myself … about who I am”.

Mohamed had a prolific and diverse recording career from that time on, producing more than 20 albums. Five of them, titled Kalamazoo, revisited Khoisan and African jazz tunes. He established a close relationship with individual Indigenous Khoisan musicians, healers and their communities, taking frequent trips to visit and play music with them in the Kalahari Desert.

With former Earth Wind and Fire trumpeter Bruce Cassidy he recorded the duo set Timeless. He also toured Europe with the London Sound Collective and voice artist Zena Edwards. Sampling, he said to me, was “a nice way of educating young people about traditional sounds”.

He established a partnership with steelpan player and multi-instrumentalist Dave Reynolds: “We’re both committed to a South African musical identity,” Reynolds says, “and we both play instruments that we weren’t born to – Trinidadian pans and Senegambian kora – but were rather called to.”

In late 2021, Mohamed was hospitalised, and his convalescence left him struggling to work for a period. He continued working. His most recent release, Kalamazoo 5, used digital remastering to extend the sound palette of earlier work.

It showed how, never content to stay within anybody else’s boxes, he held on to his mission of “taking the old and mixing it with the new. We’re not destroying the music: we’re giving it a way to live on.” Through his recordings, it will.

– Pops Mohamed mixed old and new to reinvent South African music
– https://theconversation.com/pops-mohamed-mixed-old-and-new-to-reinvent-south-african-music-175710

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Judith Coullie, Senior Research Associate, English Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal

South African liberation leader Albert Luthuli died on 21 July 1967 near his home in Groutville, in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. A government inquest concluded his death was an accident – that he was hit by a train. This was always disputed by his family and almost 60 years later they were vindicated.

In 2025, a court ruled that Luthuli was murdered, his death the result of “assault by members of the security special branch of the South African police”. The ruling corrects long-standing historical records. It adds Luthuli’s murder to the catalogue of torture and assassination that the apartheid government increasingly relied on to suppress dissent.

Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli was born around 1898. He was an educator, Zulu chief, and religious leader. Africa’s first Nobel Peace Prize winner was also president-general of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1952 until his death at 69.

The ANC resisted white minority rule in South Africa and Luthuli was active in the organisation’s defiance campaign. He became head of the ANC in 1952, four years after apartheid was formalised.

In the last decades of his life, Luthuli was silenced and persecuted. Once democracy was achieved in 1994, honours were heaped on him – his image is the watermark on South African passports.

Still, Luthuli is largely overshadowed by fellow Peace Prize winners Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. And while over 14 million copies of Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, have been sold, Luthuli’s account of his own life, Let My People Go, is comparatively little known.

Much of my research on life writing has focused on autobiography published during apartheid, including analysis of Let My People Go.

It’s a book that deserves to be more widely read. It defies expectations that the autobiographer will offer a candidly personal account of self and life.

Luthuli’s autobiography mostly focuses on the struggle for justice. It depicts a steadfastly moral man whose fight against racist oppression inspired activists within and beyond South Africa, and should still.

Who was Albert Luthuli?

Let My People Go offers a brief sketch of Luthuli’s ancestors and early life. His grandparents were Zulu Christian converts. He was born, he calculated, “in the year 1898, and certainly before 1900” near Bulawayo, in today’s Zimbabwe. He was not born in his ancestral home, Groutville, because his father had left to serve in the Second Matabele War. After the conflict, his parents stayed on at a Seventh Day Adventist mission station.

His father died when Luthuli was a baby. At about 10, he was sent back to Groutville for his schooling. Qualifying as a teacher, he became principal of a small school. A government bursary allowed him to study further at Adams College, where he performed exceptionally well and was invited to join the staff and rose up the ranks. He met Nokukhanya Bhengu there and they married in 1927.

Luthuli loved teaching. However, in 1935, after prolonged urging from tribal elders, he and Nokukhanya decided he was duty-bound to accept nomination as chief of the Umvoti Mission Reserve.

For 17 years, he dedicated himself to improving the lot of the people of Groutville and providing principled leadership in confronting the injustices of racism. He took the “revolutionary step of admitting women” to local meetings. He organised African sugar farmers and held a seat on the Native Representatives Council. In 1938, he was a member of the executive of the Christian Council of South Africa.

In the years that followed he would remain deeply involved in Christian and civic organisations. In 1945 he was elected onto the executive of the ANC’s provincial branch, becoming president of it in 1951 and, in 1952, of the whole organisation.

Overseas travel widened Luthuli’s perspective, whether it was a missionary conference in India (1938) or a nine month church-sponsored lecture tour of the US (1948).

His autobiography recounts in detail his religious, civic and political involvement, weaving in a narrative of increasingly draconian and devastating apartheid policies.

Writing painstakingly and usually without emotion – though disgust and horror sometimes break through – he challenges the “twisted, distorted” versions of history promoted by the regime. He offers meticulous evidence of the irrationality and immorality of racism.

Banned

From 1953, repeated banning orders prevented Luthuli from leaving his home or publishing or distributing any written material. In 1956 he was arrested on a charge of high treason. (Discharged in 1957, he was acquitted in 1961.)

Despite this, Luthuli carried on with his autobiography, dictating his story to his friends Rev Charles Hooper and his wife Sheila Hooper. They compiled the draft which Luthuli then edited.

It was a foregone conclusion that Let My People Go would be banned and Luthuli knew it was unlikely to enlighten apartheid rulers:

There is not really even a common language in which to discuss our agonising problems. (They) cannot speak to Africans except in the restricted language of Baasskap.

The term refers to whites being boss, and anyone classified as non-white adopting a position of subservience.

Nonetheless, the narrator insists that:

If the whites are ignorant of the realities, the fault does not lie with us.

Autobiography of a selfless self

Readers of autobiography tend to look for insight into the author’s personal life, but Luthuli’s gives greater weight to political-historical analysis.

In the book, he repeatedly denies his own importance, reminding readers that much of what he experienced was shared by other oppressed South Africans. This is key to the depiction of his character in the book.

He only briefly mentions his family. He and Nokukhanya have seven children, but he doesn’t share their names and draws a “veil” over any details about their marriage.

Nokukhanya, he writes, “ungrudgingly” assumed full responsibility for their home and smallholding so that he could focus on his public duties. At Adams College, for example, he was also a choirmaster, soccer team administrator and Zulu cultural organiser, and served on an association for African teachers.

Under his leadership, the ANC became a mass organisation. Luthuli had to travel the country in support of the defiance campaign:

I quite literally neglect my family and feel extremely guilty about it.

Luthuli’s reserve is reinforced by his use of the passive voice. For instance, he describes being urged to take leadership roles, rather than seeking these himself.

Nonetheless, even in these apparent self-deflections, Luthuli’s character emerges: his centre of gravity does not lie in the domestic sphere but in service to the community. He is driven by his “desire to serve God and neighbour”.

By refusing the “self-assertion and self-display” that is typical of autobiography, Let My People Go portrays a selfless self.

The humility of a man who cannot be humiliated

Luthuli’s story depicts a humble man who refuses to yield, despite growing persecution. Or, as Charles Hooper observes in the introduction, the “humility of a man who cannot be humiliated”. Luthuli expresses gratitude when outrage might seem more reasonable. He describes his prison cell, when he was ill and isolated, as a prayerful “sanctuary”.

Accounts of casual racism, police harassment and brutal assault are harrowing. Hard to read, too, is Luthuli’s self-recrimination. He reproaches himself for “having contributed too little” to the political struggle.

This reserve doesn’t obscure his character, it illuminates it. He emerges as a thoughtful, humble man committed to non-racism, non-violence and justice who even tries to understand Afrikaners’ fears of “being swamped”.

Farsighted, he predicted the rise of “terrorism (and) legalised murder by army and police forces”. Yet he retained faith that “the outcome of the struggle” would be justice for all.

After his release from prison, Luthuli, still banned, lived in isolation in Groutville. He was murdered before the banning order expired.

– Who was Albert Luthuli? The murdered South African leader who put his people above himself
– https://theconversation.com/who-was-albert-luthuli-the-murdered-south-african-leader-who-put-his-people-above-himself-269729