aKoma Hot Mix Week #29

1. Our Girls Are Still Not Back

(aKoma, CNN, All Africa)

Two years…three sixty five times two days ago. Two hundred and seventy six young Nigerian women abducted by terrorists, two hundred and nineteen still missing. It is unfathomable that a country would allow this travesty to go this long, causing unbelievable heartache to the families of the Chibok girls. You think Obama wouldn’t unleash Seal Team Six the day after if these were US citizens? Putin would probably lead the Russian special forces himself if these were Russian abductees. Our girls are not back, and that is unacceptable.

— nb:// aKoma on Medium has a couple of our writers featured on Medium’s #BringBackOurGirls section. Ezinne Ukoha laments that “Nigeria Never Brought Back The Missing Girls”. Our reliable Dolapo Aina does a powerful two year retrospective on the abductions.

— nb:// In the morning of June 28, 2014, two hundred and forty three Africans boarded a boat in Libya, human cargo crammed together, desperate to reach Europe. They were never seen again. The Ghost Boat is a severely undertold mystery that has many working to solve it.

2. Insane in the Oil Membrane

(Ventures Africa)

Someone smart said, “Insanity is knowing that what you’re doing is completely idiotic, but still…somehow, you just can’t stop it”. In one of the world’s top producers of oil, people are losing their minds as a sustained scarcity of fuel has Nigerians spending hours of their time, barrels of sweat and blood, and gallons of patience looking for a reprieve. Ventures Africa paints a vivid picture of the current ridiculousness, makes you ponder how Nigeria’s resource curse has driven the country insane.

3. To Get a Visa To Travel Africa, You Must Marry Me

(aKoma)

Selam Kebede in aKoma that traveling Africa with an Ethiopian passport packs more twists and turns than an over-wrought Nollywood movie. This is a funny, hard hitting and poignant tale as Kebede tries to get visas to all the countries that she needs to drop in on for her gig doing startup ecosystem stuff. With experiences like this — “On the other embassy, the guy at the desk went ahead kind of proposed. He said he is looking for a wife and I might just be her”, we promise this is a must read.

4. Rwanda Rising

(New Times Rwanda)

Former US President, Bill Clinton, has been catching some heat this week as there are discussions on how he handled the genocide in Rwanda. However, we are not interested in hashing out the Western world’s guilty conscience regarding their actions. What we want to do is celebrate the resilience and incredible rise of Rwanda and its people. The sustained rise in the tech, financial, infrastructure and social ecosystems in Rwanda is one of the best stories to be told.

5. Speaking in African Tongues

(Africa Is A Country)

We wanted to spotlight the landmark Ngugi Wa Thiong’o short story The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright, written in Kenya’s Kikuyu language and now translated in 30 African languages. It’s not the story really, it is the fact that this is the most translated African tongue written story ever. That’s amazing, as a huge majority of African writing has been in English or French, then translated to African languages. Mukoma Wa Ngugi breaks it down nicely, arguing that more native tongue stories should be produced.

6. Burning Down the House Help

(Premium Times Nigeria)

*Personal note from Chidi* — This is one of those stories that shook me up, yet didn’t surprise me. A pregnant woman pours hot water on her house help’s chest because she was still sleeping past her wake up time. The wickedness on display here is only surpassed by the regularity in the brutality that house helps endure from their masters and mistresses. I am writing this personally, because having house help is not a crime. Or even elitist. It is how you treat your fellow human beings, regardless of their status that defines you. SMDH.

— nb:// Then we have the thousands of African women who are serving as maids in the Middle East. All Africa recounts the story of a missing Ugandan maid in Saudi Arabia.

7. The Corporates Are Here. And It’s Not Pretty

(Foreign Policy)

“When you think of the worst abuses in poor countries — land grabs, sweatshops, cash-filled envelopes passed to politicians…These days, the worst multinational corporations have names you’ve never heard. They come from places like China and South Africa and Russia. The countries where they are headquartered are unable to regulate them, and the countries where they operate are unwilling to.”

We’re not knocking multinationals or corporate orgs. We’re knocking the ones that are exploiting the rural people of Africa, as the folks at Foreign Policy have captured in this story about multinational shenanigans in Zimbabwe.

8. Jump on the Google Train

(Bloomberg)

So Google is on a warpath to train a million Africans a year, to boost their job opportunities and tackle high unemployment. Of course, we ask why…with our eyebrows arched quizzically. Google, what are you up to here, eh? You’re just going to train one million people for free? For what? We have questions, Google, and we are not asking your search engine for answers.

9. Technuzu

(Harvard Business Review)

The Harvard Business Review gives us a view into some innovative tech startups in Africa doing awesome work. And they have awesome names too. OkHi is a buyer locating service that goes after the lack of formal addresses for deliveries. African Courier Express provides logistics for ecommerce. We’ve highlighed Andela and Jumia in prior newlsetters, Asoko Insight provides a platform for investors to identify investable private companies in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. A good and encouraging read.

10. Charting the Craziness That Is The African Parent

(Buzzfeed)

Ah yes, the eponymous and bombastic African parent. We hesitate to paint the entire parenting segment of the continent with one brush, however most of us can relate to these fifteen highly researched and validated parent interactions that Buzzfeed has outlined in their piece. The scary part is that many of will recognize ourselves as the parents described in this top academic display of brain power re Africans and their crazy parents.

— nb:// Another great story from National Geographic tracing the lineage of the twelve million Africans who came into the New World as slaves, back to their homelands. Important story, one that is not told enough on the continent.

11. Now We’ve Been Bamboozled

(How We Made It In Africa)

Did you know that there is bamboo growing in Africa? As in…for as long as ever? We did not know (or were just plain oblivious), we thought it was all China when it came to bamboo, and now we are quite fascinated with the sudden resurgence of “green gold” as an untapped but high potential export for the continent. This is real, folks…so far 18 African countries with natural bamboo are gearing up to start commercializing bamboo. Who knew?

aKoma #FollowFriday

Twitter: Chinwe Madubuike is a force to be reckoned with. She’s not only a broadcaster and development specialist, she’s a major player in the #BringBackOurGirls movement in Nigeria. Follow for updates on BBG and other Nigerian news.

Instagram: This week, we have to give a shout out to our photographer friend Chris Schwagga. His stunning black and white portrait has been the backdrop for much of our #HotMix promotional art. Check out his account for amazing portraits and landscapes.

Rhinos and Elephants are still being poached for their ivory. Videos like these from Asher Jay show why they are #WorthMoreAlive. We will be covering this issue over the next few weeks in anticipation for a massive Ivory Burning in Kenya later this month.

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