France returns sacred talking drum looted from Côte d’Ivoire over 100 years ago Djidji Ayôkwé was handed to Ivorian officials in Paris earlier this month

This morning in Abidjan, the Djidji Ayôkwé, a 430-kg talking drum confiscated in 1916 and taken to Paris by French administrators after locals resisted forced labour on a road, returned home.

The restitution and reparations movement gets another win. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

No Country for Young People: Notes From Ten Days in Eritrea, The Beautiful Prison Everything you've heard about Eritrea is probably true. But it is more than the sum of your thoughts, both negative and positive.

No Country for Young People: Notes From Ten Days in Eritrea, The Beautiful Prison
Everything you've heard about Eritrea is probably true. But it is more than the sum of your thoughts, both negative and positive.
@eromoegbejule.bsky.social
24hoursearlier.substack.com/p/no-country...

No Country for Young People: Notes From Ten Days in Eritrea, The Beautiful Prison Everything you've heard about Eritrea is probably true. But it is more than the sum of your thoughts, both negative and positive.

No country for young people. @eromoegbejule.bsky.social on ten days in Eritrea: open.substack.com/pub/24hourse...

‘Ignoring minorities is our original sin’: the complex roots of Nigeria’s security crisis Criminal exploitation, economic opportunism and religious persecution are all factors in a broader picture of insecurity

If you want to know what's really going on in Nigeria, where Trump & Nicki Minaj claim there's a "Christian genocide", read The Long Wave newsletter with @eromoegbejule.bsky.social.

"There’s never enough data, no one even truly knows the true size of the economy, it’s just inshallah and vibes."

Tensions mount as Alassane Ouattara seeks fourth term in Ivory Coast vote Protests have been banned and opposition figures sidelined as 83-year-old president ignores calls to step down

“It’s like an episode of 24. You know Jack Bauer will win but you don’t know what happens before then.”

Deja vu for Cote d'Ivoire, as Alassane Ouattara seeks a fourth term as president while cracking down on opposition and protests. Great @eromoegbejule.bsky.social report

‘We all need someone’: the hairdressers tackling stigma of mental health issues in west Africa In Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Togo, where therapy services are almost absent, some stylists are being trained to listen, comfort and guide

Across Black communities, hairdressers have become a safe space, especially in communities with little / no access to mental health care - or quality healthcare in general.

Fascinating piece by @eromoegbejule.bsky.social for the @theguardian.com on community-led therapy <3

buff.ly/MX3Rylz

Los nominados para el premio Impacto @josebautista.bsky.social, @andreipopoviciu.bsky.social y el editor @eromoegbejule.bsky.social estarán en el Congreso de Mérida presentando sus trabajos 👏👏👏

Investigación en Al Jazeera 👉 www.aljazeera.com/features/202...

‘A gift from heaven’: the TikTok traders of Mauritania’s meteorites Growing desertification is putting traditional livelihoods at risk in western Africa and encouraging the search for rare stones

Super cool piece by @eromoegbejule.bsky.social, and Mauritanian colleagues, from Mauritania's far north about the growing desert trade in meteorites

The world’s oldest president is running again: can anyone stop him from winning? Paul Biya, 92, has ruled Cameroon since the early 1980s. Unseating him in October’s election will not be easy

92-year-old Paul Biya is running for another 7-year term as president of Cameroon (with much of it likely to be spent in Switzerland if he stays alive).

@eromoegbejule.bsky.social reports from Douala and Yaounde

The world’s oldest president is running again: can anyone stop him from winning? Paul Biya, 92, has ruled Cameroon since the early 1980s. Unseating him in October’s election will not be easy

Our latest dispatch from the streets of Douala and Yaoundé ahead of this October's election, on the curious case of Paul Biya, 92, who one person said seems "set to hold on to the record of being the world's oldest president, or die trying."

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Rwanda and Russia look to lock in influence as CAR’ president eyes another term Kigali and Moscow expected to back re-election of Faustin-Archange Touadéra as they seek to shield strategic interests

Central African Republic’s President Touadéra is expected to run for a controversial 3rd term this year.

The opposition & some in the ruling elite are concerned that Russia & Rwanda, both competing for influence there, will entrench their interests if he wins.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

‘Kush destroys them’: the Guinean rehab clinic tackling a drug epidemic Experts say a crisis is under way in Guinea, fuelled by a growing market run by cross-border trafficking syndicates

‘Kush destroys them’ -- The Guinean #rehab clinic tackling a drug epidemic. Growing use of kush -- a deadly mix of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and reportedly human bones -- is a national emergency, by @eromoegbejule.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a... via @theguardian.com

A Nigerian senator accuses the senate president of sexual harassment, but SHE ends up on a six-month suspension. Insane story from the circus that is Nigerian politics. Story by @eromoegbejule.bsky.social

.@NatashaAkpoti told @guardian: "This was orchestrated to silence my voice. That action is an assault on democracy … I am not apologising for speaking my truth.”

Here’s our story on the roots of the ongoing row in Nigeria’s senate.

‘Each of us is afraid’: Guinea’s junta leader tightens grip as opposition lies low Mamady Doumbouya has led the country since a 2021 coup. Some fear he has no intention of relinquishing power

Update from Conakry.

By @eromoegbejule.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

Restore, destroy or leave to rot? Battle lines drawn over west Africa’s architectural heritage Uncompleted or abandoned buildings are a regular feature of the landscape. Now calls for restorations are increasing

Restore, destroy or leave to rot? Battle lines drawn over west Africa’s architectural heritage

@eromoegbejule.bsky.social for @theguardian.com

Why foreign correspondents are alarmed and dismayed at plans to sell the Observer | Letter Current and former contributors to the international pages of the Guardian and Observer respond to an article by Ole Jacob Sunde, chair of the Scott Trust With regard to Ole Jacob Sunde’s article (We want what’s best for the Observer – and the Guardian.…

Why foreign correspondents are alarmed and dismayed at plans to sell the Observer | Letter

Nigeria acquires 12 pre-owned alpha jets from French Air Force Nigeria has procured 12 pre-owned alpha jets from the French air force.

Ça commence…

*Nigeria acquires 12 pre-owned alpha jets from French Air Force*

www.thecable.ng/nigeria-acqu...

What’s Next for Google’s Search Monopoly The federal judge who ruled Google was a monopolist in search is weighing the U.S. government’s proposal to force the company to sell its Chrome browser. Here’s what happens now.

The U.S. government asked a federal judge last month to force Google to sell Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser. Here’s what happens next and how the ruling could potentially reshape the internet.

Joe Biden addresses America’s ‘original sin’ of slavery on Angola visit US president remembers ‘stolen men and women and children brought to our shores’ and lauds American investment in country

"Our nation's original sin."

My story on Biden's speech on slavery and the rest of his visit to Angola so far

In other news, Ghana is going to the polls this weekend, after a pretty disastrous second half of President Nana Akufo-Addo's term in office - economic crisis, currency crash, debt default 👇

Economic hardship looms over Ghana as country readies for polls Election is being contested between vice-president Mahamudu Bawumia and former president John Mahama, under whom corruption ballooned

Ahead of Ghana’s presidential election this weekend, we took a look at the legacy of outgoing president Nana Akufo-Addo who many say did decently in the first half but steered his country into hardship in the second half.

www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...

City on the way down, United on the way up. As it should be.

What a script life is sometimes.

The French Republican Guard chooses a song like Chop My Money (by brothers who couldn’t stay together) to perform as Macron lays out the red carpet for Tinubu on the same day Chad announces the end of its military partnership with France.

Chad terminates its defense agreement with France.

Football Daily | Tottenham are on a high again but will they end the wild form swings? Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! Previously described as “schoolyard stuff, mate” by Ange Postecoglou, the first recorded use of the term ‘Spursy’ is unknown but is believed to date back approximately 11 years. The dictionary – well,…

Football Daily | Tottenham are on a high again but will they end the wild form swings?

Polluted rivers, uprooted farmland and lost taxes: Ghana counts cost of illegal gold mining boom Estimated $2bn lost in missed taxes from environmentally destructive practice some blame on political corruption

Sobering reporting by @eromoegbejule.bsky.social on just how widespread illegal galamsey gold mining is across Ghana and the extent of the environmental & agricultural destruction
www.theguardian.com/world/2024/n...

Gold & the goddess: How mining polluted Nigeria’s sacred Osun river A river used by millions of Nigerians and running through a sacred site for Black people worldwide is heavily polluted.

It reminds me of gold polluting the Osun River which serves multiple states in Nigeria and millions of adherents of a religion across the Black Diaspora.

I wrote about that two years ago. aje.io/pela7o

Polluted rivers, uprooted farmland and lost taxes: Ghana counts cost of illegal gold mining boom Estimated $2bn lost in missed taxes from environmentally destructive practice some blame on political corruption

The government has been accused of not doing enough.

“The firefighters are themselves the arsonists,” said Awula Serwah,Accra-based coordinator of Eco-Conscious Citizens, an environmental nonprofit. “Some of this galamsey money is used for [funding] elections.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2024/n...

One town, Wassa Akropong, has been nicknamed ‘Chinatown’ because of the influx of Chinese nationals. There were changfan (a popular prospecting machine) warehouses, casinos, restaurants and even a China Mall, all less than 1km from the town’s police station.