Limitless Africa

We wanted to re-release this episode as the question of term limits is ever contentious. Yoweri Museveni has run Uganda since 1986. Paul Biya has been president in Cameroon for nearly forty years. Paul Kagame could rule Rwanda till 2034 because many Rwandans voted for and continue to vote for him.Should we force presidents to leave office? We invited three guests on the podcast to help figure it out.Evan Lieberman is a Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.Kah Walla is a Cameroonian politician and entrepreneur and the first woman to stand for president in Cameroon in 2011.Pearl Pillay from Johannesburg, South Africa, heads up a think tank that works to encourage youth participation in politics and civil society.

The ‘family’ and ‘tribe’ are a traditional way of organising African societies. But they can also be a source of conflict. Unscrupulous leaders can stoke tensions or focus resources on certain groups.In this week’s episode, Claude asks three guests from south, east and west Africa about how we can stop ethnic interests from influencing politics in Africa. Is the idea of ethnic groups at odds with the idea of a modern state?Evan Lieberman is professor of politics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He’s just written a book about South Africa’s post-Apartheid democracy called Until We Have Won Our Liberty. He tells us how ethnic interests are sometimes inevitable.Mutemi wa Kiama is an activist and community organiser from Nairobi, Kenya. He’s part of the movement Wanjikũ Revolution and the media organisation This Is Africa. He’s Kikuyu, the same ethnic group as the Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta. But he is very critical of how ethnic groups are used by politicians in Kenya.Bakary Sambe is the Director of the Timbuktu Institute-African Centre for Peace Studies and is based in Dakar, Senegal. He specializes in radicalisation in the Sahel region. He thinks ethnic conflict can often have deeper causes.

We're re-releasing this episode because we want more of you to hear it. We’re talking about billion dollar companies in Africa: unicorns. Tech people use the word ‘unicorn’ to describe start-ups with valuations of over a billion dollars. In 2020, there were over 500 unicorns worldwide. But only seven of these were African.So, what are we doing wrong? Or what we can do more right? How can we raise more African unicorns? To find out Claude asked an investor, an entrepreneur and an educator:Thami Pooe a South African media entrepreneur and social-impact educator. He runs Engage Media, which produces a podcast called “Unicorn”.Maya Horgan Famodu is a young American-Nigerian venture capitalist and head of Ingressive Capital. She’s invested in some of the biggest start-ups in Africa and offered a valuable perspective.Rebecca Enonchong is a Cameroonian entrepreneur. She is one of the continent’s most powerful business women. She has set up tech businesses in the USA, UK and Canada as well as many African countries.

Fake news is a big problem in Africa. It can sway elections in Nigeria. Stoke up ethnic hatred in Ethiopia. Bolster business interests in South Africa. Censorship isn’t the answer as it can play into the hands of repressive regimes. So how can Africans stop the spread of false and misleading information and yet still encourage free speech?To try and figure this out, Claude is joined by three guests:Samba Dialimpa is on the frontlines fact-checking for readers as the Editor in Chief of the Francophone section of Africa Check.Aanu Adeoye is a journalist offering an alternative with the entertaining, ground-breaking and trustworthy weekly newspaper The Continent.Odanga Madung is a researcher behind the scenes working to reveal the mechanics of fake news and to find out who really benefits from misinformation.

For this re-release, Claude speaks to three young Africans who explain when they realised they were not necessarily straight and when they decided to tell their parents, friends and colleagues (and in which order).Kat Kai Kol-Kes is known for being the first public figure from Botswana to openly identify as a transgender person. She’s come out many a time – to herself, to her family and to the entire world at the age of 24.Va-Bene Fiatsi is a performance artist from Ghana who explores gender fluidity. She is confident and uncompromising when she performs and speaks but was she always like that? Or is it something she has learnt?Sheba Akpokli from Togo is an amazing advocate for LGBTIAQ+ people as a practising lawyer. She’s also Catholic and discusses coming out to family and one’s religious community.

Historically Africans have not been well represented in international institutions. This is a problem: these organizations are key to tackling things like climate change and Covid-19.But with a Nigerian leading the World Trade Organization and an Ethiopian heading the World Health Organization, that could be changing. But is this happening fast enough? How can Africans make sure their voices are heard on the world stage? Pedro Matos has worked for the United Nation and the World Food Programme for well over a decade. He was part of the team which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 and he was working till recently in Sudan, delivering food and assistance to over six million people.  Mutemi Wa Kiama is an activist from Nairobi, Kenya. He’s known for campaigning against aid in the shape of international loans. Dr Oby Ezekwesili is a former Education minister in the Nigerian government and a former Vice President of the World Bank (Africa Region). She was also the co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement.Made possible with a grant from the U.S. Department of State and the Seenfire Foundation.