A 55-year-old man, identified only as PDG, switches off his laptop in frustration after getting a phone call from one of his government “connections”. The bad news made him swear by his Voodoo “ancestors” that Benin’s President Patrice Talon must not stay in power even by one second when his rule ends in 2026. It was unclear why the man was angry, but Africa in Fact was reliably informed that PDG – who did not run or own any company – was a middleman in public procurement, one of the most corrupt sectors of Benin, the tiny West African nation,…
Issa Sikiti da Silva
Issa Sikiti da Silva
Kinshasa-born Issa Sikiti da Silva is an award-winning freelance journalist. Winner of the SADC Media 2010 Awards in the print category, he has travelled extensively across the African continent. He lived in South Africa for 18 years, where he worked for 10 years as a journalist before leaving for West Africa, and later to East Africa, to work as a foreign correspondent. He is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya.
A group of construction workers discussing Kenya’s President William Ruto’s administration’s aggressive taxation campaign swiftly brings up the issue of corruption, which they believe has eroded people’s trust in the government, led to inadequate service delivery, and generated poverty in the country, where the gap between the richest and poorest has reached extreme levels. “These people have been collecting billions of shillings in tax every year in the past six decades, but service delivery remains poor because all that money goes into people’s pockets,” a man identified as John Omondi says. “Look at the state of the roads in our…
Two elderly homeless men unwrap a package of a significant quantity of cooked rice locally known as Pilau and tuck in. The scavengers found the freshly thrown-away food in a trash bag left unattended in a suburb of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. One of the scavengers, Luis, told Africa in Fact that he and his friend were poor and homeless and had not eaten good food for weeks. “It is our lucky day,” Luis said. “God answered our prayer. We were nearby when we saw a lady disposing of the package. We waited until she’d finished and pounced on it.”…
Marianne*, a woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) living in Nairobi, hosts two young women, one from Uganda and the other local, in her apartment in one of the Kenyan capital’s middle-class suburbs. From her cellular phone, Marianne shows her guests photos of “some stuff” her overseas customers are willing to pay a fortune for. After the meeting, Sheila*, from Uganda, agrees to talk exclusively to Africa in Fact behind Marianne’s back and on condition that she does not disclose the nature of the merchandise. “We are leaving for Kampala (Uganda) tomorrow to meet our suppliers and get…
The African Union is mobilising resources to help members implement the Paris Agreement, but funding challenges abound. Land erosion, drought and desertification, flooding, the Sahara Desert expanding southward at a rate of 48 km a year, change in the distribution of rainfall, rivers and freshwater resources’ drying-up, among others. This is what Africa’s environment looks like right now. Experts say climate change has already had a devastating impact on food and agriculture, livelihoods, human health and ecosystems. Climate change has generated deadly inter-ethnic conflicts over land and water resources, especially in the Sahel region, and is also said to be…
