From the looks of things, it seems that Idris Elba has taken his passion and admiration for Nelson Mandela very seriously.
Moving beyond his recent role in the Justin Chadwick biopic, Elba was so inspired by the research he did as part of the preparation for his role in Long Walk to Freedom that he put together a concept album based on the music Mandela enjoyed.
Titled Mi Mandela, the experimental album was made over the course of three weeks and features 11 unique songs, some made with the help of local talent like producer Spoek Mathambo, Ndebele music legend Nothembi Mkhwebane and singing group The Mahotella Queens.
Whilst Elba, who DJs and releases music under the name ‘Driis’, is no stranger to producing songs and making mixes, he’s enlisted a wide range of artists including James Blake, Mumford & Sons, Mr Hudson and Cody ChesnuTT.
The album is due out November 24 but look out for the first single featuring Maverick Sabre a little sooner.
Dynamic Africa is a curated multimedia blog focused on all facets of African cultures, African history, and the lives and experiences of Africans on the continent and in the diaspora – past and present. Visit the blog and connect with the curator, Funke Makinwa, on Twitter.
When the news media turns a penetrating gaze on Africa, Botswana rarely makes headlines. The southern African nation is best known for diamonds, heart-stopping natural beauty and inoffensive politics. It ranks second behind Mauritius in the latest Ibrahim Index of African Governance.
But there is trouble in paradise. So far this month an editor has been arrested and a reporter has fled, triggering a diplomatic spat with the US, while a South African politician has been barred from entering the country and there are concerns over its use of the death penalty.
The editor who published the story, Outsa Mokone of the Sunday Standard, was arrested and charged with sedition. “I would rather spend 100 years in their prisons rather than be a prisoner of guilty conscience,” he said upon his release.
Police raided the offices of Sunday Standard and seized documents and computer equipment. Mokone’s colleague, journalist Edgar Tsimane, fled to neighbouring South Africa where he applied for asylum. In an interview with that country’s eNews Channel Africa (eNCA), he painted a highly unflattering picture of a country that many revere as a beacon of democratic progress for the continent.
“There was information from my sources that my life was in danger,” said Tsimane, explaining his decision to leave Botswana, which he went on to describe as increasingly repressive.
“I think it’s been a gradual process. It’s now becoming more and more visible. I can tell you that we’ve been experiencing extra-judicial killings in the country. The public is losing confidence in the government of the day.”
He cited the case of a petty criminal shot dead by military intelligence, who riddled his body with 10 bullets. “How can you kill a man without subjecting him to the court of the law?”
Former army general Khama’s Botswana Democratic Party has ruled for nearly half a century. Tsimane added: “The president is just too powerful. He’s using all the powers in the constitution to govern himself. Even if he can do any wrong, because he knows he cannot be prosecuted.”
The media crackdown caused shock and disappointment. Sue Valentine, Africa programme co-ordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said: “These events tarnish Botswana’s reputation for good governance and media freedom in southern Africa. It can be restored by allowing a free flow of news and opinion.”
America joined the condemnation. The state department said Mokone’s arrest is “inconsistent with… fundamental freedoms and at odds with Botswana’s strong tradition of democratic governance”.
That provoked a backlash from Botswana’s government spokesperson Jeff Ramsay, who said he noted the US reaction with “dismay” and suggested the American government “might wish to put its own house in order before rushing to hastily comment on the judicial affairs of others”.
Ramsay added: “We find it unfortunate… that a foreign government, much less one that professes to be a friend and partner of Botswana, should issue such a statement about an ongoing judicial process in our country.”
Meanwhile firebrand politician Julius Malema, from South Africa, was denied a visa to visit Botswana because of apparent security concerns. Malema has previously called for the overthrow of the government, claiming that Khama is a western stooge.
Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters party reacted angrily, condemning Botswana’s “autocratic military government”. It said: “There are absolutely no grounds for a so-called democratic country to refuse a person a visa merely on the basis that he holds a different political view to that of the government.”
Edwin Samotse, however, did make the journey from South Africa to Botswana, his home country, where he is to stand trial for murder. Human rights lawyers says they are worried that South Africa ignored its own constitutional court by deporting Samotse without receiving an assurance he will not face the death penalty.
A woman passes a sign posted in an awareness campaign against the spread of Ebola in Freetown, Sierra Leone. (Pic: Reuters)
Sierra Leone has ordered the quarantine “with immediate effect” of three districts and 12 tribal chiefdoms – affecting more than one million people – in the largest lockdown in west Africa’s deadly Ebola outbreak.
President Ernest Bai Koroma, in a national televised address late on Wednesday, announced that the northern districts of Port Loko and Bombali were to be closed off along with the southern district of Moyamba – effectively sealing off around 1.2-million people.
With the eastern districts of Kenema and Kailahun already under quarantine, more than a third of the population of six million, in five of the nation’s 14 districts, now finds itself unable to move freely.
“The isolation of districts and chiefdoms will definitely pose great difficulty but the lives of everyone and the survival of our country takes precedence over these difficulties,” Koroma said.
“These are trying moments for everyone in the country.”
The deadliest Ebola epidemic on record has infected almost 6 000 people in west Africa and killed nearly half of them, according to the World Health Organisation’s latest figures.
The virus can fell its victims within days, causing rampant fever, severe muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and — in many cases — unstoppable internal and external bleeding.
In Sierra Leone, Ebola has infected 1 813 people, killing 593, by the WHO count.
Koroma said that 12 of the county’s 149 tribal chiefdoms – much smaller administrative areas than districts – were also to be placed in quarantine. The total population in these areas was not immediately clear.
The president said corridors for travel to and from non-quarantined areas had been established but would only operate between 9:00 am and 5pm.
“The Ministry of Health and Sanitation and the emergency operation centre will establish additional holding centres in the quarantined chiefdoms,” Koroma said.
Death toll Sierra Leone announced on Wednesday that around 100 bodies and 200 patients had been collected from homes during a nationwide three-day lockdown and house-to-house information campaign which ended on Sunday.
“To sustain our efforts in overcoming the challenges that were further revealed during the house-to-house campaign and in consultation with our partners – and in line with our people’s avowed commitment to support extra measures to end the Ebola outbreak – the government decided to institute these further measures,” Koroma added.
The WHO said earlier this week 5 864 people had been infected since the virus first emerged in southern Guinea in December, and that 2 811 had died.
In Liberia, which has been hit hardest by the outbreak, 3 022 people have been infected and 1 578 have died while in Guinea, Ebola has infected 1 008 people, killing 632.
Nigeria has recorded 20 cases, including eight deaths, since the virus first arrived in the country with a Liberian finance ministry official, who died in Lagos on July 25.
Guinea’s President Alpha Conde and cabinet ministers from Liberia and Sierra Leone were due to attend a meeting in New York on Ebola convened by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later Thursday.
The meeting – part of the United Nations General Assembly – will hear from US President Barack Obama and world leaders are expected to pledge help for efforts to try to contain the spread of the virus.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan appeared to jump the gun on medical advice at home on Wednesday to tell an applauding UN that Nigeria was free of Ebola.
“We can confidently say that today Nigeria is Ebola free,” Jonathan told the largest diplomatic gathering in the world to a ripple of applause in New York.
“Nigeria is Ebola free,” he said a second time to further applause.
Doctors said earlier they would have to wait to declare the outbreak over despite the Nigerian federal health ministry saying all patients being monitored for the virus had been cleared.
Children play at the sprawling Mathare slums, one of the largest and poorest in Africa, near Kenya’s capital Nairobi. (Pic: Reuters)
On a recent Thursday at around midday, I saw a group of kids, not more than 15, who by their size appeared to be in nursery school.
The little boys and girls in pink checked shirts and grey pair of shorts were clustered in front of televisions on display.
They were pointing at a monkey swinging on the screens. They sighed in awe when they saw the close-up shots of ants. Around them were aisles after aisles full of new products for sale.
When I saw them, I thought: “Wow, these kids are out shopping at this hour … shouldn’t they be in class?”
However, unknown to me they were in class. Their teacher had brought her class on a trip to a SUPERMARKET.
Let that sink in.
A supermarket.
That one place that we dash into quickly to get a few things was their location for an educational trip.
Their teacher enthusiastically showed them why the many TVs in different sizes were on the shelves and why they had price tags on them. And that was not all; she was also describing to these young children why certain aisles were labelled the way they were.
Soap.
Body lotion.
Glass.
Again, a trip to a supermarket.
It stood out for me because school excursions during my primary school days were always out of town, probably to a beach or an agricultural institution or to the zoo or the airport – what I would now consider ‘educational’. A supermarket, in my view, was the least educational place for any learner.
But I was wrong.
From the looks of things and by the teacher’s thorough explanation of what happened here, you could tell this was an important trip.
The supermarket is in Mathare North. Mathare in Kenya is an area known for slums (second to Kibera), violence and more slums. In fact a quick search on Google shows you that the extent of poverty here is on another level.
Indeed it is true. I know, I live here.
The area has informal settlements popping up all over. Every few hundred metres you are bound to find a burst sewer that flows into water pipes, and food vendors. You will see clinics and health centres competing for space with bars and entertainment joints. You will see stalls lined up, trying to attract potential customers with their music, sales pitches or adverts.
There are car washes, colourful matatus (public taxis) and happy children playing on the road side. There are high-rise houses so close to each other that if one tenant has a cold, the neighbour next door would probably pick it up. That close. There are electricity wires in meshes swaying and scrapping the air in the Mathare skies.
Each day as I get into a matatu to town, I pass school children who, despite their torn socks and faded uniforms, carry paper bags full of books as they head to class. I see little boys and girls bracing the morning chill to get to school.
It was only when l I bumped into the class on this trip that I realised their lessons were both in and out of the classrooms.
I deduced that their teacher wanted to show them the available possibilities amidst the sea of poverty they knew. There was such a high level of want that these young minds would look forward to attending class the next day, pegged on the possibility of stepping into a supermarket that they either passed by every morning or whose branded paper bags they saw on the streets.
Seeing these inquisitive children asking why the soaps were put away from the bread and maize flour made me realise that while this visit to the supermarket was ordinary to me, it was probably a first for these little leaders.
You could see the admiration in their eyes as shoppers carried items passed them. It hit me that this trip was the opening of new chapters in these children’s lives. That beyond the mire of life in a slum town as they know it, there was so much more available. So much variety was presented to these kids but circumstances had hindered them from reaching out to them.
I saw this and I was challenged to take a fresher look at the things I have and assume exist for everyone else.
Later, the children filed past the teller and each was given a lollipop on their way out. Some of them began to undo the lollipop wrappers in glee. Then I noticed one who looked at his sweet for a while and then simply put it into his shirt pocket, stretched out his palm and joined his hand to complete a chain of little hands and glossy excited eyes.
Once their lesson for the day was over, they streamed out with their teacher.
Eunice Kilonzo is a print journalist and storyteller who tells tales on development, feminism and health. Connect with her on Twitter: @Eunicekkilonzo
Beds used by guests are seen near an excavator at the site of the collapsed Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos on September 17 2014. (Pic: Reuters)
Lying in the rubble of the guesthouse, only able to tell if it was night or day through a tiny crack, Lindiwe Ndwandwe heard the screams of others beneath the debris slowly turn silent.
For five days the 33-year-old was trapped inside a toilet next to the dining hall of the collapsed Synagogue Church of All Nations, breathing only through a small hole in the wreckage.
In the end, she was forced to drink her own urine to survive.
“It’s like a dream to me that really, it’s me that came out from here,” the South African told AFP on Saturday as she surveyed the remains of the church in the Nigerian city of Lagos.
“I don’t believe it. The tears that I cry, it’s because I don’t believe.”
A total of 86 people were killed and dozens more left trapped when the guesthouse attached to the church run by Nigerian preacher TB Joshua collapsed on September 12.
Some 350 South Africans were thought to be visiting the church in the Ikotun neighbourhood of the megacity of Lagos when the three-storey building came down during construction work.
Joshua, one of Nigeria’s best-known evangelical preachers referred to by followers across the world as “The Prophet” or “The Man of God”, on Sunday pledged to go to South Africa to meet survivors and their families.
He observed a minute of silence at his weekly morning service, and said he would “be travelling to South Africa to meet people from South Africa and other nations… in memory of martyrs of faith”.
Legal action But South Africa’s largest opposition party on Sunday said it will push the government to launch a class action against the church, where 84 of its nationals lost their lives.
Democratic Alliance shadow foreign minister Stevens Mokgalapa said the fact that rescue workers complained that staff at the church had impeded their work in the immediate aftermath of the disaster meant there could be cause for legal action.
“The DA believes that there is now enough evidence for the South African government to, at the very least, explore the possibility of a class action suit against the (church) on behalf of the affected families,” Mokgalapa said in a statement.
“It stands to reason that the church and its members may be criminally liable for the death of a number of South Africans who could have been rescued from the rubble if rescue work was speedily permitted.”
South Africa is sending a plane to Lagos to retrieve survivors of the disaster, media outlets reported.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan visited the church on Saturday and promised to investigate the cause of the tragedy.
He said he would hold talks with stakeholders in the construction industry on how to prevent such a thing happening again, expressing his condolences to South African President Jacob Zuma.
