Charles Onyango-Obbo

To understand African politics, listen to the music. economist.com/interactive/in…

The Ebola epidemic currently raging in the DR Congo could last at least another year, expert warns. There have so far been almost 11,000 cases including 5,000 deaths, making it the second largest outbreak in history. aol.com/articles/ebola-could…

DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi has enacted a law that paves the way for a change to the constitution, condemned by the opposition as an attempt by the president to cling onto power. He’s one of the boys finally! africanews.com/2026/11/11/dr…

It’s a tough job, but the responsibility of any serious patriarch or matriarch is to ensure that government and politics are not the family’s main (and sometimes only) employer. The family that eats from only one tree, the government’s, starves when the season changes.

Pope Leo draws 2.5 million-strong crowd at Argentine vigil, urges youth not to chase social media clicks. That’s six times the population of Seychelles!!! monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/wo…

Which African countries have the most: 1. Opportunistic politicians and elites (who quickly shift principles and allegiances for personal gain)? 2. Sycophantic ones (who flatter the powerful to embarrassing levels just to win favour)? 3. Spineless/cowardly ones (who avoid taking principled stands out of fear)?

A Saudi court has sentenced a domestic worker from Kenya to 100 lashes for giving birth outside marriage. nytimes.com/2026/11/10/world…

The 10 African countries most dependent on trade: 1.Djibouti — 206.3% of GDP 2.Seychelles — 172.3% of GDP 3.Lesotho — 154.0% of GDP 4.Mauritius — 139.9% of GDP 5.Libya — 137.7% of GDP 6.Somalia — 128.1% of GDP 7.Namibia — 108.6% of GDP 8.Eswatini — 107.5% of GDP 9.Guinea — 103.7% of GDP 10.Tunisia — 101.4% of GDP visualcapitalist.com/ranked-…

"An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes." - often misattributed to Sun Tzu.

US issues its highest Level 4 travel warning for 23 countries, half of which are African; Central African Republic, Chad, DR Congo, Libya, Mali, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. yen.com.gh/ghana/315390-us-s…

Teso’s Ghosts Stir Again As Uganda’s Succession Battle Heats Up Several African peoples have a proverb that says: “He who has been bitten by a snake once should run at the sight of a lizard; but he who forgets is swallowed by the python.” It comes to mind because the Teso region of north-eastern Uganda could well be plunged into a catastrophic conflict again, 33 years after the last one ended. What became known as the Teso insurgency lasted from 1987 to 1993. It was a rebellion against President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) government by the Uganda People’s Army (UPA), led by Peter Otai, a former Minister of State for Defence in Milton Obote’s second Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) government. Other armed groups later joined in. Tens of thousands of people were killed. One of the most horrific incidents, which still chills people today, happened on July 11, 1989. Soldiers rounded up about 300 men suspected of being “rebel collaborators”, locked many of them inside a steel railway wagon at Mukura railway station and reportedly lit a fire near it. By the time the wagon was opened, 69 of the unarmed men had suffocated to death. Human rights organisations reported that up to 350,000 people in Teso, roughly half the sub-region’s population at the time, were forced into camps for internally displaced people (IDPs). Estimates suggest that about 500,000 head of cattle, the backbone of the region’s economy, were stolen or lost during the conflict. The insurgency finally ended in 1993, six years after it began, through a mix of military pressure and peace efforts led by the Teso Commission, which was set up in 1990. Teso was one of the places where the NRM went through its baptism of fire as a governing regime and where its transformation into a security state began. Now, with a proxy fight over the Museveni succession and competition for ground resources in a country bursting at the seams with a fast-growing population, the region could slide back into the hellfire it once knew. If, in the end, Uganda fails to outrun its bloody past, it will not be because that past was not traumatic enough to learn from.

The vulgar opportunism of “Blacks parties must unite” politics in South Africa. ewn.co.za/2026/11/09/malaika…

Ethiopia joins Africa’s five largest economies after a major statistical overhaul lifted its measured GDP to $210.7Bn for the 2025/26 fiscal year, placing it among the continent’s leading economic powers alongside South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria & Algeria. africa.businessinsider.com/l…

Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita: This African prophet was burned at the stake 320 years ago. Today, she Is celebrated as the ‘Kongolese Joan of Arc’ believed herself to be possessed by the spirit of St. Anthony. The movement she led in the early 1700s promoted an Indigenous African form of the Christian faith. smithsonianmag.com/history/t…

Now .@rkabushenga I am a bit embarrassed; it had never crossed my mind to find out what '''cupping'' a coffee is, only to figure out it's your equivalent of a wine tasting. You won't believe where my mind had wandered off to😂😂😂

A selection of what dominant parties do in Africa when they face a real electoral challenge: 1. It accept defeat (South Africa). 2. Uses the courts to sideline rivals (Nigeria). 3. Jails them (Tanzania, Uganda etc). The list is only a starter pack. Feel free to add.

THE ABSURDITY OF AFRICAN ELECTION THEFT: Chango Machyo W’Obanda (1927–2013) was a prominent Ugandan Marxist public intellectual, educator and land surveyor. He studied land economics at the London School of Economics, and taught and worked extensively in adult education and extramural studies at Makerere University (including heading its Centre for Continuing Education in the eastern Ugandan city of Mbale). He wrote many journal articles and books (in English). After the fall of the Ugandan military dictator Field Marshal Idi Amin in April 1979, Uganda attempted a return to electoral democracy in what proved to be a disastrous and stolen vote in December 1980. Chango stood for Parliament on the ticket of the Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM), led by a young militant called Yoweri Museveni (yes, today’s President). Chango was barred from standing by the UPC-stacked Electoral Commission because, wait for it, he could not produce a piece of paper proving to them that he was proficient in English, the official language!

“Se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenkyi” (“It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten”. - Sankofa (Akan, Ghana)

After discovering a bundle of banknotes dropped in a public square in southern Brazil, a man spent 12 days searching tirelessly for the owner. He eventually tracked him down: a labourer who had inadvertently lost the money after withdrawing it to support his daughter. People like that turn the light on in a dark world... goodnewsnetwork.org/man-spen…