Read the French version here . From a one-eyed to a blind horse: How hopes for change in the Sahel turned into a nightmare For decades, villagers and city dwellers in the Sahel countries of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso had hoped for change in their “dust and pollution” riddled lives, tyrannised as they were by corrupt governments, French uranium exploitation and gangster jihadis who stole their cattle and abducted their sons. When, in the 2020s, earnest-looking military colonels and captains stood...
Read the French version here . From a one-eyed to a blind horse: How hopes for change in the Sahel turned into a nightmare For decades, villagers and...
Read the French version here . “We must not replace a one-eyed horse with a blind horse” Sunday April 21, 2024 . Agadez, in central Niger, is a large urban area with houses mostly built of ochre earth. There are very few trees here in this poor town, located more than 900km northeast of the capital. In the evening, the city is full of young idlers, drug addicts, and sex workers. Many of them are migrants. “These young people come from other regions to look for gold in the desert! Unlucky and...
Read the French version here . “We must not replace a one-eyed horse with a blind horse” Sunday April 21, 2024 . Agadez, in central Niger, is a large...
Read the French version here . The disillusionment for all of us Sominé Dolo Hospital in Mopti, central Mali, Friday May 17, 2024. It is 7PM. Everything is black here. The lights are out due to the now almost continuous power cuts. The loudspeakers of the large mosque in downtown Sevaré let out the shrill cry of the muezzin calling for Maghreb evening prayers, but heads are not bent in prayer and devotion in this hospital establishment, the main health facility in the northern centre of the...
Read the French version here . The disillusionment for all of us Sominé Dolo Hospital in Mopti, central Mali, Friday May 17, 2024. It is 7PM. Everything...
Read the French version here . Brute force in the countryside and tyranny in the cities “We are not here for power. We have a twelve-month program in which we will resolve small logistical problems while respecting human values.” After Captain Ibrahim Traoré announced with these words his takeover of power in Ouagadougou on September 30, 2022, he was immediately congratulated by Yevgeny Prigozhin (then still alive), founder of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, since re-baptised the Africa...
Read the French version here . Brute force in the countryside and tyranny in the cities “We are not here for power. We have a twelve-month program in...
Read the English version here . D'un cheval borgne à un cheval aveugle : Comment les espoirs de changement au Sahel se sont transformés en cauchemar Pendant des décennies, les villageois et citadins des pays sahéliens du Mali, du Niger et du Burkina Faso espéraient un changement dans leurs vies « pleines de poussière et de pollution », tourmentés qu'ils étaient entre gouvernements corrompus, exploitation française de l'uranium et djihadistes gangsters qui continuaient de voler leur bétail et...
Read the English version here . D'un cheval borgne à un cheval aveugle : Comment les espoirs de changement au Sahel se sont transformés en cauchemar...
« Il ne faut pas remplacer un cheval borgne par un cheval aveugle » Dimanche 21 avril 2024 . Agadez, au centre du Niger, est une grande zone urbaine dont les maisons sont pour la plupart construites en terre ocre. Il y a très peu d'arbres dans cette ville pauvre, située à plus de 900 km au nord-est de la capitale Niamey. Le soir, la ville regorge de jeunes oisifs, de toxicomanes, et de travailleuses du sexe. Beaucoup d’entre eux sont des migrants. « Ces jeunes viennent d’autres régions pour...
« Il ne faut pas remplacer un cheval borgne par un cheval aveugle » Dimanche 21 avril 2024 . Agadez, au centre du Niger, est une grande zone urbaine dont...
Read the English version here . La désillusion pour nous tous Hôpital Sominé Dolo de Mopti, centre du Mali, vendredi 17 mai 2024. Il est 19 heures. Ici, il fait sombre, les lumières sont éteintes à cause des coupures de courant désormais presque continuellement. Les haut-parleurs de la grande mosquée du centre-ville de Sevaré laissent échapper le cri perçant du muezzin appelant à la prière maghrébine du soir , mais les têtes ne semblent pas à la prière et à la dévotion dans cet établissement...
Read the English version here . La désillusion pour nous tous Hôpital Sominé Dolo de Mopti, centre du Mali, vendredi 17 mai 2024. Il est 19 heures. Ici,...
Read the English version here . Force brute à la campagne et tyrannie dans les villes «Nous ne sommes pas là pour le pouvoir. Nous avons un programme de douze mois dans lequel nous allons résoudre de petits problèmes logistiques dans le respect des valeurs humaines.» Après que le capitaine Ibrahim Traoré ait annoncé par ces mots sa prise de pouvoir à Ouagadougou le 30 septembre 2022, il a été immédiatement félicité pour son action par Eugène Prigojine (alors encore vivant), fondateur du groupe...
Read the English version here . Force brute à la campagne et tyrannie dans les villes «Nous ne sommes pas là pour le pouvoir. Nous avons un programme de...
How dismissals and promises didn’t end corruption at Nigeria’s main marriage registry After Taiwo Adebulu had investigated the extortion and systemic corruption at the Ikoyi marriage office in Nigeria, and his story for ZAM made waves in Nigeria, the government announced they would put a stop to the corruption. A few years later, it is back with a vengeance. My phone had been overloaded with responses after I first published my Ikoyi marriage registry story. A veritable online frenzy from Nigerian...
How dismissals and promises didn’t end corruption at Nigeria’s main marriage registry After Taiwo Adebulu had investigated the extortion and systemic...
How the Kagame PR machine turned on Forbidden Stories and ZAM “They are going to say that we deny the genocide,” the colleague at Forbidden Stories – the project of fifty journalists and seventeen media that investigated work, life, and death of our Rwandan colleague John Williams Ntwali – had already warned us. He was right: in the past two weeks, they did just that. We are Rwandan genocide deniers , all fifty of us – or at least funded, or deceived by, genocide deniers. Even though all we did was...
How the Kagame PR machine turned on Forbidden Stories and ZAM “They are going to say that we deny the genocide,” the colleague at Forbidden Stories – the...
In the oil-polluted Niger Delta, Ogoniland had to be the exception: here everything would be cleaned up properly. Yet things are going wrong even there, internal documents show. “It was the biggest shock I have ever experienced. ‘Et tu, Brute’, I could have said to the minister. We even had dinner together a few days earlier.” Many months after it happened, Ferdinand Giadom was still protesting the unceremonial termination of his position as head of the clean-up operation in Ogoniland, known under...
In the oil-polluted Niger Delta, Ogoniland had to be the exception: here everything would be cleaned up properly. Yet things are going wrong even there,...
Journalists threatened and forced into exile, opponents murdered by clandestine commandos, espionage. Coordinated by Forbidden Stories, the RWANDA Classified project began with the mysterious death in January 2023 of journalist John Williams Ntwali. Continuing his work, 50 journalists from 11 countries reveal a system of transnational repression deployed by Paul Kagame’s regime, far from the model country and safe haven for refugees portrayed in Western media. How a dictatorship hides its terror...
Journalists threatened and forced into exile, opponents murdered by clandestine commandos, espionage. Coordinated by Forbidden Stories, the RWANDA...
Rwanda has been widely likened to a police state, still the West continues to support it Based on current and previous revelations, one might think that the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the West in general would regard Rwanda under Paul Kagame’s regime as akin to North Korea: a place to be rather concerned about. Not so. The EU recently closed a mineral tracking deal with the central African police state, meant to stem the flow of conflict minerals, and ensure peaceful and well-governed...
Rwanda has been widely likened to a police state, still the West continues to support it Based on current and previous revelations, one might think that...
“Every time our leaders speak of friendship, we get scared again.” Uganda had long been a safe space for Rwanda’s Patriotic Front (RPF). Before 1994, President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) had helped the exiled RPF in its struggle against the erstwhile Hutu regime in Rwanda; he had employed its leaders in his own military and state machinery. Many of the politicians and soldiers of the two movements were related and had families on both sides of the border. When the RPF’s...
“Every time our leaders speak of friendship, we get scared again.” Uganda had long been a safe space for Rwanda’s Patriotic Front (RPF). Before 1994,...
Government turns a “blind eye” to religious sect’s child marriages Tambudzai Moyo was just 16 when she was married to a 43-year-old member of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church in Nyamadzawo village in eastern Zimbabwe. He already had two other wives, making Moyo, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, wife number three. The Apostolic sect represents the largest religious group in the country and has some of the highest rates of child marriage among girls of any religious sect –...
Government turns a “blind eye” to religious sect’s child marriages Tambudzai Moyo was just 16 when she was married to a 43-year-old member of the Johanne...
Malawi could end the horror of unsafe abortion, but religion and parliament stand in the way. Restrictive laws are not deterring women and girls from seeking abortions. Instead, they are pushing them towards clandestine procedures, which often cause complications and even death. Meanwhile, emergency healthcare for tens of thousands of survivors also drains public resources. It is easy to see why Malawi’s Ministry of Health would like to see safe abortion provided where necessary. But religious...
Malawi could end the horror of unsafe abortion, but religion and parliament stand in the way. Restrictive laws are not deterring women and girls from...
Western “green” funds used for “merrymaking with ministers” while forests are cut down Amid hundreds of millions paid by donors to the Ugandan government for forest-saving projects, a powerful logging syndicate linked to the same government continues the desertification. In Nigeria, also despite much “green” funding, the government itself clears out the trees. Forest communities are impoverished in the process. Selling out the trees and the poor Forests in Nigeria and Uganda disappeared faster...
Western “green” funds used for “merrymaking with ministers” while forests are cut down Amid hundreds of millions paid by donors to the Ugandan government...
72 ministers, mayors, members of parliament and businessmen from Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Congo and the Central African Republic, a devastatingly poor central region on the African continent, owned high-end properties in posh neighbourhoods in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in the 2019-2020 period. These findings are the result of an eight-month long search, ending in February 2023, of the database of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), a US-based organisation that “combats illicit networks...
72 ministers, mayors, members of parliament and businessmen from Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Congo and the Central African Republic, a devastatingly poor...
How the ‘tobacco system’ keeps farmers in poverty During a check on multinationals who pay tax in various locations, we come across a Malawian tobacco company, Alliance One Tobacco Malawi (AOTM). It belongs to an American multinational corporate chain and boasts of being one of the chain’s top revenue providers . The company makes its profits from raw tobacco exported from the small African country, whose population of 20 million is not much bigger than that of the Netherlands. Yet, it pays...
How the ‘tobacco system’ keeps farmers in poverty During a check on multinationals who pay tax in various locations, we come across a Malawian tobacco...
Embark on an eye-opening journey with four fearless African investigative journalists as they unravel the truth behind the uprising against kleptocratic regimes. In 2023, Emmanuel Mutaizibwa, Ngina Kirori, Theophilus Abbah, and Elizabeth BanyiTabi visited the Netherlands to shed light on the tumultuous protest movements sweeping across Africa. Their groundbreaking 'Cry Freedom' investigation unveiled gripping accounts of citizens rallying for change in the face of oppression. You can now join their...
Embark on an eye-opening journey with four fearless African investigative journalists as they unravel the truth behind the uprising against kleptocratic...
How an investigative editor continues his work while on the run Gregory Gondwe, founder and editor of Malawi’s Platform for Investigative Journalism, and currently on the run from the Malawian military, still cannot figure out how his country’s president, once-vocal opposition and anti-corruption activist Lazarus Chakwera, is now seemingly unable or unwilling to reign in the bloodhounds. “You ask yourself: who is this person? Is this the same person that I met when he was on the campaign trail and...
How an investigative editor continues his work while on the run Gregory Gondwe, founder and editor of Malawi’s Platform for Investigative Journalism, and...
