Episode #18: Challenging the Status Quo: The Ousmane Sonko Story

Episode #19: Understanding the genesis of Kenya's deadly protests

Kenya has seen a deadly wave of street protests over the rising cost of living. The demos that often turned deadly were called by the opposition movement - Azimio Coalition over what they claimed was the government's high-handedness and insensitivity to the cost of living in the country. While we did not extensively cover these protests on Africa Blogging, I appeared on several international media channels including Times Radio (UK), Power 98.7 FM (South Africa) and News Central TV (Nigeria) to give updates and context to the crisis. In this episode, I have put together, a couple of those conversations. *The audios are courtesy of Power 98.7 FM & News Central TV

Episode #18: Challenging the Status Quo: The Ousmane Sonko Story

Senegalese opposition politician Ousman Sonko has risen fast to be a force to reckon with in the country's political landscape, drawing a huge support base from cities across the country with the capital Dakar as the bedrock of his cult-like following. Two weeks ago, Dakar witnessed an unprecedented spate of violence after Sonko was put on house arrest following a two-year prison sentence handed to him after being found guilty of a vague offence the courts call "Immoral Behavior." Africa Blogging Lead Editor, Daniel Ominde, speaks to Azil Momar, a Senegalese journalist about Ousman Sonko's political journey and the recent chaos in Dakar.

Episode #17: Africa Press Freedoms on Decline - A Focus on Ghana

According to the RSF 2023 Free Press Index [https://rsf.org/en/2023-world-press-freedom-index-journalism-threatened-fake-content-industry?data_type=general&year=2023], journalism overall has become more difficult in Africa and the situation is now classified as “bad” in nearly 40% of its countries (compared to 33% in 2022).  Several journalists have also been murdered in Africa, including Martinez Zongo in Cameroon [https://rsf.org/en/country/cameroon] ( which ranked 138th). In Eritrea [https://rsf.org/en/country/eritrea] ( which ranks 174th), the media remain under President Issaias Afwerki [https://rsf.org/en/protagonist-issaias-afwerki]’s despotic grip. While Ghana seemed to have risen places in the continent, globally it dropped two places from 60th [https://rsf.org/en/index?year=2022] to 62nd place. Africa Blogging Lead Editor, Daniel Ominde, sat down with our Ghana contributor, Immanuel Obeng-Akrofi [https://blogging.africa/media-journalism/silencing-the-watchdog-press-freedom-in-ghana-on-the-decline/], to put these numbers into perspective.

Episode #16: The Kenyan Perspective: Unpacking the Opposition to President Ruto's 2023 Budget Proposals

President William Ruto's 2023/2024 budget proposals as contained in the 2023 Finance Bill have come under sharp criticism for being unresponsive to the current high cost of living in the country and the state of the economy. The increase in VAT on petroleum products from 8% to 16%, the introduction of a mandatory 3% housing levy for all salaried workers and the introduction of a digital services tax for digital content creators are among the proposals facing public outcry. Africa Blogging Lead Editor, Daniel Ominde, joined the Breakfast Central's Olive Emodi and Osarogie Ogbomwan on Nigeria's News Central TV [https://www.youtube.com/@NewsCentralAfrica/featured] to shed some light on the new proposals and how Kenyans are likely to be impacted.

Episode #15: State of the continent - A critical look at Africa's democracies

Last week most parts of the continent observed Africa Day, a commemoration of the founding of the Organization for Africa Unity (OAU) which later was transformed to the current Africa Union (AU). In this episode, I am joined by Pru Nyamishana from Uganda and Paidamoyo Muzulu from Uganda. We use the continent's recent events like the inauguration of Bola Tinubu as president in Nigeria, the signing of Uganda's new anti-gay law, Sudan's civil war and Zimbabwe's coming elections as a barometer of the state of the continent. We also talk about the Africa Union and it's ability to solve the continent's pressing challenges, including its own 'agenda 2063. [https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview]'