Zimbabwe Overtakes United Kingdom, Namibia, Germany, China, Japan, Botswana, And More Countries In Driving South Africa’s Tourism Sector To New Heights…

 Zimbabwe has become a key driver in South Africa’s record-breaking tourism growth, surpassing countries like the United Kingdom, Namibia, Germany, China, Japan, and Botswana in 2025, with international arrivals reaching an all-time high of 10.5 million.

This surge in numbers highlights the increasing demand for luxury travel and high-end tourism experiences in South Africa, with Zimbabwe playing a crucial role in attracting affluent visitors. The unprecedented growth reflects South Africa’s successful recovery efforts, bolstered by Zimbabwe’s growing influence in the region’s tourism dynamics.

10 African Countries With The Longest Road Networks

 Roads are the lifelines of Africa’s economies, connecting people, goods, and services across vast distances. They move produce from farms to markets, workers to factories, students to schools, and patients to hospitals.

An estimated 80% of goods and 90% of passenger traffic in Africa rely on roads, making them indispensable for daily life and economic growth. Yet, despite their importance, many road networks across the continent remain underdeveloped or poorly maintained.

Top 10 African Countries With Most Reliable Electricity Supply

 Across Africa, a handful of African countries stand out for consistently achieving high electricity access rates. These countries are united by a mix of committed infrastructure investment, diversified energy sources (often including gas or renewables), and policies that prioritize national grid connection.

While access rate is a useful proxy for stable supply, it’s essential to note the ongoing challenges, particularly in bridging the gap between urban and rural connectivity.

The top four countries have achieved near-universal or full electrification, a testament to decades of stable, strategic state investment.

Hunger: Nigeria Is Starving Its Own People; That’s Iniquitous!

 By Olu Fasan

Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, published the results of the General Household Survey Panel, which showed that 63.8 per cent of households face severe food insecurity and are skipping meals, some for a whole day.

Nigeria is not in war or ravaged by famine, so why should two-thirds of the population be in the throes of hunger and starvation? How can one explain the savagery of hunger that has reduced many Nigerians to scavenging for food? Well, here’s the harsh truth: the Nigerian state is starving the Nigerian people through deliberate policy choices.

Wole Soyinka’s Faux Pas

 By Amanze Obi

By now, it is clear to one and all that Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, is decidedly partisan on issues pertaining to the 2023 presidential election. He tried hard enough, initially, to mask his sympathies and loyalties. But recent developments have laid him bare. He is now unable to hold back.

*Soyinka 

Soyinka himself knows this much. He betrayed this tendency copiously while reacting to the criticisms that trailed his faux pas in South Africa penultimate week. He declared, rather blandly, that Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar lost the February 25 presidential election even before the election held. His reason? That both candidates split the votes of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and, consequently, granted Tinubu and his All Progressives Congress (APC) an easy access to victory.

Big For Nothing Nigeria

 By Tony Eluemunor

When Egypt and Ethiopia, but not Nigeria, were the two African countries invited to join the BRICS bloc recently, many Nigerians were not surprised. Our leaders did not even betray any anger that Nigeria was not among the six new countries invited to join the BRICS bloc. 

*Tinubu 

On 27 August 2023, a Nigerian newspaper, the Business Day published a story: “What is Nigeria missing by its non-membership of BRICS”? Its answer: “But why will Nigeria join the bloc, if one may ask? The bloc, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa has since its formation as BRIC in 2009 and later BRICS in 2010, with the addition of South Africa, proven itself as formidable force against the overbearing and manipulative influence of the West”.

Tinubonomic And 8000 Litres Of Poverty

 By Gbenro Olajuyigbe

In intervention during emergencies, there is what is called Appropriate Response. Impact of inappropriate response is worse than no response. Responding to the ‘needs’ of 12 million households’ out of 43 million households in a severely polarized country is bad enough. 

*Bola Tinubu 

Aside from the existing inequality between the poor and the rich, it further bifurcates the tribe of the poor, potentially with implications for uneven patriotism and implosive crisis.  Giving the selected beneficiary (270 Naira/ 35 Cents per day) in situation where those who earn 1.9 dollar per day are regarded as living in extreme poverty amounts to glorification of poverty. 5000 Naira per poor household under Buhari, which had more intrinsic value than the touted Tinubu’s 8000 Naira, threw 133 million people into nadir of poverty.

Why Nigeria Is Stuck In Underdevelopment

 By Luke Onyekakeyah

If you ask anyone on the street what is Nigeria’s number one problem, he would most likely say corruption. The refrain on corruption is so profound that no one has taken time to ask why there is such abrasive corruption. The reasons behind corruption are known but not addressed. They are totally downplayed. Truth is that corruption is merely an effect. The cause is ignored. Chasing the effect and leaving the cause, as in this case, is senseless. It is like pruning a tree, which would blossom once again after a short while. The only way to effectively kill a tree is to uproot it.

Even if you cut it down, shoots could sprout from the stump showing that the tree is still alive though in a smaller dimension.

To deal with corruption would require a blunt attack on the roots. Nigeria’s corruption is systemic meaning that it is entrenched. A faulty system is responsible. The system is where the problem lies. There are deliberate gaps left in the system that have blended with the body and soul of Nigeria that can’t easily be rooted out. Vested interest would rather shed blood to ensure that the gaps remain untouched. But not until those gaps are closed, Nigeria’s underdevelopment quagmire would persist.

The Nigeria/South Africa Palaver

By Adekeye Adebajo

I was recently visiting Lagos – the city of my birth – when I found myself feeling a sense of déjà vu as I watched South African mobs on television looting and attacking shops owned by Nigerians and other Africans. We have been here before. Nigerians were among those hurt in the horrific xenophobic attacks of 2008 when 62 people – mostly Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, and Malawians – were killed, and 100,000 displaced. More recently, in March 2017, South African vigilantes burned and looted scores of homes and businesses belonging to Nigerians in Rosettenville, Mamelodi, and Atteridgeville in Gauteng province, which they alleged were drug dens and brothels.

Having lived in South Africa for 16 years, one of my biggest frustrations is the failure of so many of its citizens to embrace an African identity and of the government to attract more skilled Africans to its shores in order to create an “America in Africa”. America’s genius has, of course, been its ability to attract the best and brightest from the rest of the world – trained at huge expense by these countries – and to turn them into American citizens or green-card holders.

When Africa Began To Slumber

By Joseph Atchulo

When Africa began to slumber her gold was stolen from Ghana, when Africa began to slumber her oil was stolen from Nigeria, when Africa began to slumber her gas was stolen from Angola, when Africa began to slumber her Diamond was stolen from Serra Leone and Liberia, when Africa began to slumber her diamond was stolen from the DR Congo, Tanzania, Botswana and Namibia, when Africa began to slumber her Iron Ore was stolen from Sudan and all her natural resources where stolen by the West. Awaken oh mother Africa because in your state of slumber your youth, the young and vibrant, the energetic young people of this Continent no longer see any pride in you.

Africa today has become in the words of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair ‘a scar on the conscience of humanity’. Africa today has become a tragedy of gigantic proportion, how did it happen that even today the youth in Africa have no pride in Africa, in Africa's state of slumber her youth are stolen.

Nigeria: The Grim Reality

By Charles Anekwe

We have the worst quality of life in the world – by a wide margin.
If you have any idea of how people really live in Ghana, Cameroon, Libya, Botswana, and other parts of the Third World, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average South African, Zimbabwean or Libyan taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical Nigerian graduate white-collar worker. 

I know this because I am a Nigerian, and I want to escape from this huge prison you call home. Already, we are silently protesting against cynical politics, spiraling corruption, economic stagnation and breathtaking levels of crime. We are disunited than ever although we have more immediate survival issues than unity.

Africa Still Needs Strong Men

By Paul Ojenagbon

Former United States President, Barrack Obama, famously made a statement that Africa did not need strong men but strong institutions. Like many, I had swallowed the import of this message until prevailing circumstances compelled me to see reason on the flip side. On the contrary, the continent needs both strong men and strong institutions because it takes strong men to build strong institutions that would endure in their own spheres of influence.

The general perception of many is that strong men in power denotes negativity but the experience in other climes that had similar situations and challenges as Africa showed that the emergence of such super strong men was the turning point in the history of their countries. Strong men can be positive too, it depends on how they are skewed; the negative image of the strong men who dominated Africa the African political landscape negatively for a long time would make many perceive and dismiss them as evil.

Wanted: A National Coalition Against Rape

By Adewale Kupoluyi

What has become a serious source of worry to many Nigerians is the dehumanising, wicked and heartless cases of rape of minors, girls, ladies and women in the country. Hardly any day passes by without cases of sexual molestation, violence and crime. Rape, the forceful canal knowledge usually of a female, is a serious calamity that can befall any female. Why is there an upsurge in rape cases in the nation?

A gory statistics, according to the Nigeria Police Force, shows that the nation recorded 1,827 rape cases in 2015; 1,959 cases in 2014; and 1,788 in 2013. Furthermore, NOIPolls, country-specific polling services in the West African region, done in partnership with Gallup, United States of America, revealed that four in 10; that is 36 per cent of adult Nigerians, claimed that most often, the alleged offenders involved in child rape were close family relatives and neighbours; amounting to 33 per cent, as almost half; amounting to 49 per cent of those that personally know a victim alleged that they were usually children between seven and 12 years old; while 78 per cent of the respondents alleged that rape cases were reported without any deliberate effort being made by the police to investigate and prosecute the culprits.

The Hypnosis Of Little Brother Naija

By Tony Iwuoma

It is with great relief that the television (un)reality show, Big Brother Naija, #BBN, has come to an end after 70 agonising days. It was 70 days of depravity gone overboard. It was a period the devil was given reins over our country, Africa, and possibly the world, when budding youths were quarantined in a house of sin and manipulated to dance to surreal and macabre music orchestrated by merchants of immorality, smiling to the banks.

It was a time when Nigeria was hypnotised to sacrifice decency to the gods of mammon. Even at that, the spell cast upon the nation was so strong we ended up enriching South Africa and gaining nothing but the few coins given to the winner of the show, Efe, and his two compatriots.

How do I mean? I will tell you. Nigeria surrendered the hosting of the show to South Africa despite her citizens, and, in fact, the nation itself being the focus. They sold Nigeria the dummy that power challenges would not allow the hosting of the show in Nigeria and, so, shipped our youth to that South African madhouse. All the technicians were South Africans and Nigerians lost opportunity to make a few bucks for themselves from a project they should have been first beneficiaries. It was a big rip-off! South Africans made heavy financial gains. Over 24 million people voted on the last day alone and if that is translated to cash, and input all the votes of the previous days preceding the final, you can see how dumb the minders of our economy are to have given South Africa that much room to manipulate them out of much revenue.

It is annoying that South African firms would play big in this country, earn billions and corrupt our youths, with our leaders moping and yet that country for which Nigeria sacrificed everything has nothing but disrespect and hatred for our citizens in their own country that are daily hacked down in hideous xenophobic circumstances.

Lessons From Julius Nwalimu Nyerere

By Banji Ojewale 

Gbolabo Ogunsanwo, Nigeria’s most captivating  columnist of the 1970s who rewrote history as editor of Sunday Times of that era, once returned from Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania and thrilled his compatriots with an account of the stoic exploits of this illustrious African leader. Just like his staid gait, Ogunsanwo said, Nyerere had no airs about him to suggest he was the president of Tanzania.

*Nyerere

This picture of an abstemious statesman sharply contradicted the Nigerian paradigm. Here, our leaders, even at the local government scene, would loot the public till to build personal empires, to  satisfy their palatial palate. The predilection of our leaders for financial rape has always been there and Ogunsanwo was among a small circle of ethical journalists who railed against this evil.

So the Tanzania experience had to excite this colourful columnist. Through his celebrated style of writing that nettled bad leaders and won applause from the public, Ogunsanwo said that if he placed the lifestyle of Nyerere side-by-side with what we had in Nigeria, the weight of the East African leader wouldn’t surpass the wealth of a level 9 officer in the Nigerian Civil Service. A shocked Ogunsanwo said something to the effect that the home of Nyerere had uninspiring furniture compared to what a middle level civil servant in Nigeria might offer. Nyerere’s was a study in Spartan decor.

Years later in 1999 when the beloved Tanzania leader died at 77, the New York Times correspondent, Michael Kaufman, wrote what has gone into the books as a most charitable essay by a Western reporter on an African president who mercilessly chided capitalism as a curse on humanity, thus confirming Ogunsanwo’s point. He admitted Nyerere’s “habits of modesty and ethics.”

Nigeria: At Once Poor, Proud And Profligate

By Bayo Sodade  

Nigeria parades a plethora of unflattering socioeconomic indices. With a poverty head count of 53.9%, the population of the poor in Nigeria of about 100 million is more than the whole population of Egypt(93m), United Kingdom (65m), France (64m) , Turkey (79m), Democratic Republic of Congo(79m) among others. Nigeria’s Human Development Index value for 2015 of 0.514 is below the average for sub-Saharan Africa, putting the country in the low human development category, positioning it at 152 out of 188 countries and territories under the UNDP ranking.

Nigeria’s life expectancy at birth of 52.8 years is among the worst in the world compared to 60.6 years average for other low HDI countries and 64.1 years for Ethiopia and 58.7 years for Democratic Republic of Congo. The World Economic Forum uses Human Capital Report to rank countries on how well they are deploying their peoples’ talents. The index takes a life-course approach to human capital, evaluating the levels of education, skills and employment. The 2016 Human Capital Report ranked Nigeria 127 out of 130 countries, the worst country in Africa except for Chad and Mauritania.

Juxtaposed with these bleak statistics is monumental profligacy enshrined in our ethos and manifesting in the debasement and perversion of our cultural values. We habitually squander scarce resources on our routine household and business tasks, on parties and celebrations.

According to experts, for every one million population 1000 megawatts of electricity is required to satisfy every need. With a population of about 180 million, Nigeria’s optimum power requirement is about 180,000MW compared to more than 50,000MW that South Africa, with a population of 53 million, generates and distributes. Ironically, enormous amount of the grossly inadequate energy is being wasted. A study carried out by Lagos State revealed that 4,358Kwh of electricity is wasted annually. By switching to energy saving bulbs only, N12.7 billion could be saved in Lagos State alone. Only 1% of Lagosians practise energy conservation leaving the planet groaning with 9.5 billion pounds of carbon footprints per annum.

Lightening Africa

By Said Adejumobi  

The metaphor for describing Africa as a “dark continent” has varied in time and space. In the 1970s to 1990s, Africa’s relative underdevelopment with high levels of poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, disease, etc was used by the Afro-pessimists like Joseph Konrad to qualify Africa as the “heart of darkness.” However, with the Africa ‘rising’ story, the energy crisis, precisely the provision of electricity, is now used to qualify the continent as a “dark continent.”  When an aerial picture of Africa is taken at night via the satellite, the image that suffices is undoubtedly one of a continent in utter darkness, with little twinkles of light, far in between.

The facts are daunting and the storyline is very bad. Over 60 per cent of the population of the continent estimated at about 612 million people,  do not have access to  basic energy. Sub-Saharan Africa excluding South Africa generates less electricity than Spain. The energy used in the city of New York is up to, if not more than, what the entire Sub-Saharan Africa consumes. Yet, electricity is the lifewire of a modern economy and society, without which human potentials, and economic development will be severely impaired. Firms cannot operate optimally,  jobs cannot be created, the informal sector cannot grow, the learning environment for our children will be harsh and inhospitable, and households will grumble all the time. That is the fate of Africa today. The promise of industrialisation and economic transformation will be far fetched for the continent if the energy infrastructure is not provided in Africa.

The energy challenge is now a major policy priority for the continent and the World Goal number seven (7) of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to achieve affordable and clean energy. The Progress Panel headed by former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan made energy the focus of its 2016 report entitled: Power, People and Planet, while the African Development Bank (AfDB) made it the subject of its annual board meetings which took place recently in Lusaka, Zambia from from May 23-27, 2016 on the theme: Energy and Climate Change.

Akinwumi Adesina, the new president of the AfDB, decked in a slim-fit suit and his trade mark bow-tie, spoke brilliantly on why the continent must be lighted up, and quickly too, and why the fate of our young men and women fleeing the continent, should not be in the Mediterranean Sea, but in economic prosperity at home. Energy is key to creating jobs and opportunities for them, at home. As Adesina delivered his message to the audience with passion, commitment, and conviction, the urgency of the matter no doubt dawned on everyone present. The AfDB used the platform to launch its new initiative on the ‘New Deal on Energy in Africa’ through which it hopes to support African countries to overcome the energy challenge with billions of dollars in investments.

There are areas of good consensus amongst key stakeholders on what needs to be done to get Africa lighted up. African governments can no longer do it alone; public-private sector partnership is central in changing the ball game on energy in Africa. Massive investments and strategic planing are required in the sector which hitherto was not the case except for political rhetorics and high level of corruption. And finally, is that the reform of the energy sector is imperative if the goal of lighting up Africa is ever to be achieved.

How The Poor Got Poorer Under Jacob Zuma

Last week, it was reported that South Africa’s economy shrank by 1.2% quarter-on-quarter, according to the latest gross domestic product figures from Stats SA. Read that again: Shrank. It did not slow down. It is going backwards.

*Jacob Zuma

Then there is unemployment. Our jobless rate was 26.7% in the first quarter, the highest in at least eight years. Eight years? That’s how long Obama has been in power in the US. That’s how long President Jacob Zuma has been in power in South Africa.

You might think that this unemployment figure is terrible. It’s far worse than you think because it does not include “discouraged” job-seekers (those who have given up looking). If you include them, then the unemployment rate soars to 36.3%.

 In total, there are 8.9million unemployed people in South Africa.

In February the World Bank said South Africa needs annual economic growth of 7.2% from 2018 to achieve the government’s target of reducing the jobless rate to 6% by 2030. It is 2016 and our economy has contracted by 1.2% in the first quarter.

In 2008, when Zuma and his supporters got President Thabo Mbeki fired, and he promised to do better, it was growing at a respectable 3.6%.

Zuma has been a disgrace to the great movement that was once the ANC. His actions over the past 10 years have turned all South Africans into a laughing stock across the globe. He is a shame to himself and his glorious movement.

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Nigeria, As Presently Operated, Is Not Sustainable

By Gani Adams  

I would like to salute the organisers of this event for counting me worthy to deliver this lecture on an issue that threatens the very basis of our unity as we speak. There are many sides to the farmers/herdsmen’s crisis but let us just consider two, namely the political and the economic.

*Gani Adams

The political side

Now, Nigeria, for many of its over 250 ethnic groups, is obviously not a nation in the sense that we regard France, United Kingdom or South Africa as a nation. That is why, as recently pointed out by Mr. Dan Nwayanwu, former chairman of the Labour Party, during a programme organised by the Ondo State Government in Akure: given an option, many of the ethnic groups in Nigeria would prefer to opt out of Nigeria.

Already, groups such as the Indigenous People of Biafra and the Niger Delta Avengers, among others, have more or less shattered whatever illusions we may retain regarding the Nigeria that we are living in. While Nigeria would obviously be better off remaining a nation, it is also true that a surgical operation is required to take out the cancer of disintegration currently ravaging the country on every side. And this is quite simply because Nigeria, as it is presently operated, is not sustainable.

Nigeria is supposed to be a federal republic but it operates a unitary constitution where the states, like children, simply go to Abuja at the end of every month to collect food. They cannot even feed themselves. Is it not an utter shame that the descendants of the Oyo empire, Kanem-Bornu empire, Benin empire, and so on, have to go cap in hand to Abuja, collecting allocation that cannot even pay workers’ salaries when the traditional system which guaranteed full employment and a decent standard of living can be recreated through proper federalism like we had in the First Republic?

In the USA, it was the states that came together to form the central/federal government currently headed by Barack Obama.

In Nigeria, it was the Centre or Federal Government that created the states for political reasons and to achieve what the eminent Igbo scholar, Chinweizu, referred to as Caliphate Colonialism; a system whereby some people are born to rule. This is quite simply an aberration, and our consideration of farmers/herdsmen’s clashes must thus begin from this context.

If we have a federal republic that is nothing but a sham, a big fraud, why then are we surprised that a group of Boko Haram members masquerading as herdsmen have been terrorising innocent farmers across the country? If, for instance, there is state police, would the herdsmen have found it easy to attack farmers, rape women and slaughter them afterwards, burn down entire villages, and even carry out major robberies on major highways while the security agencies look the other way?

Enugu Killings 4th Dimension

By Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba

The killings in Enugu is a done deal but should be made to be the turning point of Boko Haram’s southward incursions. Let history understand that the point where the dead martyrs of Enugu were buried was the furthest and the last stop of the terrorists. That here was where we stood and declared that we will not take any more nonsense.

Here’s how:

1.      Burials of the dead: Let’s bury the dead one at a time and make each burial as gruesome and emotional as possible. The dead should be carried around the entire LGA with processions led by bishops, Catholic and Protestants and MASSOB and Kanu’s IPOD providing security. Let’s ask the police and security men who could not protect the dead when they were alive to stop protecting them when they are about to be buried. During the services let the bishops call for Holy Ghost fire to be returned to sender. Give MASSOB leaders a chance to make incendiary speeches if the collar on the bishop’s necks stop them from telling the truth as it is.

2.    Show of anger: Invite all the governors of all Southern States and NC State who have suffered from the terrorist’s actions and give them a chance to represent the feelings and anger of their people. This would show the leaders of Boko Haram that there is a united front before them and that the front means business. It will also awaken the sleeping president from his slumber.

3.    Talk back to the Northern Governor’s Council: Governor Ugwuanyi should summon his colleagues to a SE Governor’s council. They should repudiate the statement from the Northern Governor’s Council suggesting that the use of the word CRIMINAL in association with the killings south of Jos be banned. The events were criminal for if the killers are ever caught they would be charged with criminal offenses. What the Northern Governors said was an insult on the victims and extremely insensitive.

4.    Make Laws Controlling the movement of herds: Governor Ugwuanyi should summon his legislature and send them a bill outlawing the movement of herds by any means other than trucks and trains in the state. Each southern governor would send such a bill to their own legislators. This cooperative agenda would send signals that leaderships of the south are poised to lead and would make the sleeping Abuja leaders wake up of be woken up.