#112 - Obiageli Ezekwesili - "Get interested by politics, or be ruled by idiots"

Mark Suzman is the CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.He sits astride one of the biggest charitable endeavours on the planet, a $50bn endowment that has in the last 18 months thrown itself at the Covid-19 pandemic, funding all manner of research and vaccine trials, and now the COVAX scheme itself.In this conversation with Nicholas Norbrook, he talks through the thorny nature of global collective action problems, and why the world should fund African vaccines shots to avoid a costly new Covid-19 variant.

The European Union has an ambitious trillion dollar plan to slash emissions by over 50% from 1990 levels by 2030. This can present opportunities to African countries... but also threats. Will it lock African farmers out of EU markets? Will it lock finance out of dirty energy projects too soon?Zainab Usman of the Carnegie Endowment and Olumide Abimbola of the Africa Policy Research Centre join The Africa's Report's Nicholas Norbrook

What next for Al Shabaab, the insurgent group that attacked Palma in the northern Mozambique province of Cabo Delgado in March? Is South Africa on the hook financially and now militarily? What has a decade of drug money done to local politics?Dino Mahtani, International Crisis Group's Deputy Director for Africa, takes us on a deep dive into Mozambique's thorny security imbroglio. With Nicholas Norbrook and Patrick Smith.

On 12 August, Zambians go to the polls to vote in their next president.Zambia’s ruling party, the Patriotic Front, confirmed Edgar Lungu in April as its candidate in this year's polls.With electoral campaigns now open since 21 May, 19 candidates have so far presented themselves as contenders against Lungu.But one man in particular is looking to take over from the incumbent president.He's hoping the sixth time will be a charm.In this week's Talking Africa, we speak to Hakainde Hichilema, Zambia's main opposition candidate, of the United Party for National Development.For more, head to www.theafricareport.com

Today Nigeria’s political system is more fiercely contested than ever with some militants trying to break up the federation – to what extent do these schisms have their roots in the extreme violence of Britain’s commercial exploitation of the territory and its colonial conquest ?To tackle this question, Talking Africa podcast speaks to Max Siollun, author of  What Britain Did To Nigeria; Barnaby Phillips, author of Loot : Britain and the Benin Bronzes , and Funmi Adebayo, an economist and publisher of the Black Monologues podcast series.This week's Talking Africa is mediated by Patrick Smith. For more, head to www.theafricareport.com

Former cabinet minister, co-ordinator of the #BringBankOurGirls campaign, VP at the World Bank... the multi-talented Obiageli Ezekwesili discusses why Nigeria's political elite missed a golden moment to create a nation, rather than just a country.For more, head to www.theafricareport.com

When veteran correspondent Michela Wrong started researching her book, ‘Do Not Disturb – the story of a political murder and an African regime gone bad’ on the killing of Rwanda’s spymaster Patrick Karegeya, she knew it was going to prompt fierce arguments about President Paul Kagame’s record and the country’s direction.In this special edition of the Talking Africa podcast, Patrick Smith brings together Michela Wrong and Kenyan writer and historian Parselelo Kantai to discuss the issues raised in the book for Rwanda and the wider region.

A report published by US-based the World Peace Foundation stresses the looming famine disaster in Ethiopia's Tigray if the fighting does not stop.Since the first foray into the Tigray by the Ethiopian government in Addis Ababa back in November, the following months have seen an entirely man-made humanitarian crisis unfold.This report documents how both Ethiopian and Eritrean elements in this Tigray war have single-handedly dismantled the region's economic and food system.But this can be stopped if the majority of the Tigrayan people, many of whom are are smallholder farmers, are able to farm in time for the rains in June.For more on the report's findings, we speak to Alex de Waal, the executive director of the WFP in this week's podcast with Patrick Smith.

A recent report released by the Nigeria-based Global Rights organisation, entitled 'Mass Atrocities 2020 Tracking' states 4,556 people were killed in 2020 between January and December.That's a 43% jump from the number of casualties in 2019. Of that number, 3,188 were civilians, and 698 were state security agents.Borno state in the North East had the highest number of fatalities followed by Kaduna state in the North West.As the authors of the report point out: "[...] The swiftest method for determining a nation's propensity for violence, is to measure how its most vulnerable are faring."Our podcast this week, mediated by Patrick Smith, will speak to two contributors to the report on Nigeria’s proliferating security clashes to better understand what has led to this spike in violence, and what can be done to address them.

In this week’s episode we’ll be visiting a dark moment in the history of Niger. It's a moment that few talk about. yet alone know about.Known as the Voulet-Chanoine mission, it was led by captain Paul Voulet in 1898. in just a few months, he spearheaded a campaign of terror as he made his way towards lake chad, in an effort to unite all of france’s territories in west Africa. Nearly a year later, the expedition ended. but the damage was done. and the scars are still felt to this day.In a feature-length documentary called ‘African Apocalypse, Femi Nyader and Rob Lemkin retrace the path of Voulet and meet the people who still share the stories of their families who survived the campaign. We speak to them about their visual journey.