NEWS - The African Mirror

Apr

21

2026

Mnangagwa, Tshisekedi move to rewrite constitutions, extend their rule

NEWS

TWO African heads of state are simultaneously engineering constitutional changes designed to extend their hold on power, in moves that threaten to deepen political crises in both Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo and deal a fresh blow to the continent's democratic credibility. In Zimbabwe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government gazetted the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill No. 3 on 16 February 2026 - a sweeping proposal that would extend presidential terms from five years to seven, effectively keeping the 83-year-old leader in office until 2030 in defiance of a constitutionally mandated departure set for 2028. The bill also proposes…

Apr

22

2026

By ERIC BIANTUADI, BIRD STORY AGENCY

How digital transformation is offering a highway for African women

NEWS

IN a brightly lit, white-walled gallery, a woman gazes at a vertical portrait with a pale green background behind a dark, stylised figure that appears to be wearing a mask or a ceremonial headpiece featuring a distinct cross-like structure. A look of recognition flitters across her face before she moves on. Digital activist, media entrepreneur, and public voice, Edith Brou Bleu is staying up to date with the latest works on display in physical galleries in Abidjan. It is important for her to stay in touch because she is helping build a digital world that needs to stay abreast of…

Apr

20

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

$1.3m Graft: Nigerian court issues arrest warrant after ex cabinet minister court

NEWS

A Federal Capital Territory High Court has issued a bench warrant for the arrest of former Nigerian Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, after she defied a court summons and failed to appear for her arraignment on 21 counts of financial fraud. Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie of the FCT High Court issued the warrant after Farouq - once the public face of Nigeria's flagship social safety net programmes - and her co-accused, Permanent Secretary Bashir Nura Alkali, failed to appear before the court. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had filed the 21-count charge…

Apr

20

2026

By JACKSON OKATA

Food or poison? Inside Africa’s silent pesticide crisis

NEWS

IN the fertile fields of rural Africa, where food should nourish life, a quiet danger is taking root. From Kenya’s vegetable farms to West Africa’s cocoa fields, millions of smallholder farmers are increasingly reliant on highly hazardous pesticides, chemicals so toxic that many have already been banned in Europe. Yet, paradoxically, they continue to flow into African markets in large volumes, raising urgent questions about food safety, global inequality, and environmental justice. A recent investigation by Greenpeace Africa reveals how dozens of pesticides deemed unsafe for human health elsewhere are still widely used across the continent. In 2024 alone, nearly…

Apr

20

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Pope Leo XIV takes on Africa’s wound: ‘Extractivism’ is the Pope’s word for a century of plunder

NEWS

WHEN Pope Leo XIV stood before Angola’s government authorities and said the word “extractivism,” he was not offering a diplomatic pleasantry. He was indicting a system. "How much suffering, how many deaths, how many social and environmental disasters are brought about by this logic of extractivism?" the pontiff declared in Luanda, as he completed the third leg of a historic four-nation African voyage that has already taken him through Algeria and Cameroon. The word itself - extractivism - carries enormous analytical weight in African political economy. It describes the colonial and post-colonial logic by which Africa's vast natural endowments are…

Apr

21

2026

By BONFACE ORUCHO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Rent-to-own expands as Africa rethinks homeownership models

NEWS

AFRICA’S housing market is moving away from a rigid split between renting and owning toward structured pathways that allow households to transition between the two. Rent-to-own models are gaining ground as a financing mechanism that converts monthly rent into long-term equity. Millions of Africans remain locked out of mortgage finance, with fewer than 5% of adults accessing formal home loans, according to the International Monetary Fund. In some markets, the Fund notes, traditional mortgage systems reach as little as 3% of the population. The scale of the gap remains significant. Africa’s housing deficit exceeds 50 million units and could rise…

Apr

18

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Morocco to assist US with security for the 2026 FIFA World Cup

NEWS

WHEN the United States Embassy in Rabat announced that Morocco had been selected to join a White House-led security task force for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the communiqué read, on the surface, like routine diplomatic choreography between two longstanding partners. It was anything but. For the first time in the history of football's grandest tournament - an event watched by an estimated six billion people worldwide - an African nation has been formally embedded in the security architecture of a World Cup it will not even host. Morocco joins a multinational planning body shaping safety protocols for a competition…

Apr

18

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Nigerian couple jailed for three years in the UK for f ‘worst breach, betrayal’

NEWS

JUDGE David Miller did not mince his words. Delivering sentence at Woolwich Crown Court in London, he told the defendants they had placed themselves "at the epicentre" of a fraud that was only made possible because one of them held a position of trust inside one of the world’s most recognisable public transport networks. The case before him, he declared, represented the worst data breach in the history of Transport for London - an institution that moves more than three million passengers a day and employs tens of thousands of workers across the British capital. Luciana Akanbi, 38, and her…

Apr

18

2026

By The African Mirror

Burkina Faso junta dissolves 118 CSOs in latest bid to crush dissent

NEWS

BURKINA Faso's military regime has escalated its assault on civic space, dissolving 118 civil society organizations (CSOs) in a sweeping decree that signals yet another deliberate step to throttle independent voices amid the country's spiraling jihadist insurgency. The Territorial Administration Ministry has announced the ban, targeting associations across the nation, with many focused on human rights monitoring, advocacy, and humanitarian aid. Minister Emile Zerbo justified the move as enforcement of a July 2025 law imposing stricter regulations on CSOs, including rigorous administrative compliance requirements. "Any offender faces the penalties provided for under current regulations," Zerbo warned in the statement, urging…

Apr

18

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

She ran. He stopped. Heaven noticed

NEWS

THE motorcade was assembled. The vestments were neatly folded. The diplomatic handshakes had been shaken, the homilies delivered, the open-air Mass at Bamenda's sweeping outdoor ground had drawn tens of thousands of the faithful, their voices rising into the Cameroonian sky like incense. Pope Leo XIV had done everything the schedule required of him. He was, as they say in Vatican circles, about to peel off. And then she came. She was small. She was fast. She was wearing a blue floral dress — the kind that catches the afternoon light just so — with her hair braided in the…