THOUGHT LEADERSHIP - The African Mirror

Nov

24

2025

Promise Khumalo: From shy recruit to revolutionary voice of freedom

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

I arrived at Viana Transit Camp in late 1979, immediately after my further training in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Viana, just outside Luanda, in Angola, served as a transit camp for all sorts of ANC and Umkhonto WeSizwe (MK) cadres. Some had just completed their training in the camps and were on their way abroad for advanced training, others, like me, had done their advanced courses abroad and were waiting for further assignments. There were also new recruits who had come from SA and were on their way to military training or other forms of training. As a…

Nov

22

2025

By KWASI KONADU

Ciara’s Beninese citizenship: marketing ploys can’t heal the past

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

AFRICAN American singer Ciara received citizenship from the Republic of Benin in 2025 as a descendant of enslaved Africans. The images of her ceremony at Ouidah’s slave route memorial site, “Door of No Return”, were broadcast worldwide. Surrounded by drummers and dignitaries, she held a new Beninese passport aloft, a gesture hailed as both homecoming and healing. As a historian of Africa, the African diaspora and Ghana, I see Ciara’s citizenship as part of a broader, complex story about how African states are reengaging with their diasporas. These are the global communities of people whose ancestors were displaced through slavery,…

Nov

22

2025

By RICHARD G. COWDEN

South Africans are flourishing more than you might expect – here’s why

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

SOUTH Africa is often portrayed in the media as a country struggling with inequality, corruption, crime, infrastructure collapse and public health challenges. But this isn’t the whole story. When South Africans are asked to describe their own lives, they often reveal signs that they are flourishing in vital ways. According to the Global Flourishing Study, many South Africans are, in fact, showing resolve by striving to move forward from the country’s difficult past and maintaining hope for a better future. Human flourishing is sometimes used to describe an ideal state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good,…

Nov

20

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

When light breaks through: Why South Africa’s anti-corruption fight gives us hope

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THE revelations that emerged on July 6, 2025, when KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi exposed how criminals and drug cartels have allegedly infiltrated the highest levels of South Africa's law enforcement, reaching as far as deputy national commissioner, sent shockwaves through the nation. For many citizens, already weary from years of corruption scandals, these allegations might feel like the final straw - proof that the rot runs too deep, that the system is broken beyond repair. But there is another way to read this moment in our nation's history. And it is a reading that should fill every South…

Nov

19

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

A light extinguished: Remembering Dr Franklin Abraham Sonn

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ON November 15, 2025, South Africa lost one of its most luminous stars. Dr. Franklin Abraham Sonn - educator, diplomat, visionary, and gentle warrior for justice - passed away at the age of 86, leaving behind a legacy so vast and vivid that it illuminates the path forward for generations yet unborn. Born on October 11, 1939, into an apartheid nation that sought to dim the brilliance of people like him, Sonn refused to be contained. He became, instead, a force of nature - a man who transformed every hostile space into fertile ground, every barrier into a doorway, every…

Nov

17

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

The iron lady’s iron grip: The rise and fall of Ekurhuleni’s “Mother of corruption”

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

They called her "uMama" - Mother. How touching. How appropriate. After all, what is motherhood if not nurturing, protecting, and ensuring your children thrive? And thrive they did under Dr Imogen Mashazi's watchful eye, particularly one Julius Mkhwanazi, who loved his "mother" so much he publicly declared at a 2023 Christmas party: "I will take a bullet for you." One wonders: was that bullet meant for investigators, whistleblowers, or merely the truth? On July 17, 2025, at the luxurious Radisson Hotel & Convention Centre in Kempton Park, Ekurhuleni's first female city manager celebrated her 65th birthday and retirement with hugs,…

Nov

17

2025

By JONATHAN POWELL and SALAH BEN HAMMOU

Guinea-Bissau’s presidential poll has already failed the credibility test

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

GUINEA-BISSAU heads into its November elections against the backdrop of a deepening crisis of electoral legitimacy across Africa. In recent months, a string of elections has reinforced the perception that incumbency, not competition, remains the standard. In Cameroon, 92-year-old Paul Biya claimed an eighth consecutive term after officially winning 53.7% of the vote widely denounced as fraudulent and met with protests. In Tanzania, President Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the victor with an implausible 98% of ballots cast in her favour following a poll marred by numerous irregularities and followed by protests and a crackdown unprecedented in the country’s history.…

Nov

14

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

Africa’s industrial renaissance: How one man’s vision is rewriting the continent’s economic future

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

FOR decades, Africa has been told what it cannot do. Cannot industrialise. Cannot compete globally. Cannot finance its own development. Cannot break free from the cycle of dependency. Today, those narratives are crumbling under the weight of concrete, steel, and unwavering African ambition. At the forefront of this transformation stands Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest man, whose recent multi-billion dollar investments across the continent are not merely business deals—they are declarations of independence, blueprints for self-sufficiency, and proof that Africa's renaissance will be led by Africans themselves. Consider the scale: A $2.5 billion fertiliser complex in Ethiopia. A $1+ billion investment…

Nov

14

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

Africa’s $65 billion pharmaceutical dependency: A crisis of sovereignty

AUDA-NEPAD, THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

EVERY year, Africa spends more than $65 billion importing medical products it could manufacture itself. Let that sink in: a continent of 1.4 billion people, rich in resources and human capital, haemorrhaging billions to foreign pharmaceutical companies for medicines that never needed to cross an ocean. This isn't just poor economics. It's a surrender of sovereignty so complete, so devastating, that it should keep every African leader awake at night. When Nardos Bekele-Thomas, CEO of the African Union Development Agency, addressed the 7th Biennial Scientific Conference on Medical Products Regulation in Mombasa this week, she delivered a message that transcended…

Jan

17

2026

By THABO MBEKI

“His majesty King Moshoeshoe: to exemplary African leadership which Africa needs!”

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

IN 1984, His Majesty, King Moshoeshoe II, was requested to address the Centenary Celebrations of the adoption of Roman-Dutch Law by Lesotho. He first responded, I believe to the Chief Justice, saying that he trembled when he received the invitation to address the Centenary meeting because he was afraid of embarrassing the gathering, the hosts and himself because he was aware that he did not have the necessary expertise to satisfy the legal eagles who would have convened for the Celebrations. However, he was reassured when he was told that his task was merely to welcome the guests and then…