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The African Research Assistant as Hunter-Gatherer: An Insider’s View

6 min read.

Research assistants are merely the “hunters and gatherers” of knowledge, relegated to the periphery as “brokers”, doing the bidding of those who pull the purse strings, argues Wanjiru Gichohi.

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The African Research Assistant as Hunter-Gatherer: An Insider’s View

The so-called research industry in Africa is a fast growing sector that is dominated by for-profit firms, state agencies and academia, among a litany of players who are trying to understand society and make nuanced policy on critical societal issues. At the heart of this industry is the research assistant who is part fixer, part liaison, part translator, part moderator, part research broker, part administrator, part baby-sitter.

Perhaps that last one sounds a little exaggerated when it comes to the many hats that the RA—as the research assistant is referred to in local research circles—has to wear, but on the ground it is nonetheless an apt description; research respondents have been known to show up for a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with toddlers or babies in tow.

Recruitment of RAs

An RA’s journey typically begins with an induction session offered by the research team. Typically, these are foreign nationals, senior consultants operating locally, or development organizations that have received research funding. In the course of their training, RAs familiarize themselves with the data collection tools and methods that will be used in the project. Where possible, a pilot session is organized.

The RAs are then sent out on research missions; they may be tasked with recruiting study respondents, moderating group discussion sessions, conducting interviews and taking notes and it is not uncommon to find an RA playing any two of these roles. The level of remuneration that RAs receive is usually determined by the top management of the hiring organization. Given the high unemployment rate and low bargaining power of many potential research assistants, more often than not, they accept less than they are worth.

Recruiting respondents and the politics of compensation

Of the tasks typically assigned to the RA, the recruitment of potential respondents is perhaps the most challenging. Most people will need to know what they stand to gain by participating; “kuna chai? which is Kenyan for “am I getting a little money out of this?” This question can be justified depending on how you look at it; one, these people are leaving their productive spaces for approximately half a day, and two, they are spending money on transport. It is not unusual to oversee a research project in a remote community where respondents are coming in from villages that are as far as 40 km away from the venue of the Focus Group Discussion (FDG).

The common practice is to recruit respondents in excess to cover for potential no-shows but in some cases, all the recruited persons turn up leaving the RA to deal with those that have to be sent away who may become aggressive as they demand reimbursement of their costs. This is a situation that calls on the RA’s negotiating skills, as money for such reimbursements is often not included in the study budget. Fixed budgets mean that the respondent who brought along his wife and child can leave the RA out-of-pocket as s/he provides the extra meals and the cost of transport back home. Husbands have been known to pocket the incentive and immediately disappear, leaving their families stranded and forcing the RA to provide money for transport from personal funds.

You may wonder why, but NGOs have made it a practice to offer incentives to research participants. International NGOs can afford to give large amounts of money as incentives, and sometimes include foodstuffs. Research participants have come to expect the same level of incentives from all other research bodies and will complain if that standard is not met.

Meet the serial respondent

Then there are the “serial respondents” who are all too familiar with research studies. This is common when a recruiting agency uses the same database of respondents for several projects. Serial respondents come with expectations regarding the type or amount of compensation they should receive based on previous experience.

Serial respondents will often have participated in studies undertaken by various (international) NGOs and as such, they usually have an idea of the “going rate”. This is why they sometimes bring along friends who have not been invited to participate by the RA so that they too can “get on the gravy train”. Participants can make up to KSh2,500 (US$25) for taking part in an FGD, a reasonable amount to make for a 2-hour engagement in many parts of the country.

Of critical concern, however, “is whether serial respondents” lend credibility to the research process. Given that they participate in many discussion groups, interviews and surveys, is it possible that they have “learned” how to respond to questions? Have they devised ways of manipulating recruitment agencies in order to remain on the recruitment databases? Also, how do local researchers without huge research budgets, compete in a situation where foreign researchers have tipped the “market” in their favour?

The black market of knowledge

The above narration reflects the everyday administrative experiences of a research assistant that are often discounted by the contracting researchers. However, beyond administrative duties, RAs usually also make epistemic contributions to the research process. First, prior to recruitment, the RA is issued with a respondent profile that gives the general characteristics of the individuals who will participate in the study.

The RA is then left to make quick judgements, from a 10-15 minute face-to-face or telephone conversation, on the capacity of the selected persons to effectively contribute to the research exercise. During interviews and focus group discussions, the moderator or interviewer is tasked with bringing the data collection instrument to life, through translation and probing for responses that will drive the discussion towards the research objectives.

In the data collection phase, the moderators and note-takers play the critical role of providing data that will later be transcribed and analysed to generate research findings. Overlooking this crucial role played by the local research assistant is tantamount to choking the knowledge production machinery.

Of critical concern, however, “is whether serial respondents” lend credibility to the research process.

After the fieldwork, the RAs are not acknowledged as having been part of the research projects they have contributed to, but are merely relegated to the periphery as “research brokers”. In the black market of knowledge production, research assistants, such as myself, do not even have a say in the amount of remuneration.

Given the crucial role that research assistants play as research brokers, where then are they positioned on the research spectrum? How then do we begin to recognize them as critical drivers of the research process and treat them as such in deed and in compensation? As Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni notes, “The silencing of ‘local’ and ‘African’ voices in research is largely to blame for the epistemic divide between the Global North and South where the research assistants have remained hunter-gatherers’ of raw data and ‘native informants’.”

These locals collect data on behalf of researchers from the Global North who then develop theories and publish that data. The theories and concepts are consumed and, at times, even tested in Africa.

Faceless ants of the research colony

Research assistants have long been at the periphery of the knowledge production continuum. Western researchers swoop in with the funding, armed with the research design and methodology but with little or no knowledge of the local context. They are forced to rely on local researchers to “fix”, “broker”, and facilitate interviews and discussions with respondents as well as for other types of research activities.

At the end of it all, the research assistants walk off with their pay, sometimes meagre, with no recognition whatsoever in the research outputs. So what contribution do local research assistants make to knowledge production in Africa? Are they merely a means to an end? How can local researchers rid the epistemological space of the extant racial hierarchization and asymmetrical power relations to claim their space as “research collaborators” rather than merely being viewed as “assistants”.

In his article, Decoloniality as the Future of Africa, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni mentions that despite Africa having attained independence, spheres such as culture, religion, language, aesthetics, the mind and psyche have remained colonized. He alludes to the fact that African knowledge systems still remain subject to the Euro-North American-centric systems. As such, decoloniality is imperative to dismantle the power relations and conceptions of knowledge that propagate the reproduction of gender, racial and geo-political hierarchies birthed or energized by the colonial world.

RAs are not acknowledged as having been part of the research projects they have contributed to, but are merely relegated to the periphery as “research brokers”.

It is unfortunate that we find these hierarchies and dichotomies replicated in the research and knowledge production space where Westerners have positioned themselves as the “controllers” of the research agendas and initiatives. These “perceived” or “implied” privileges are probably because one, funding follows along a North-South channel and two, seemingly sophisticated and progressive knowledge systems are prevalent in the West. The consequence of this positioning is that researchers and knowledge systems situated in the Global South are relegated to the bottom of the research food chain.

Owning our research stories

Local researchers, mostly research assistants, then become more or less the “hunters and gatherers” of knowledge, doing the bidding of those who pull the purse strings. We are now caught up in a situation where foreigners use African experts to study Africa and African phenomena but totally erase or sideline the locals that facilitate their research. As African scholar Chinua Achebe has said, “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

This is not to romanticize indigenous and vernacular approaches, or to imply that they should be taken as they are without a commensurate level of scrutiny and analysis. We still need to create and open up spaces for narratives and knowledge from the Global South to interact with and confront or bolster those from the Global North. It is time that African researchers are centred in African narratives, especially where intellectual contributions have been made.

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Wanjiru Gichohi is a Research Fellow at the African Leadership Centre (ALC). She is part of the Research Department and is responsible for contributing to the ALC’s research outputs, research programs coordination and organizational resource mobilization.

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Losing Our Minds: Brain Drain of Africa’s Psychiatrists Is Costing the Continent

Many of the continent’s most highly trained mental health professionals migrate outside Africa. The result, sadly, makes global inequalities in access to mental health, worse.

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Losing Our Minds: Brain Drain of Africa’s Psychiatrists Is Costing the Continent

The brain drain of medical professionals from African countries to rich countries in Europe, North America, and the Middle East has been particularly pronounced since the 1980s. As Bibilola Oladeji and Oye Gureje have noted, as of 2011, there were more than 17,000 African physicians practicing in the US alone, over two-thirds of whom had been trained in African medical schools. Of this group, two-thirds were trained either in Nigeria or South Africa, the two countries with the most extensive medical training systems on the continent. Psychiatrists have also made up a significant piece of the larger medical migration, drawn by higher salaries, better facilities, opportunities for professional development, and prospects for long-term stability to seek jobs outside of the continent.

The brain drain has become a commonplace terminology to describe the emigration of highly skilled labor from developing countries to highly industrialized states in the post-colonial world. The concept has been particularly valuable for understanding persistent underdevelopment in sub-Saharan African countries as related not so much to deficiencies in African expertise as its redirection primarily for the benefit of wealthy countries. Similar to the “brawn drain” of the Atlantic slave trade or the natural resource depletion that characterized European colonialism in much of the continent, brain drain has had long-lasting impacts on African countries’ internal development and position in the global economy.

The impact of the brain drain on mental health care in Africa can be seen through the example of Nigeria, one of the few sub-Saharan African countries with university hospitals providing accredited medical training in psychiatry. Nigeria’s first trained psychiatrist of indigenous background was Thomas Adeoye Lambo, who studied at Birmingham and the Maudsley Hospital in the UK before returning to Nigeria to practice at the newly founded Aro Mental Hospital in 1954. Lambo and his acolyte, Tolani Asuni, developed much of the infrastructure of Nigerian psychiatry in the 1960s and 1970s, and several Nigerian universities began producing psychiatrists by the 1980s. The purpose of developing such programs was to produce a qualified mental health workforce for the country. Students from other countries in West Africa also trained in psychiatry at Nigerian institutions. Nigeria’s mental health care workforce grew slowly but surely from only three psychiatrists in 1955, to 25 by 1975, and 100 by 2001. But the brain drain has had a major impact on Nigerian psychiatry. Today, there are roughly 250 psychiatrists in Nigeria to serve a population of approximately 190 million. At the same time, a study from 2010 found that there were 384 Nigerian psychiatrists practicing in the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, a number 50% higher than the estimated total practicing in Nigeria.

The effects of this psychiatric brain drain have been significant. Beyond the worsening of the psychiatrist-to-population ratio, this phenomenon has the potential of severely weakening ongoing reproduction of this limited resource as more freshly qualified psychiatrists and senior residents are being enticed/encouraged to relocate on the guise of training opportunities abroad, from which they never return. In addition to psychiatrists, mental health nurses are also leaving the continent in droves, with packages designed to make emigration easy and more likely to be permanent. The rate of migration far outstrips the rate of production, leaving a huge deficit in human resources, one of the major pillars of a health system, according to the World Health Organization.

Several reasons have been proffered for the exodus of medical doctors from Africa to the economically developed world. Oberoi and Lin classified these reasons into endogenous and exogenous factors. Endogenous factors include poor working conditions, poor remuneration, and lack of job satisfaction and job security with little or no opportunities for career development. Exogenous factors include social pressures from relatives, preponderances of civil unrest, and armed conflicts with attendant high levels of insecurity. Ironically, the factors that push mental health care workers to relocate abroad are the same ones that likely contribute to rates of psychological distress in their communities of origin that, in turn, require more and better mental health care.

Since the late 2000s, the “global mental health” movement has sought to ameliorate this “treatment gap” in mental health services in developing countries, including Nigeria and others in sub-Saharan Africa. In most cases, reducing the treatment gap relies heavily on training lower-qualified workers to perform the duties of highly-skilled practitioners, a set of practices known as “task shifting.” Task shifting in international public health has existed for a long time, and has been employed extensively in the field of HIV/AIDS diagnosis and treatment in many environments. But it’s use in psychiatric care is somewhat more controversial. Most notably, global mental health has been critiqued as potentially socially and culturally insensitive, importing knowledge and practices from western industrialized countries that might not adequately reflect local cultural beliefs or social determinants of health, while simultaneously marginalizing indigenous health systems.

Task shifting has also been proposed as a strategy for alleviating the effects of the brain drain on the health care sector. In a review of policies to address brain drain in sub-Saharan African countries, Edward Zimbudzi has identified some areas of possible intervention. These include ethical recruitment, brain drain tax or compensation for source countries, increasing investment in training more professionals, improving remuneration of health workers and working conditions in general, importing more staff, ensuring political stability, and encouraging remittances. However, the review concluded “that there is considerable consensus on task shifting as the most appropriate and sustainable policy option for reducing the impact of health professional brain drain from Africa.” While some studies have concluded that task shifting has effectively filled the treatment gap, others have indicated that it is by no means a comparable substitute for professional mental health care due to lack of proper supervision and training of lower level workers, among other factors.

But we would like to offer a different critique of the task-shifting discourse: it’s tendency to normalize the brain drain of health care professionals. Global mental health has always emphasized practicality over ideology: anything that can be done to fill the “treatment gap” is presumably better than not doing it. The origins of the medical brain drain are not really global mental health’s concern, but its consequences are a large part of the foundation of the movement’s argument for “scaling up” the health care workforce to address the “treatment gap,” which is effectively the primary justification for the movement’s existence. However, in making the case for immediate action, the discourse on task-shifting in global mental health replicates the long history of ignoring the long-term exploitation of African resources in order to focus on short-term, externally funded, non-state interventions to provide what Africa supposedly “lacks.”

Promoting task shifting to lower cadre health care workers as the best way to scale up mental health services in low- and middle-income countries indirectly suggests that these countries cannot hope for better, even as billions of dollars are lost by African countries from investment in training highly qualified health workers who go on to treat patients in wealthy countries. Meanwhile wealthy countries acquiesce to helping train up less-qualified caregivers to fill the “treatment gap” created in part by this brain drain. It also implies that African countries can get by on less than wealthy countries. Indeed, severe mental illness continues to be neglected under the “task shifting” model that does little to increase specialist capacity to handle such cases. While this rather popular principle in global mental health appears practical, it inadvertently panders to the notion that some lives are more important than others, and calls to question the relative value placed on the health and lives of citizens of the developing countries of Africa compared to the developed world. It reinforces and normalizes global inequalities.

Mitigating the psychiatric brain drain must ultimately be about much more than filling “treatment gaps.” It must also be about addressing the geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions that have produced the gap in the first place. Developing equitable and sustainable mental health services for all Africans is a political, economic, moral, and ethical issue of contemporary urgency and historical significance.

This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site once a week.

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Memo to Kenya’s Youth: Protect Your Motherland or Perish

We must think of freedom and emancipation from forces that enslave and divide us. We can start this patriotic dialogue by putting in place a political leadership that cares about your humanity, a leadership that you participate in directly and not as proxies.

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Mr President, In The Name Of The Constitution, Swear In The Judges

Kenya’s mixed election history

Sometimes it is said, with some validity, that the only peaceful, non-violent, free, fair, credible, verifiable, and acceptable elections took place during the “sunset” years of British colonialism in Kenya (1957-1963).

During these six years we elected our African representatives to the now multi-racial Legislative Council (LEGCO). It is during this period that decolonization talks took place in Kenya and later at Lancaster House, London.

In 1961 Jomo Kenyatta was released from his detention at Maralal in the Samburu County. He soon joined his fellow Africans in the LEGCO, participated in the independence talks at Lancaster, London, as the leader of Kenya African National Union (KANU).

His party KANU won the 1963 Elections, forming the internal self- government (Madaraka) from 01 June 1963. He became our first Prime minister on 12 December 1963 and the first President of our  Republic on 12 December 1964.

Although it was widely accepted that the colonial government and the British settlers would have loved a government of Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) and the liberal British settlers, KANU was the more popular party.

Rigging an election against KANU was out of the question. Gone were the days the colonial government would select their colonial chiefs from the outcomes of rigged queue voting (if for some reason they thought this voting was necessary).

The post-colonial times are peppered with stories of the rigging of elections, particularly during the few years the Kenya People’s Union (KPU) existed before it was banned and its leaders detained in 1969.

The by-election in Kandara (1966) in which independence hero Bildad Kaggia ran on a KPU ticket was rigged by making sure that ballot boxes were thrown out into coffee farms as government land rovers ferried cast votes to the district headquarters for the Loyal and law-abiding peasants in Kandara who showed up with the ballot boxes they found in their coffee farms were routinely arrested and detained!

Later in local government elections that took place, all the KPU candidates were disqualified because it was said they were unable to fill their nomination forms correctly! What saved the country from widespread violence was the strength of the provincial administration and the machinery of violence that the KANU government was able to mobilize.

The chilling call “Fanyeni fujo muone/Cause trouble at your own risk was often repeated, driving the point home that Jomo Kenyatta’s KANU would not be defied. That is not to say there was no resistance against the subversion of the right to vote.

When Kenya became a de facto one-party state in 1969, the KANU party and its government used many tricks to disqualify its members from running for elections. Members were either expelled from the party under dubious party disciplinary proceedings, or simply denied nominations to run for elections.

In cases where elections took place and so-called KANU “dissidents” were elected, a Judiciary, enslaved by KANU party and its government was able to nullify such victories. Others who were found guilty of election offences were barred from running for office for five years.

It was in 1988 when KANU dropped all pretense of holding free, fair, and credible elections. The Mlolongo/Queue Voting (where candidates would be elected based on the length of the queues of supporters lining up for them) took place and rigging took place in broad daylight.

In Othaya Constituency where former President Kibaki was a candidate, KANU party and its government tried to rig him out of his victory displayed by a long queue, far longer than his opponent’s.

It was during this election that Kibaki famously told the Presiding Officer that he could not rig that election because “it takes intelligence to rig elections.” Clearly, if the Presiding Officer had tried to declare Kibaki’s opponent the victor he may not have left Othaya alive!

The post second liberation elections of 1992 and 1997 elections were won by KANU because of the violence in the Rift Valley, a divided opposition, a subdued Electoral Commission of Kenya and its twin institution, the Judiciary.

Although in 1997 the KANU party and government allowed for opposition representation in the Electoral Commission, the changes didn’t curb electoral fraud.

The 2002 Presidential election was won by NARC (National Rainbow Coalition) because the barons (mabaroni/mababe vita) of the five communities that control over 70% of the vote (Kalenjin, Kikuyu, Luhya, Kamba, and Luo) voted for President Kibaki. It is safe to assume both Kibaki and Uhuru being Kikuyus shared the Kikuyu vote.

The violence that took place after the 2007 Presidential election is well documented. The loss of property and lives are well documented. The raping of women is well documented. One only needs to read both the Kriegler and Waki Commission Reports for the details.

This time round the Judiciary was rejected as a possible institution to hear the Presidential election petition by the losing political party. Again the Electoral Commission of Kenya was rightly accused of not conducting free, fair, peaceful, and credible elections.

It is clear to me that the 2013 Presidential elections did not result in violence because Raila Odinga stated that he accepted the decision of the Supreme Court although he did not agree with it.

In 2017 the Supreme Court nullified the Presidential election. The subsequent presidential election was boycotted by NASA Coalition and the resultant presidential petition filed by citizens was dismissed by the Supreme court.

The Supreme Court had shown that it could rule against either of the political factions, Jubilee and NASA. The “we shall revisit” warning by Jubilee to the Judiciary is still being felt.

It is possible that the two Supreme Court decisions birthed the dictatorship of the government and opposition (the Handshake and its child named BBI) and the continued political instability in the country.

Potential Electoral War in 2022

The potential for conflict, strife, instability, and violence in 2022 cannot be ruled out. The dynasty/hustler narrative is fraught with danger. Demystified it simply means that a possible war between haves and have-nots that the intra-elite conflict instigates.

The author of the hustler narrative, Deputy President Ruto identifies four dynastic families (Kenyatta, Odinga, Mudavadi, and Moi) as the cause of all societal problems in Kenya. He refuses to acknowledge he is the political orphan of the Moi dynasty.

He refutes the scientific wisdom of the OXFAM report that states that 8,300 billionaires and multimillionaires own assets equals to what the rest of the population of 48 million own.

Now that is the comprador bourgeoisie that can be characterized as the dynasty/monarchy. And without a doubt, the Deputy President along with other black, white, and brown dynasties are part of that class.

He is not calling for a class war between Kenya’s working people and the middle classes against the comprador bourgeoisie, the dynasties/monarchs/walalahai/Mabwenyenye who are multi-racial and multi-ethnic and who rule this country with their foreign masters.

The Deputy President is not calling for that class war, but a war against competing dynasties who are grouped in BBI, NASA, and the One Kenya Alliance.

He is inviting Kenyan youth to join in that war with a promise of a budget of 30 billion Kenya shillings to set them up in the so-called wheelbarrow economics!

If we go back to 2008 and ask ourselves who sowed the seeds for the post-election violence (PEV) we know it was the ethnic barons representing their cartels and the comprador class in their struggles to capture political power.

Unable to reach a consensus on how to protect their collective interests they used their evil genius in the politics of division to declare war on the people of Kenya. We still face this danger, more so because no alternative political leadership exists to warn Kenyans of the dangers they face if they are duped to participate in this intra-elite war. Already, we can clearly hear the war drums being beaten.

What the Kenyan youth must do

The 2019 national census told us that 75% of our over 48 million population comprises youth aged under 35. It is the youth who have borne the brunt of the denial of their material interests: education, water, land, national resources, housing, work, sanitation, health, food, and security. Without these public goods available to the youth we cannot talk of their human dignity.

Of course, the youth are not homogenous, but the majority are not the offspring of the 8,300 billionaires and millionaires. We are talking here about the daughters and sons of working-class and middle-class Kenyans. It is this youth that the elite have been able to divide on the bases of ethnicity, religion, region, race, generation, gender, clan, class (where the elites have successfully convinced these youth that their problems are caused by their parents who in reality subsidize the failings of the government and the ruling elite), and sports.

It is also this youth, particularly those who come from the working classes that are used as cannon fodder for the intra-elite battles through bloody handouts that do not result in any of their material interests being realized.

It is on the basis of the history that I lay out here, and the potential for war in 2022 that I call upon Kenya’s youth to do the following:

  • Demand that IEBC immediately complies with the Constitutional decree to register every youth who is over 18 to vote in 2022 election;
  • Support the parties that the youth are forming on the basis of their interests and ensure they come into power;
  • Refuse to vote for the baronial elite parties that have shown in the last 58 years they cannot give the youth of the working classes human dignity;
  • Absolutely refuse to be divided along the bases I have stated and stay focused on their material interests, particularly the right to work which is the basis of their humanity dignity;
  • Refuse to be recruited in ethnic and other criminal militias to be deployed to kill fellow youths in the country;
  • Solidly support the implementation of the Constitution and join movements that call for Linda/Tekeleza Katiba/Protect and implement the 2010 Constitution;
  • Vote out the elite and their factions of Kieleweke, Tinga Tinga, Tanga  Tanga, One Kenya Alliance, Wipa Wipa, Fodi, Fodi, all Dynasties including those calling themselves Hustlers;
  • Demystify and expose the cruelty and inhumanity of laughing at the working people, the real hustlers, by endangering their lives in a war among the elite;
  • Promote peace among fellow Kenyans and save the Motherland from warmongers and ethnic barons who are the causes of war amongst Kenya;
  • Join in struggles can seek alternative political narratives to those of theft, corruption, banditry economy, leadership by agents of foreign interests, politics of division, politics of foreign and national exploitation (Wavuna Jasho ya Wavuja Jasho), politics of incurring national debts against our collective national interests;
  • Understand clearly how elections are rigged today; through the capture of institutions implicated (IEBC, the Armed Forces, the Treasury, cartels, the Judiciary among others), use of Public Relations agencies, and Artificial intelligence (for example algorithms) that we are now familiar with;
  • Ensure that you focus on the MCA seats so that challenges can come from the grassroots; and
  • Defend the Motherland and its people.

A time for transformation

If we go back to the elections of 1963 and 2002 it is clear that there are elections that cannot be rigged. In both elections the voice of the majority was clear. That voice could not be reversed. It could not be revoked.

The powers that be, the colonial government and the Moi-KANU dictatorship respectively knew what would be the consequences of rigging those elections.

The voice of the majority in 2022 must be the voice of the Kenyan youth. Giving this country a political chance to implement different economic, social, cultural, spiritual, and cultural narratives that subvert the status quo is the result of our poverty.

It is true that our elections are about money, big money. What Kenyans should remember is that the first people’s representatives in the 1950s were financially supported by the people themselves.

There is absolutely no reason why this cannot happen again and our people see the need to invest in alternative politics that will be anchored on their collective humanity.

My dear Kenyan youth, all I can think of under these suggestions I have made to you is a clarion call to action, to transformation, to fundamental change in this country, to the protection of the Motherland by all means necessary, including death! I believe this is the reality that has to be said.

We must think of freedom and emancipation from forces that enslave and divide us. We can start this patriotic dialogue by putting in place a political leadership that cares about your humanity, a leadership that you participate in directly and not as proxies.

This article was first published by Africa Uncensored, an independent media house set up by Kenya’s finest investigative journalists.

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The Bear Is Back: Russian Re-Engagement With Africa Is Picking up With Putin in the Driving Seat

Plans for the 2022 Russia-Africa summit are well under way, again causing a stir around growing Russian presence on the continent. Rumored to be taking place in either Cairo, Dakar or Addis Ababa, the summit will bring together hundreds of representatives from business and government.

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The Bear Is Back: Russian Re-Engagement With Africa Is Picking up With Putin in the Driving Seat

Vladimir Putin has placed a high premium on rebuilding Russia’s stature as a global power, and these efforts extend to Africa. He first visited the continent in 2006, promising $1bn in investments and making a clear declaration of Russian interest.

If you google “Russia-Africa relations”, some of the first results include news articles about Russia and its “return” to the African continent. What does Russia want from Africa, many ask, and what’s behind Moscow’s recent push into the continent?

You may also see mention of the 2019 Russia-Africa Summit, the first of its kind, held in Sochi and attended by 43 African heads of state. Several memoranda of understanding were signed at the summit, including between the Russian government and the African Union.

“We are not going to participate in a new ‘repartition’ of the continent’s wealth; rather, we are ready to engage in competition for cooperation with Africa. We have a lot to offer our African friends,” President Vladimir Putin said at the summit. This too sparked debate about Russia’s growing influence on the continent.

Did Russia ever really leave Africa? That depends on who you ask.

In March 2021, building on previous work, the SA Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) launched a two-year research programme seeking to understand Russia’s strategic engagement and policy impact in Africa. A series of online scoping workshops showed there are vast and varying opinions on the topic.

Sanctions Trigger Renewed Engagement

It’s well known that the Soviet Union provided support to a number of African countries during their anti-colonial struggles. Most scholars agree that in the early 1990s, at the height of the USSR’s transition to a multi- (or one-) party system, and preoccupied with domestic challenges, Russia’s presence in Africa reached an all-time low.

In 1991, the then president, Boris Yeltsin, announced that Russia’s foreign aid policy would come to an end. By 1992, nine embassies and four consular offices were closed, while many cultural centres disappeared.

Since then, Putin has placed a high premium on rebuilding Russia’s stature as a global power, and these efforts extend to Africa too. He first visited the continent in 2006, promising $1-billion in investments and making a clear declaration of Russian interest. By the following year, Russia had written off approximately $20-billion of debt incurred by African countries during the Cold War.

But some argue that it wasn’t until 2013 that material engagements emerged. Putin again visited South Africa, often seen as the gateway to Africa, for a Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) summit. Russia signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with South Africa, with provision for cooperation in the political, economic, and defence spheres.

Diplomatic links between Russia and Africa have also increased, with several heads of state visiting Moscow since 2015. Through the UN, Russia has actively participated in aid programmes, providing food and medical assistance to African countries in need. It has also courted African votes on the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly. It’s widely speculated that renewed engagement is linked to economic sanctions placed on Russia in 2014 by the West, due to the Ukraine conflict and the “annexation” of Crimea. Here, two distinct interests stand out.

Military and Natural Resource Interests

Russia is a major supplier of arms to Africa. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Africa accounted for 18% of all Russian arms exports between 2016 and 2020, with Algeria being the largest recipient. Defence relationships between Russia and Africa are also growing.

Since 2014, Rosoboronexport – a Russian state-owned agency that exports military products and services – has signed bilateral agreements with multiple African countries, including Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, and Sudan. Apart from military equipment, the agreements contain provisions for countering terrorism and the joint training of troops.

Russia also has clear economic motives when it comes to natural resources. Although it boasts some of its own mineral wealth, Russia’s natural resources are difficult to extract, making it easier to import them instead. Notable developments are taking place in Zimbabwe (platinum group metals), Angola (diamonds), and Namibia (uranium).

Several Russian state-owned energy companies such as Gazprom, Rustec and Rosatom are also active in Africa, with key investments in the oil, gas and nuclear sectors in Algeria, Egypt, Uganda and Angola. It’s worth noting that state-led investments are often linked to military or diplomatic initiatives. For example, while an agreement is in place to construct two nuclear power plants in Nigeria, Russia has at the same time committed to countering terrorism there.

Incremental Growth

Events since 2014 have led to concerns from other countries about the return of the “bear” (in a 2018 speech, the then US national security adviser, John Bolton, singled out the expansionist efforts of Russia and its “influence across Africa”).

And while much attention is paid to Russian movements on the continent, it’s difficult to compare Russian engagement with Africa’s traditional partners like the US, UK and France, or with emerging powers like China, whose involvement dwarfs that of Russia. Interest from Turkey, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and others also means African countries can now pick and choose who they would like to partner with. These decisions are informed by a complex web of priorities.

Conversely, while Putin has named Africa a foreign policy priority, it is not number one on the list. “In terms of overall economic ties, Russia still does much more trade with Europe and Asia than with Africa,” Alexandra Arkhangelskaya, researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for African Studies, told SAIIA. This was due to its geographic location, she said.

Plans for the 2022 Russia-Africa summit are well under way, again causing a stir around growing Russian presence on the continent. Rumored to be taking place in either Cairo, Dakar or Addis Ababa, the summit will bring together hundreds of representatives from business and government.

Is this part of Russia’s new Africa strategy or a continuation of its prior involvement? Either way, we should expect incremental growth in levels of engagement.

This article was initially published in the Daily Maverick.

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