Why has Burkina Faso's military leader, IBRAHIM TRAORE, garnered such adulation? That's a question for the renowned investigative journalist, DAVID HUNDEYIN who replies that the young captain, he's just 37, symbolises s break from the status quo and offers hop to a youthful continent whose people yearn for a hero.

Who, or what, is behind the social media tsunami that surrounds CAPTAIN TRAORE? We consider whether the multitude of social media posts extolling his often other-worldly virtues are true or fake. Many of them clearly use images and sound fabricated by AI - like a Beyonce look-alike who weeps as she prays for the protection of her 'king'.

We wonder whether such fantastical excesses could actually undermine TRAORE. We also question why we hear so few Burkinabe voices on the matter.

DAVID Suggests the Burkinabe authorities would do well to take a firmer grip of their own narrative. Impressive claims are made about the rule of CAPTAIN TRAORE, like ending all taxation and undertaking extensive road building. But what about the security situation? Reports suggest that government control extends to just a third of the country. The rest, they say, is under the control of various Islamist groups with many people displaced from their villages.

What is needed, says PATRICK, is robust reporting by independent journalists from inside Burkina Faso to establish the facts. DAVID says objectivity in journalism does not exist - everyone has an interest, a bias.

And DONU raises the inherent dangers of a cult of personality.

DAVID suggests that there are limited benefits from democratic systems of government in Africa - economic freedom is what counts most.

MARTINE DENNIS is Founder and Host of Africa Here and Now

PATRICK SMITH is Editor of Africa Confidential

DONU KOGBARA is a journalist and commentator based in Nigeria

We were talking with DAVID HUNDEYIN, Editor of West Africa Weekly

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TITLE: Gaza, Should Africans Care?

Pro- Palestine Cornell Student Who Fled US Talks to Africa Here & Now

Tags:Africa, Palestine, Israel, activism, geopolitics, youth, solidarity, African Union, Arab League, liberation

We explore Africa's historical support for the Palestinian cause with MOMODOU TAAL, the 31-year-old British Gambian graduate student who fled the US before he was deported for his pro-Gaza activism. We recall Nelson Mandela’s 1997 statement that South African freedom would be incomplete without that of the Palestinians and how the near universal solidarity on the continent for their cause has ebbed somewhat.

Why should a bright, young African jeopardise a first-class education at an elite university because of the suffering of Gazans? MOMODOU is clear: everybody should care about the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, including thousands of children.

MOMODOU tells us about the protests on campus calling for the university to divest from companies that are involved in the destruction of Palestine and the lives of its people. His name is noted by the authorities, and he realises that he will become a target for deportation by the incoming Trump administration.

He is however, helped and supported by his lecturers and members of the faculty including many Jewish students. It is important MOMODOU says, not to conflate Zionism with the Jewish people against whom he has no grudge.

When his name appears on a list for deportation, MOMODOU he challenges the legality of executive orders – the tool of choice used by the White House. His legal action fails and MOMODOU decides to ‘self-deport’, to flee the United States before he is chucked out.

“I’ve not been accused of any violence, I’ve not been arrested. The government doesn’t say anything about me, my activity. It says that you created an uncomfortable environment for Jewish students….I find that quite strange because I never go to university thinking I have to be comfortable” he says.

We ask MOMODOU the fundamental question: why does he think black liberation is inextricably linked to the Palestinian cause? He refers back to Malcolm X and others and their opposition to colonialism. He says: I believe in a world that’s free for everybody. And given what we’ve seen in Palestine and Israel, I don’t think we can ignore what has taken place. I want to create a better world, a world built on justice and I can’t ignore what’s happening in Palestine given what I know has happened to my own ancestor and history.’

Momodou Taal hosts a podcast, The Malcolm Effect.

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I meet Bobi Wine as he visits London. He’s seeking support for his campaign to rid Uganda of what he calls the ‘ brutal rulership’ of President Yoweri Museveni who will have led the country for 40 years in 2026. That’s when Uganda is scheduled to hold its next presidential election.

Will Bobi run again? ‘Here I am,’ he says, ‘Not that I’m the Alpha and Omega, not that I’m the ultimate. But I’ve said I’m available if I’m required to lead …’

We look back at what happened at the last general election in 2021 which Bobi and his supporters say they won. ‘We defeated them, but the entire world watched as many of our campaign team was massacred….’

I ask him how does he keep going after all the beatings, the torture, the house arrest? He replies:

‘I’m in a better state than so many of my comrades in the struggle. They get locked up, they get beaten and nobody knows. When I get arrested the whole world knows….So I keep going by looking behind me. I get the least of the oppression and the most of the attention. But my friends that suffer in the dark are not complaining. They keep going”

What about your wife and 4 kids? Bobi says the whole family has agreed that although their activism is dangerous, it would be even more dangerous to give up.

What did the recent by-election in Kawempe North, which Bobi’s NUP won, tell him about how the general election is likely to be fought? There was well-publicised violence and claims of rigging.

2026 will be a protest vote, Bobi says: ‘We know that we will win the vote. But I’m not sure if we will win the count.’

Bobi reveals that he’s in talks with Dr Kizza Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change about the possibility of collaborating as well as with other political parties. Dr Besigye’s continued imprisonment, Bobi says, ‘is meant to intimidate all of us’.

I suggest to Bobi that his popular support could be limited to his own tribe, the Baganda. The majority, if not all, of the Buganda constituencies vote for Bobi. He disagrees ‘ we won in the far west and in parts of the north…my wife comes from Museveni’s tribe…my colleagues come from tribes scattered all over Uganda.’

Looking ahead to next year’s election, I ask Bobi what’s in his manifesto? What are the issues he’s running on? ‘Corruption is the cancer that’s eating us’ he replies.

We touch on one of the most controversial issues in Uganda today: human rights particularly as experienced by the LGBQT+ community. A much younger Bobi Wine as a musician had been associated with homophobic lyrics. Today, he has a more nuanced approach to the matter: ‘The west should stop looking at the LGBT rights as the only human rights, otherwise they will provoke Africans and people of the world to start imagining that there’s a hidden agenda. People get killed every day in Uganda and they should all have rights.”

We end our chat on a rather optimistic note.

“The future doesn’t have to hold anything for me as an individual. I look at this as all of us. The future is robust. The future is hopeful.’

#uganda#HEBobiWine#democracy#corruption#humanrights#africa

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