In our last episode of the year, we wind up our coverage of the World Cup and get back to the business of talking about Africa. Are extravagant weddings necessary? Why do African leaders rush to Washington at the snap of President Joe Biden’s fingers?
After this episode, we’re taking a well-deserved month-long break. Once again, thank you so much for supporting Africa Straight Talk. We wish you a very merry and safe holiday season.
For true fans of the beautiful game, there are values we just have to set aside every four years to enjoy the World Cup. This is a candid discussion about how we become bigoted, vile, and even openly racist for those few weeks.
We begin the 2022 World Cup with a unique analysis of the tournament organized by FIFA, the only corrupt institution the world loves.
When it emerged that Rishi Sunak, the first non-white Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, traces part of his ancestry to East Africa, some people in the region became very excited. The excitement wasn’t quite to the level it was when Barack Obama became President of the United States, but people were equally proud. Why?
President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986, probably thinks banning free speech will allow him to stay in power for another 40 years. We think Ugandans should just send their seditious thoughts to their allies outside the country and we’ll share them on social media.
And speaking of Twitter, it looks like even Museveni’s son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, is tired of waiting for his father to relinquish power. Now, the bored prince recently got in trouble for sending a tweet threatening an unprovoked attack on Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. His father punished him with a promotion.
We don’t think so, but across Africa, leaders who are short of ideas are preying on the gullibility of the continent’s staunchly religious people. From prayer breakfasts to government bans of anything that even remotely resembles homosexuality in the media, religious myths have taken precedence over common sense.
Hana Njau-Okolo, a Kenyan-Tanzanian writer and poet based in Atlanta, Georgia, talks about how a simple conversation with a friend converted her from being an admirer of Queen Elizabeth II to asking tough questions about the departed monarch’s legacy.
Njau-Okolo’s work has been published in the African Roar, an anthology series out of South Africa. Her poem, Kilimanjaro, appeared in Silver Birch Press, a publisher based in California, and she is working on her memoir. She works as a legal assistant with a top law firm in Atlanta, where she is responsible for coordinating the firm’s community service programs.
Njau-Okolo graduated from City University of New York with a BA in Communications and a minor in French. From 1976 to 1981, she attended Kenya High School, a prestigious institution that was at one time known as European Girls Secondary School, or as her father used to call it, the Queen Elizabeth School for Girls.
Kwesi Wilson returns to the show to talk about the proliferation of evangelical churches in his country of birth, Ghana, and how their around-the-clock “speaking in tongues” ruined what was supposed to be his summer of recuperation and rejuvenation. Kwesi is a social commentator, news junkie, and professor of communication, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most recently, he launched a podcast called Telling Tall Stories.
On Aug. 9, two of the wealthy goons suspected of colluding to perpetrate the worst post-election violence Kenya has ever seen went against each other for the right to continue the economic molestation of the country. Which one will prevail?
Aurelio De Lourentiis, the president of Napoli, said recently that the Italian football club will no longer hire Africans who won’t agree not to play in the African Cup of Nations. Although, prominent Africans have spoken against the Italian, none has responded with the anger this blatant racism warrants. Are we being too soft?
Africa Straight Talk 
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