Journalists in many parts of the world have changed policies and countries. Is it possible to have the same in Africa?
Author: Edwin Okong'o
Edwin Okong’o is not your typical, stereotypical African. He is a storyteller by any medium necessary™. Okong'o is an award-winning journalist, humorist, satirist and memoirist. He received his master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied radio, newspaper, magazine, and online multimedia storytelling and editing. Okong’o’s journalistic work, provocative commentaries, and stand-up comedy performances have appeared in numerous media across the world. He is the winner of several honors, including a Webby Award for his short documentary, "Kenya: Sweet Home, Obama", which he made for the PBS program, Frontline.
Episode 96: ‘Same forest, different monkeys’ in 2022 Kenyan elections
Kenyan lawyer, Cindano wa Gakuru, talks about the “different monkeys” fighting it out in the “same forest” that is the Kenyan elections, which are scheduled for August 9. Wa Gakuru is an attorney who specializes in various areas of law, including land, the environment, intellectual property, and natural resource management. He is involved in a number of initiatives in science and technology, and national agricultural policies.
Episode 94: White woman kills Nigerian American boyfriend; some Black women blame him
Christian Obumseli, a 27-year-old Nigerian American, was killed in Miami by his white girlfriend, Courtney Clenney. Immediately, police and U.S. media started hinting at “self defense.” That was expected. What was shocking was seeing so many Black women say that he deserved it for dating a white woman — as if it’s unheard of for a Black woman to kill a man.
Episode 93: Should Africans in California get reparations?
California intends to give reparations to Black residents of the state, but only if they are descendants of African slaves. How do we feel about it? And of course, we can’t be the only ones not talking about Will Smith, Chris Rock, and the Oscars slap that ended Russia’s war on Ukraine (for a week in the media).
Episode 92: Why do African innovators still struggle to scale up?
There is no shortage of Africans with ingenious ideas. Many have created prototypes of their inventions, but why do they continue to struggle to scale up? We talk about some of the geniuses we’ve interviewed on Africa Straight Talk.
Episode 90: Being an African-born American in the workplace ain’t easy
We discuss various topics, including Black people in positions of power who harass and sabotage other Black people because they don’t want to be seen as engaging in the same cronyism white people practice in the workplace every damn day.
Episode 89: A brutally honest African perspective on Putin’s war on Ukraine
They say when the world sneezes, Africa catches the cold. Putin’s war on Ukraine is no exception, and we offer an unapologetic analysis. (WARNING: This one got heated. Some language might be offensive).
Episode 88: How a young Ugandan brought down the Ponzi schemer who stole from the poor
When Daniel Leinhardt and his family lost all their savings to an international cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, he decided to go after the Ugandan director of OneCoin scam. He speaks about the scheme that derailed his university education, and how he was pleasantly shocked when Ugandan authorities arrested John Mwangutsya.
Mwangutsya was Uganda’s director of OneCoin, a cryptocurrecy multilevel marketing scheme that defrauded people around the world of $4 billion. OneCoin was founded by Bulgarian-born Ruja Iganatova, who vanished in 2017 when it became apparent that she was defrauding people.
Episode 87: Are Africans abroad becoming smooth criminals?
It used to be that the only way Africans stole from Americans was from far away by means like the infamous 419 e-mail scam. Nowadays we are doing in the United States, and a lot of us are getting busted and going to prison.
Episode 86: Samuel Pieh, a descendant of Cinqué of Amistad fame, talks about attitude and gratitude
As part of our Black History coverage, Emmanuel Nado speaks with Samuel Pieh, the great-great-grandson of Joseph Cinqué of the Amistad fame. Born Sengbe Pieh in what’s now Sierra Leone, Cinqué was captured as slaves and shipped to the Spanish colony of Cuba. In 1839, Cinqué led a slave revolt on La Amistad, a ship that was transporting him and other slaves within Cuba. They commandeered intending to sail to Africa, but ended up in the east coast of the United States. After a saga that only ended when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against surrendering the slaves to Spain, Cinqué and 52 other Africans sailed back to Sierra Leone as free men.
Cinqué’s revolt was captured in Stephen Spielberg’s 1997 film, Amistad, for which Samuel Pieh was a consultant.
Pieh works for the United States Department of States and is currently in service in Haiti. He has lived and worked in several African countries as an officer of the U.S.Department of State. He founded many youth organizations while in service in these countries and provided mentorship to the youth. Check out his autobiography, Beyond the Amistad Saga.
Africa Straight Talk 
You must be logged in to post a comment.