Abstract: Disillusionment is one of the dominant themes in post- independence African literature. In the South African context, Athambile Masola’s collection of poems , Ilifa, reveals that South Africa, the last state to gain independence in Africa, is no exception. In investigating the theme of disillusionment in Masola’s poetry, the data of six poems, examined through the lens of imbokotho literary criticism, the subthemes of make-believe freedom, land and human settlement, dishonest and corrupt political leaders, as well as gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) emerged. These issues demonstrate how promises of “better life for all” South Africans turned out to be a mirage. By foregrounding Masola’s poetic voice, the paper demonstrates how poetry functions as a critical archive of post-apartheid discontent and popular consciousness. In doing so, the study enriches South African literary scholarship by situating isiXhosa post-1994 poetry within broader continental discourses on failed independence, governance, and unfulfilled liberation ideals.
Abstract: This article analyzes the Nigerian COVID-19 poetry anthology Of Shadows and Rainbows: Musings in Times of Covid to examine how poets articulate collective trauma and panic. Employing trauma theory adapted to the Nigerian context, it argues that these poets craft a distinctive, culturally embedded poetics of witness. Through close reading, the study reveals how Nigerian poets deploy indigenous linguistic resources, including Yoruba ritual euphemisms, Nigerian Pidgin, and potent metaphors to articulate COVID-19’s horror, embody somatic distress, and critique governmental failures. The findings demonstrate that Nigerian poetry not only documents pandemic trauma, but transforms it into a site of cultural endurance and resistance. By foregrounding locally situated aesthetic strategies, the article contributes to postcolonial literary studies and trauma theory by challenging universalizing frameworks, while advocating for multidisciplinary approaches to understanding the pandemic’s enduring impact on human communities and cultural memory.
Abstract: The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have always imposed conditions on the loans they provide to African governments. Recent years have seen the emergence of “queer conditionality,” whereby lending policy is manipulated in order to impose toleration of LGBQTI minorities on recalcitrant governments. The hostile reaction of African states to such pressure is often presented as irrational in the Western media. However it conforms to an ancient tradition within Western thought. Between Aristotle and Jeremy Bentham, Western philosophy generally agreed that non-reproductive sexuality (or “sodomy”) was homologous to auto-reproductive money (or “usury”). Usury confounded the mutually definitive binary opposition between “nature” (phusis) and “custom” (nomos) by making money “breed,” while sodomy transgressed the same polarity between “custom” and “nature” by artificially preventing sexuality from attaining its natural end. Western capital’s modern efforts to make Africa safe for sexual minorities, like the aggressive reactions of African governments, form an integral part of this millennia-long tradition.
Abstract: Nigeria, with an estimated urban growth rate of over 4 percent annually, is one of the fastest growing urban areas in Africa. The paper interrogates the nexus between digital technology and urban social conflict in Nigeria. While Nigeria may not benefit from the same level of technological penetration as nations in the Global North, there is no gainsaying the rapidity of technological absorption among its youth population. However, such widespread utilization of technology has not meant only positive influences but has equally heralded deleterious effects on social life. Therefore, the paper unravels new and emerging forms of social conflict and violence in Nigeria and how ICTs have been deployed in promotion of such phenomena, especially the 2020 #EndSARS protests and the proliferating kidnapping practice in the country.
Abstract: With a focus on Muslim university students and graduates, this article considers how their educational trajectories (have) necessitate(d) mixing with (religious) “others” and asks what their experiences can tell us about modalities of multireligious cohabitation in Nairobi more broadly. The ethnography challenges the notion of mixing as a liberal “good” or a choice, as Western multicultural discourse holds. Instead, it reveals both how young Muslims navigate encounters with “others” through a mix of shared aspiration, proximity, and necessity and how, post-graduation, multiple factors preclude or undermine such “spaces of commonality” (Hage 2014). Their experiences suggest that urban coexistence is not about tolerance but pragmatism, which neither denies (religious) difference nor centers it. In doing so, it contributes to discussions of everyday life amid socioreligious diversity in Africa and beyond.
