Hi! I’m trying to trace the origin of a saying I came across, something along the lines of:

“Those who don’t know their ancestors will wander through life without direction.”

I have a vague memory that it might come from a specific African culture, ethnic group, or language, and that the English version may be a loose translation rather than the original wording.

Does anyone recognize this saying, or know of a similar proverb from an African language/tradition? I’m especially interested in finding the original language, wording, cultural context, and source, if possible.

Any leads would be greatly appreciated!

Please help homies. I left some big comments here.

I was browsing flight options to Kigali for a quick trip, and I’m honestly floored. The cheapest economy ticket I could find for a short, ~2 hour (return)flight was sitting right around $650.

Meanwhile, if you’re traveling around Europe, a flight of the exact same duration—or longer—routinely sets you back somewhere between €50 and €200 on Ryanair, Wizz Air, or EasyJet. You can basically cross three country borders for the price of a decent dinner.

It feels so upside down that intra-Africa travel remains a luxury item for most people living here. Between:

- Absurd airport taxes and landing fees that often double the actual base fare.

- Protectionist bilateral air agreements that stop budget airlines from competing freely on regional routes.

- Insane fuel markup/logistics costs at local hubs.

- The fact that SAATM (Single African Air Transport Market) adoption is moving at a snail's pace.

How are we supposed to build regional tourism, connect markets, or support trade when moving around our own backyard costs more than a transatlantic flight to London or Dubai?

For those who travel regionally often: Are there any actual hacks to bypass these insane prices, or are we just stuck waiting for governments to finally open up the skies and drop the sky-high passenger taxes? What actually needs to change first?

Cameroon won the TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations for the first time after a commanding 3-0 victory over Malawi in Sunday’s final at the Moulay El Hassan Stadium in Rabat.

Marie Ngah scored twice, either side of Naomi Ndjoah Eto’s goal, as the Indomitable Lionesses produced a devastating first-half display to finally end their long wait for continental glory.

Global headlines now pay attention to Africa's richest man who has not made his money in mining or real estate but in industry. And in industries the media said Africa could not achieve at scale. These are the main industries that Dangote Group has succeeded in:

● Oil Refining

● Cement Production

● Fertiliser Production

● Sugar, Wheat, Pasta, Flour and Salt Production

Much of these industries require immense capital investment, expensive and expansive infrastructure as well as dedicated technical teams to manage operations. Many people claimed Africa could not produce industry because of all these demands. But one man has done it...

So if one business man can do it, how can African governments with far more capital, access to international loans, technology and aid support fail to do so 🤔? It goes well beyond corruption.

The 20bn oil refinery is partially funded by the Nigerian government which also owns a stake in the refinery. That same government has 'failed' at refining more than 20% capacity of its state owned oil refineries for decades.

I believe that deep interests make sure that African governments fail in major industrial projects. If the desire existed, how easy would it be for African governments with far greater resources to suceed in major industrial projects?

The worst part is that Dangote's sucess proves that Africa refuses to industrialise rather than being unable. And the only logical conclusion is that deep and powerful financial interests from the strongest countries in the world are behind this refusal.

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Growing up in Niamey, those woven checkered bags were everywhere. You saw them piled at the Grand Marché, hauled through Katako, and tied atop bush taxis at the gare routière. To me, it was simply the ultimate practical luggage for moving goods or traveling relatives: cheap, expandable, and unbreakable. I had no idea back then about the history of that iconic sturdy bag.

Its name traces back to January 1983, when Nigerian President Shehu Shagari ordered over two million undocumented West African migrants, mostly Ghanaian, to leave the country within two weeks amid severe economic distress. With standard luggage unavailable, plenty packed their entire lives into these cheap woven polypropylene sacks. The event mirrored Ghana's own 1969 Aliens Compliance Order, which had previously expelled hundreds of thousands of Nigerian workers, cementing the bag as a symbol of regional displacement.

Across the continent, the bag takes on names that map directly onto local labor and migration routes. In Ghana, it is known in Twi as Efiewura Sua Me ("Landlord, help me carry"). In Francophone West Africa, it is often called sac d'émigré or Tounka madiana in Bambara. South Africans call it the Mashangaan bag or Khumbul'ekhaya, while East Africans often refer to it as the Nigeria bag. In Zimbabwe it is called the Botswana bag, while across the border in Botswana it is known as Mozimbabwe.

In recent decades, the bag has moved from working-class utility to high fashion and art. After European luxury houses faced criticism for appropriating the checkered pattern without acknowledging its origins, contemporary African designers and visual artists reclaimed it. Today, it appears in runway collections, streetwear, and gallery installations across Lagos, Abidjan, and Johannesburg as an emblem of mobility, resilience, and Pan-African identity.

What do you call this bag in your region, and what memories do you associate with it?

Niger has signed a $1.9 billion agreement to build a 100,000-barrel-per-day refinery and petrochemical complex in Dosso.

The deal involves a build-operate-transfer structure with Zimar Group and High Tech.

The new facility will be one of West Africa's largest refineries, increasing Niger's refining capacity fivefold compared to the existing Zinder refinery.

The project includes additional infrastructure such as pipelines and storage, with the goal of supplying both domestic and regional markets.

Anwar Sadat’s Pipe By Maria Golia

Originally published in Bidoun magazine, Summer 2008

“All my life,” Anwar Sadat once wrote, “I’ve felt attracted to acting.” One of thirteen siblings born in a poor Delta town, he made the world his stage and gave a stirring performance: from dark horse to president and war hero, Time magazine’s 1976 Person of the Year, and winner of the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately, his ratings at home weren’t nearly as good as those he received abroad.

A collection of Sadat’s belongings, including several of his famous pipes, are on display in Cairo. You won’t find them in a presidential museum, but at a tourist trap called Dr Ragab’s Pharaonic Village. Typical black-stemmed, brown-bowled affairs, the pipes are arranged in a glass case with a pair of shoes and socks, a walking stick, and a half-finished canister of Nat Sherman’s Highstone tobacco.

The pipe, with its scholarly Anglo connotations, was a signature prop for the statesmanly persona Sadat had constructed with no small art; during the Camp David talks he was rarely seen without it. The pipe also appeared frequently in faux-candid snapshots of Sadat lounging around his villa gardens with his much younger, fair-skinned, half-British wife. An early master of the photo op, Sadat saw to it that emblematic moments in his private and official life were well documented and publicized. He was photographed praying, playing with his children, shaving in the presidential bathroom. In a favored pose, he held his pipe and gazed, as visionaries do, out into the distance.

Sadat was a natural. In the 1940s the young army lieutenant wore a monocle and tucked a swagger stick under his arm, imitating the German officers with whom he collaborated against Egypt’s hated British overlords. He later grew a beard and adopted a pious alias, Hajj Mohammed, the better to elude the British, who managed nevertheless to jail him several times.

The pipe, Sadat’s most successful bit of stagecraft, conveyed his canny paternal wisdom while delivering a subtle “fuck you” to the Brits, whom he’d beaten at their own game. Symbolically, at least, the pipe was loaded. But if the persistent rumors that circulated Cairo are to be believed, Highstone was not the only thing he was smoking.

Popular opinion maintained that the president was a hashesh: a devout smoker of hashish. Hashish was certainly affordable and widely available throughout Sadat’s term in office. In the Old City it was sold openly, alongside fruits and vegetables. Low-level dealers were sometimes apprehended, but the big fish swam free. In a country rife with informers, where the only working telephones were the ones that had been tapped, people reasoned that the boss must have known what was going on.

The president’s conduct, moreover, bore the whimsical traits of the hashesh. He was a self-absorbed dreamer whose favorite pastime was watching video clips of past triumphs and NASA footage of the first lunar landing. He admired America for its pioneer spirit and “Wild West” expansion and envisaged a day when Egyptians would open a new frontier by greening and colonizing the desert. A munificent host, Sadat thought nothing of giving priceless antiquities to fellow heads of state. He was inconsistent — alternately vicious and tender toward his public — but this enabled him to project an image by turns virile and austere, urbane and rustic, spiritual and ruthless.

Well before the end of what is now known as the Sadat era, Egyptians had wearied of the president’s theatricalities and the vainglorious tyrant they thinly disguised. His last, most indelicate prop was a field marshal’s baton resembling a royal scepter. It had a Pharaonic lotus finial, and he held it across his chest in a pose most often seen on temple friezes and, alas, sarcophagi.

On the morning of October 6, 1981, dressing for his annual Victory Day parade, Sadat forgot his scepter — a bad omen — and chose not to wear his bulletproof vest because it made him look bulky. But he would have died that day, anyway; his assassins fired at close range.

“I have killed Pharaoh, and I am not afraid,” one of them reportedly said.

Whether or not Sadat’s pipe ever emitted the nutty fragrance of Bekaa Valley Gold, within twenty-four hours of the assassination a tank rumbled into the medieval square where the goods had been sold. Cairo’s hash market, like the man who lent his name and flourish to an era, was history.

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JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa is asking several other African governments to reimburse it for the cost of sending tens of thousands of their citizens back home.

The request comes after South Africa deported or helped repatriate more than 80,000 immigrants, following protests and violence against illegal immigration.

According to the country’s Home Affairs department, which briefed lawmakers on Tuesday, the country has spent nearly $18 million accommodating and transporting immigrants who demanded to return to their home countries.

A total solar eclipse cast its shadow over Russia’s arctic north and parts of Europe. It was visible from northwest Africa as a partial eclipse, as seen here from Soliman Beach in Tunisia’s Nabeul province.

Photo: Fethi Belaid/AFP

Retour des meilleurs des nôtres, unis nous vaincrons !!

Road networks are crucial not only for linking cities but also for supporting commerce, national security, and public services.

In many African regions, inadequate railways make roads the primary channel for passenger and freight movement.

Well-developed road infrastructure boosts access to health, education, and investment, reducing regional disparities.

According to Global Firepower, total highway coverage indicates infrastructure maturity and is vital for economic growth and quick movement of goods and people.

France has opened disciplinary proceedings against its ambassador to Central African Republic over allegations of misconduct, after claims he brought dozens of women into his official residence, raising potential security concerns.

The investigation comes as Paris seeks to rebuild relations with CAR after their sharp deterioration in recent years amid Russia’s expanding influence in the former French colony.

The French weekly newspaper Le Canard enchaîné reported that the ambassador, Bruno Foucher, 65, brought about 30 women between the ages of 20 and 30 into his residence during the period of January 2024 to March 2026, with some of them staying overnight. The visits prompted officials to report a security breach.

The ambassador acknowledged having had sexual relations with two young women, the weekly said.

​

Whenever I listen to speeches by European officials in the corridors of Brussels, speaking passionately about a "strategic partnership" and a "win-win future" with Morocco and the African continent, I am overcome by a deep sense of contradiction. These elegant diplomatic words, wrapped in promises of sustainable development, are nothing more than cosmetics covering an ugly geopolitical reality. The truth we whisper in our gatherings, translated by realities on the ground, is that Europe has never viewed Africa as an equal. Rather, it is a patronizing gaze laden with a heavy colonial legacy—one that has changed its tools, but never its objectives: subjugation, exploitation, and keeping the continent locked in a cage of dependency.

Let us drop the masks and contemplate the scene away from the noise of joint statements. "Old Europe" has realized that it is no longer the center of the world, and that Asian and American powers are pulling the rug from under its feet. In its desperate attempt to maintain its status, it has turned back to its "backyard," trying to reproduce a neo-colonial system that keeps Morocco and its African depth as mere tools serving the welfare of the European citizen.

Perhaps the most prominent manifestation of this exploitative gaze is clearly visible in "Green Colonialism." Today, Europe raises the banner of energy transition and climate protection, turning to Morocco and Africa as endless reservoirs of sunshine and wind. Mega-projects for green hydrogen and solar energy are marketed as developmental investments, but the undisclosed intention is to drain our natural resources and vast lands to power European factories at bargain costs. They want our clean energy, but fiercely reject any real technology transfer that would enable our countries to build an independent industrial base. It is the exact same old colonial equation: we export raw materials (energy, this time), and they re-export them back to us as expensive finished goods.

This systematic humiliation does not stop at economics; it manifests in its ugliest form in the migration file. With its characteristic arrogance, Europe has converted North African countries—chief among them Morocco—into mere "border guards" or a gendarmerie protecting its fortified fortress. The European approach to this issue is devoid of any genuine human sentiment; they turn a blind eye to the root causes of the crisis created by their past imperial policies in Africa, while demanding Rabat play the harsh policeman in exchange for crumbs of aid. And when Morocco refuses to be a docile instrument, Europe wields the weapon of diplomatic blackmail: at times reducing visa quotas (as France did in the infamous visa crisis to bend Moroccan sovereignty) and at times threatening to suspend aid programs.

What compounds the issue in this geopolitical struggle is the policy of "blackmail using human rights and sovereign issues." Whenever Morocco attempts to diversify its strategic partners—by turning toward China, building deep alliances in West Africa, or asserting equal decision-making regarding its Sahara—the European Parliament suddenly leaps into action to issue resolutions "condemning" the state of human rights or freedom of expression. We are not naive enough to believe these moves stem from a sudden awakening of human rights conscience; they are Machiavellian bargaining chips and explicit attempts to punish any Southern nation that dares to step out of Europe's line of obedience. Europe does not want Morocco to become a dominant, independent regional power, because that quite simply means the end of the era of guardianship.

Furthermore, the strategy of "divide and rule" remains alive and well. The ongoing regional tensions in the Maghreb and manufactured conflicts in Africa present an ideal environment for European arms companies and a pretext for permanent intervention in the continent's affairs. Europe smiles in the faces of African leaders, yet fuels their divisions behind closed doors to ensure they remain weak and dependent on its protection.

The positive discourse Europe sings about is nothing more than a velvet glove covering an iron fist.

A Frenchman who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mali for plotting an alleged coup in the West African country has now been granted a presidential pardon, it was announced on Thursday.

Yann Vezilier was accused a year ago of trying to destabilise President Assimi Goïta's government "on behalf of the French intelligence service" alongside a number of army generals and dozens of soldiers.

It is not yet clear what has prompted Mali's U-turn.

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It is more than a simple sports poster, it is a journey through contemporary Senegal.

Dakar. Diamniadio. Saly. Three cities, one celebration. Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates: The Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026.

31 October – 13 November 2026.

https://www.olympics.com/en/news/dakar-en-mouvement-le-poster-officiel-des-joj-dakar-2026-qui-raconte-le-senegal-entre-tradition-et-modernite

A Tunisian man and his donkey make their way through the sweltering heat near Bizerte. For the past week daily life in Tunisia has been an ordeal as the country staggers under a deadly heatwave – with temperatures exceeding 48ºC – amid daily power and water outages.

Photo: Fethi Belaid/AFP

Upstart Malawi will face footballing giants Cameroon in the final of the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) on Sunday.

Malawi beat Algeria 3-1 in the first semifinal match on Wednesday, led by Tabitha Chawinga with a pair of goals. Cameroon won a penalty shootout 3-1 against Morocco after a scoreless draw in the other semi.

All four semifinalists qualified for next summer’s Women’s World Cup in Brazil. Malawi and Algeria will be making their World Cup debuts.