Monday, April 13, 2015

The Failures of Hashtag-tivism: #NousNeSommesPasGarissa?

Less than two weeks have passed since an Al-Shabaab attack on Garissa University in Kenya claimed 148 lives, largely students of the university, and already Kenya has faded from the headlines faster than you can say “Je Suis Garissa.” The attack raised fears of further strikes in Kenya, however, and a power transformer explosion mistaken for a terrorist attack at the University of Nairobi over the weekend caused a stampede that killed one and injured more than 100.
Kenyans mourn the victims of the Garissa attack.

This is the second major Al-Shabaab attack in the last two years, and the worst since the Westgate Mall attack in 2013 claimed 67 lives. A smaller Al-Shabaab attack on a quarry near the border last December also killed at least 36 people. Al-Shabaab is an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group operating out of Somalia that grew out of the Islamic Courts Union, a relatively stable central government that was kicked out of Mogadishu by an international intervention in 2011. Al-Shabaab has been targeting Kenya ever since the country joined the African Union peacekeeping force in 2011, and transformed from a governing body into a terrorist group.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

It’s Just Africa: Democratic Elections in Nigeria Bring Back a Former Military Ruler

A historic election in Nigeria brought to power former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, ousting incumbent Goodluck Jonathan. For the first time in Nigerian history, democratic elections led to the ruling party conceding victory to an opposition party. General Buhari was declared the clear winner by more than 2.5 million votes over his rival, and outgoing President Jonathan, whose party held power for the past 16 years, conceded by phone on Tuesday. He offered best wishes to his successor, urging his supporters to “use due process” to express any frustrations with the new government.