“Will there be rain? I can’t tell. People used to come to me for advice, but now I tell them that I am also wondering what is happening,” says Clement Mangi, a traditional weather forecaster and farmer from Kenya.
He uses traditional forecasting methods passed down for generations. But in recent years, most of the things that used to be definite signs of imminent rainfall are no longer reliable.
Eighty percent of food produced across many communities in Africa comes from small-scale farmers like Mangi. This sector is highly vulnerable to extreme weather. While the continent is responsible for only a fraction of global greenhouse emissions, it is heavily affected by climate change.
After five failed rainfall seasons, communities in the Horn of Africa were hit by what became known as the worst drought in 40 years, between late 2020 and early 2023. Seven million children under the age of five became malnourished and urgently needed nutrition assistance across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
While climate change is listed as a leading cause of the rise in global hunger, there are big gaps in weather observations and early warning services. Information that would help local farmers better prepare themselves for extreme weather and adapt their farming to secure a good harvest, is missing.
In Kenya, some people are working hard to change that.
IEA report says demand is expected to grow in India, China but decline in United States, European Union.
Global coal use is expected to reach a record high in 2023 as demand in emerging and developing economies remains strong, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.
The demand for coal is seen rising 1.4 percent in 2023, surpassing 8.5 billion tonnes for the first time as usage in India is expected to grow 8 percent and that in China up 5 percent due to rising electricity demand and weak hydropower output, IEA said in a report released on Friday.
Coal is the largest energy-related source of the CO2 emissions responsible along with other greenhouse gases for global warming.
Half of the world’s coal use comes from China, the agency said, so the outlook for coal will be significantly affected in the coming years by the pace of clean energy deployment, weather conditions, and structural shifts in the Chinese economy.
Coal use is set to drop by about 20 percent this year in both the European Union and the United States, the report said.
The agency said it was difficult to forecast demand in Russia, currently the fourth-largest coal consumer, because of the continuing conflict in Ukraine.
But the IEA noted that overall coal use is not expected to drop until 2026, when the major expansion of renewable capacity in the next three years should help lower usage by 2.3 percent compared with 2023 levels, even with the absence of stronger clean energy policies.
Global consumption is forecast to remain well over 8 billion tonnes in 2026, the report said. To reach goals set by the Paris climate agreement – reached in 2015 by governments who agreed to phase out fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy in the second half of the century – the use of unabated coal would need to fall significantly faster, it added.
At the United Nations COP28 climate talks in Dubai this week, world leaders agreed to a deal that would, for the first time, push nations to transition away from fossil fuels to avert the worst effects of climate change.
However, the agreement did not go so far as to seek a “phase-out” of fossil fuels, for which more than 100 nations had pleaded. Rather, it called for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade”.
“The absence of explicit ‘phase-out’ language in the draft is significant, as it is a more measurable and definitive term, sending a strong message globally about a total shift away from fossil fuels,” Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, told Al Jazeera.
“The current terminology – ‘transitioning away’ – is somewhat ambiguous and allows for varying interpretations.”
It was the year that saw Australia and New Zealand host the biggest and most-watched FIFA Women’s World Cup, which culminated with Spain’s crowning moment as first-time champions with a win over one of the pre-tournament favourites England.
Women’s football giants United States faltered at the quarterfinal stage and several minnow nations lit up the group stage.
The World Cup was packed with high-quality action, as well as shocks and feel-good stories and culminated with the launch of Spanish football’s #MeToo movement.
Elsewhere, US Soccer delegated Emma Hayes with the job of reviving their fading glory as the highest paid women’s football coach in the world.
As the year comes to a close, here’s a look at 10 moments that shaped women’s football in 2023:
‘Ever-growing ACL club’
Months ahead of the World Cup, England captain Leah Williamson, New Zealand striker Katie Rood and several other top players were left to rue their luck after being sidelined with ACL injuries.
Rood announced the news with a post on Instagram saying, “I’m sad to say that I’ve joined the ever-growing ACL club”.
In order to understand the widespread prevalance of the injury among women footballers, Al Jazeera spoke to a wide range of experts and players, who pointed at a number of factors, including the biological differences between men and women, the difference in their kits and boots, physical stress and workload. Researchers also underlined how women’s menstrual cycles could be a factor in their vulnerability to the injury.
Player revolt precedes Spain’s historic win
Nearly a year before Spain’s glorious run at the World Cup, the Spanish football federation (RFEF) and its players were embroiled in a months-long stand-off.
The “Las 15” – a group of 15 players demanded changes to the national team set-up and made themselves unavailable for selection, directing the majority of their complaints at coach Jorge Vilda. They sought improvements in working conditions, blaming them for their poor emotional and physical health.
Later, the players entered talks with the federation and three of them, including Ballon d’Or winner Aitana Bonmati, were included in Spain’s World Cup squad that landed the La Roja their first world title.
The player revolt continued after the World Cup in the wake of the scandal surrounding Luis Rubiales’s forced kiss on player Jenni Hermoso’s mouth. However, the squad agreed to end their boycott in October after Rubiales was banned for three years by FIFA and the Spanish federation promised to make “immediate and profound changes.”
When Hannah Dingley took over as the head coach of English League Two club Forest Green Rovers, albeit temporarily, she became the first woman to manage a professional men’s football team in England.
Dingley stayed at the position for two weeks but was credited for breaking the glass ceiling for young girls taking up managerial roles in men’s football.
Previously, Portuguese coach Helena Costa became first woman to coach a men’s football team in France when, in 2014, she took charge of then-league two French club Clermont Foot.
Several women have taken up coaching roles in men’s academy teams, but not many have been handed the reins of top-flight men’s teams.
We can confirm that Hannah Dingley has been named our Caretaker Head Coach.
Dingley will take charge of the team for tomorrow night’s friendly at Melksham Town.#WeAreFGR💚
— Forest Green Rovers (@FGRFC_Official) July 4, 2023
Back home, from Fez to Marrakech and beyond, fans gathered in cafes, homes and on the streets to get behind the women in red and green as they took on their former coloniser France in the knockout round.
Despite their disappointing loss at the hands of the French, the rise of the Atlas Lionesses, several of whom play league football in Europe, endeared them to the football-mad African nation.
Morocco had plenty to say at the tournament Down Under as Nouhaila Benzina became the first Muslim woman wearing a hijab to play at the World Cup.
Football fans, especially Muslim women, lauded Benzina for breaking the barrier. Millions around the world watched as she stepped on the field in the hijab a month after France banned the Islamic headscarf during games.
Activist Shaista Aziz was among the scores of Muslim women who backed Benzina on social media.
“The significance of this is HUGE for many #Muslim girls and women including myself,” Aziz wrote on X.
Morocco’s Nouhaila Benzina, left, and France’s Kenza Dali compete for the ball during the Women’s World Cup round of 16 soccer match between France and Morocco in Adelaide, Australia, Tuesday, August 8, 2023. [James Elsby/AP Photo]
The USWNT juggernaut comes to a halt
Most of the pre-tournament predictions and talks were centred at the US Women’s National Team’s prospects of completing a “three-peat” or an unprecedented third consecutive and fifth overall world title.
The women’s football giants began their campaign with a 3-0 thrashing of minnows Vietnam, but cracks began to show as they struggled against a strong Dutch side in their second group-stage match, which ended in a 1-1 draw. Needing to avoid a loss to stay in the tournament, they earned a goalless draw against Portugal.
However, the juggernaut came to a halt on August 6 as Sweden knocked out the holders in a madcap penalty shootout (5-4). The talismanic retiring great Megan Rapinoe came off the bench to replace forward Alex Morgan in extra time but was unable to create a winner for the Americans who slumped to their quickest exit.
Debutants and minnows shine
The Philippines and Zambia made impactful World Cup debuts, recording stunning wins over New Zealand and Costa Rica. The Philippines’ win over the co-hosts, in particular, made waves back home as delirous crowds celebrated the shock win.
Playing in their second World Cup, Jamaica and South Africa were the other surprise packages as they advanced to the knockout stage.
FIFA’s ban came more than two months after the disgraceful moment was televised across the world as Spain stepped on the stage to collect their winners’ medals and trophy. Hermoso reacted to the forced kiss in a social video, where she said: “Hey, I didn’t like it, eh.”
She would later file a legal complaint against Rubiales, who initially refused to step down from his post and threatened the player with legal action of his own. However, the moment and the ensuing proceedings launched Spanish football’s #MeToo movement as thousands of women took to the streets in Spain to show support Hermoso. Women’s football teams, fans and men’s national team also condemned Rubiales.
The term #SeAcabo [it’s over] became synonymous with the movement as leading football players used it to show their solidarity.
A demonstrator holds a red card reading in Spanish ‘it is over’ during a protest against the president of Spain’s football federation Luis Rubiales and to support Jenni Hermoso in Barcelona, Spain [File: Emilio Morenatti/AP]
Emma Hayes’s landmark move to the US
The USWNT’s poor run at the World Cup raised several questions about the future of the team and its management. Several players, including Rapinoe and midfielder Julie Ertz retired from international footbal
Coach Vlatko Andonovski resigned in the immediate aftermath of the tournament ouster, leaving fans and experts to wonder who would take up one of the most high-profile coaching jobs in the sport.
Last month, Chelsea manager Emma Hayes was named as Andonovski’s replacement in a move that would be touted as “a breath of fresh air” and a landmark moment for the women’s game as she will become the highest-paid women’s football coach in the world, reportedly earning $2m a year – the same as the US men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter.
Women’s football in England took a big step towards after its top two leagues – the Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship – decided to break away from the Football Association under the banner of NewCo – a newly formed organisation to run the women’s professional game in the country.
The change will come into effect from the 2024-25 season but the news has set women’s football abuzz in England, with former FA director of women’s game saying it had now found “its own voice”.
Lagos, Nigeria — For years, Maryam Lawani was really pained when it rained. She lived in the Oshodi Isolo area of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, where canals often overflow messily into the streets during downpours.
Additionally, she was always struck by the huge amount of plastic waste on the streets after the rains receded and how this in turn affected mobility or even made the roads deteriorate. After even a little rain in Lagos, the streets get muddy and potholes brimming by the side with broken plastics, gin sachets, pure water nylons, used diapers and other items.
“I felt a strong need to prevent climate crises as a response to a personal pain point,” she told Al Jazeera. So she began to research the recurring problem and then discovered that plastic pollution was a global issue.
According to the United Nations, on average, the world produces 430 million tonnes of plastic every year; wrappers for chocolate bars, packets and plastic utensils. And there are consequences; every day, the equivalent of over 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped into water bodies. As a result, plastic pollution is set to triple by 2060 if no action is taken.
UN reports also say that Nigeria generates about 2.5 million metric tonnes of plastic waste annually. Of that, over 130,000 tonnes of plastic make their way into water bodies, putting the country among the top 20 contributors to marine debris globally.
And while Nigeria has several dumping sites for waste, those in the environmental sector like Olumide Idowu, executive director for International Climate Change Initiative, say there is no exact data on their number or capacity to handle large volumes of waste sufficiently.
So waste has visibly caused blocked drainages and pollution, even as climate shocks like floods hit parts of sub-Saharan Africa. This is most obvious in Lagos, the country’s most populated city, with an estimated 24 million people.
Challenges
Compared to other developing countries like Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, which have banned single-use plastics or are gradually eliminating them, Nigeria hasn’t done much to combat plastic pollution, experts say.
In 2020, the Ministry of Environment launched the Nigeria Circular Economy Policy to help transition the country to a circular economy and promote sustainable waste management. But Idowu says proper waste collection and recycling facilities are still needed for Nigeria to tackle plastic pollution effectively.
“Nigeria may also need to strengthen existing regulations or introduce new ones to address plastic pollution,” he says, adding that the country’s large population could also be a challenge in enforcing them. ”[But] economic constraints and lack of alternative packaging options may hinder the transition away from single-use plastics.”
“As more individuals, businesses, and the government recognize the value of upcycling, it is likely that the sector will grow and contribute to a more sustainable and circular economy in Nigeria,” Idowu says.
Climate Lead’s Oladosu says there is a need to involve as many people as possible in the movement for a cleaner, greener Nigeria.
“We need to make people understand that climate change is real, and it will affect everyone regardless of where they live, Ajegunle or Lekki,” she said. “We can all feel the heat of the sun, the impact of flooding, etc. There are different angles to mitigating climate change and recycling is just one. Another is responsible consumption. There is a need for everyone to be climate and environmentally conscious.”
The recycling mission
During her research, Lawani discovered she could recycle plastics to help clean up the neighbourhood mess. So in 2015, she founded Greenhill Recycling which now recovers an average of 100-200 tonnes of waste monthly, she says.
Her business also provides a means of supplemental income for people around her, by paying them around 100-150 naira ($0.1265) for every kilogramme of trash collected.
“We encourage and sensitise people not to thrash waste but to bag them neatly in their homes,” she told Al Jazeera. “We pick up from their doorstep, their homes and not in dump sites.”
“Waste is a currency to address other issues around poverty, unemployment and the environment. People are able to exchange waste for profitable things like school fees, clothes and even food,” Lawani added.
Like Lawani’s Greenhill Recycling, several other women-led upcycling and recycling companies have sprung up in Africa’s largest economy, in addition to the well-known Wecyclers social enterprise.
In coastal Lagos, RESWAYE (Recycling Scheme for Women and Youth Empowerment) works in communities with women and young girls who are trained to go into schools and estates to retrieve plastics. Their collections go to a sorting hub and from there to upscalers.
Doyinsola Ogunye, founder of RESWAYE told Al Jazeera that it has reached 4000 women in 41 coastal communities in Lagos, while also giving personal hygiene kits to them and providing scholarships for children.
There is also the nonprofit Foundation for A Better Nigeria (FABE) founded by Temitope Okunnu in 2006 to create awareness about climate change in schools. It operates across three states.
“We visit primary, secondary schools and universities to sensitise young children about climate issues,” she said. “Behavioural change is still a big issue in this part of the country which is why we are focused on young children.”
Through an initiative called EcoSchoolsNg, it teaches students skills such as sustainable waste management – by recycling, upcycling or composting – and sustainable gardening.
FABE says it promotes plastic upscaling because according to Okunnu, “plastic is money but only a few people know this”, she told Al Jazeera.
The increasing awareness about recycling plastic into usable products can also be great for keeping youth engaged, says Adenike Titilope Oladosu, founder of ILead Climate, a climate justice advocacy.
A police officer stands next to boxes of expired AstraZeneca coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines at the Gosa dump site in Abuja, Nigeria, December 22, 2021 [Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters]
The need for more work
Despite the work of these women and numerous non-profits to educate Nigerians on the adverse effects of climate change, ignorance is still widespread.
Passengers in moving vehicles still casually fling sachets and bottles onto the streets just like others sweep household waste into canals.
For Lawani and Okunnu, this is more evidence of the need to ingrain awareness of the environment and related consequences in their fellow Nigerians at all income cadres, from a young age.
“Exposed and enlightened young children are well aware but less privileged children whose concern is how to get the next meal may not be concerned about this so we need to direct our attention to them, sensitise people, help people find a link,” Lawani said. “People can easily relate to blocked drainages so teach people at their level. Help them see these links and connections and how it affects them too.”
Sunak faces down Conservative Party rebels by winning a knife-edge vote on his latest plans to send refugees and migrants to Rwanda.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s emergency bill to revive his plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has avoided defeat in parliament, surviving a rebellion by dozens of his own MPs that laid bare his party’s deep divisions.
Sunak, who has pinned his reputation on the strategy despite warnings at every stage that it would not work, won the first vote on the plan in the House of Commons 313 to 269 on Tuesday after last ditch negotiations and drama in parliament.
Despite the victory, the result showed the prime minister is struggling to maintain control over his party.
Moderate Conservatives said they will not support the draft law if it means Britain will breach its human rights obligations, and right-wing politicians said it does not go far enough.
Sunak’s fractured Conservatives have lost much of their discipline and, after being in power for 13 years, are trailing the opposition Labour Party by about 20 points with an election expected next year.
“We have decided collectively that we cannot support the bill tonight because of its many omissions,” Mark Francois said, speaking on behalf of some right-wing Conservative lawmakers. They said they would abstain rather than support Sunak.
All Conservative lawmakers had been ordered by those in charge of party management to back the bill, and the abstentions were a foretaste of likely further rebellions at the next stages of the parliamentary process.
“Let’s pick this up again in January. We will table amendments, and we will take it from there,” Francois said, saying the grouping of about 40 right-wing lawmakers reserved the right to vote against the legislation at a later date.
In a sign of how uncertain Sunak was about the result, Britain’s climate change minister, Graham Stuart, left the COP28 climate talks in Dubai to return to vote in parliament despite critical negotiations still going on.
The prime minister was forced to indicate to would-be rebels during a breakfast meeting in Downing Street that they could amend the legislation later to encourage them to back down from a revolt that would have killed the bill.
Nigeria’s Victor Osimhen and Asisat Oshoala win footballer of the year awards while Morocco are named team of the year.
Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen has been named African Footballer of the Year after beating Mohamed Salah to the award at a ceremony in Marrakesh.
Osimhen’s compatriot Asisat Oshoala bagged the women’s prize for a record-extending sixth time at the gala on Monday night. The star striker, who plays for Barcelona, battled injury to help her side to the round of 16 at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, where they took England to penalties.
The 24-year-old Osimhen scored 26 goals as he helped Napoli to a surprise triumph in Serie A last season and was the leading marksmen in Italy’s top division.
Egypt’s Liverpool forward Salah and Morocco’s Paris St Germain right back Achraf Hakimi were the other two final nominees, but Osimhen claimed the prize to become the first Nigerian winner since Nwankwo Kanu in 1999.
“It is a dream come true. I have to thank everybody who has helped me on this journey and all Africans who have helped to put me on the map despite my faults,” Osimhen said.
Morocco won National Team of the Year in the men’s category after their thrilling run to the World Cup semifinals in Qatar while their manager, Walid Regragui, won Coach of the Year.
Nigeria took home the trophy for National Team of the Year for women, but South Africa’s Desiree Ellis won women’s Coach of the Year for the fourth time in succession.
France-based Chiamaka Nnadozie was named the top women’s goalkeeper on the continent.
Osimhen, Oshoala and Michelle Alozie also made the teams of the year.
The Nigerian Presidency congratulated all the country’s winners, describing their awards in a post on X as inspirational.
“This recognition at the highest level is a massive shot in the arm for Nigeria football,” Abuja Football Association Chairman Adam Muktar Mohammed told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
“Evidently, there is an abundance of talent in Nigeria. We only have to harness this talent to be a major force in international football.”
However, Nigeria’s 2026 World Cup hopes are already in jeopardy after they drew their first two qualifiers against Lesotho and Zimbabwe last month.
The men’s team also failed to reach last year’s World Cup in Qatar after losing to Ghana on away goals in a playoff.
Several Super Eagles stars led by captain Ahmed Musa and defender William Ekong as well as coach Jose Peseiro joined in the tributes for Osimhen after he was named CAF Player of the Year.
“Congrats once again @victorosimhen9 @asisatoshoala proud of you,” Musa wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“Well deserved @victorosimhen9, we are all proud of you,” Ekong added.
Nairobi, Kenya – On December 12, 1963, six months after Kenya’s independence from the British, the former colony officially became a republic. It is an occasion that has been marked ever since as Jamhuri Day.
With the new status came the fight against a colonial-era hierarchy in which Europeans sat at the top, followed by South Asians and then Black Africans who were granted the least economic and political rights, he fought for African nationalism and land distribution.
Today, as Kenya celebrates the 60th anniversary of Jamhuri Day, some of the heroes of its liberation struggle and fight for equality remain unsung. One of them is Pio Gama Pinto, the radical journalist, politician and socialist. His role has been largely forgotten, partly because he died aged just 37 in what was effectively Kenya’s first political assassination on February 24, 1965.
His eldest daughter, Linda Gama Pinto, was just six years old when he was shot dead in the driveway of their family house in broad daylight in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Three men were jailed for his murder yet those close to the story believe the real perpetrators behind the assassination remain unknown.
Linda says her father remains part of the country’s story, even in death.
“[He] is woven into the fabric of Kenyan history and I’m very proud of his contribution,” she said from her home in Ottawa, Canada, where the family emigrated to after the assassination. “My father’s memory has been nurtured by [only] a few people … this was a selfless man who had at his core, the desire for equality.”
Some scholars say he was seen as a threat first by British colonialists and later by the Kenyan post-independence government due to his advocacy.
“By the time of Kenyan independence, he had reached a point where he could oust the capitalist, conservative ruling elite that had replaced the colonial powers,” says Wunyabari Maloba, professor of African studies and history at the University of Delaware. “He had a radical vision and was very much respected by Black Africans so it was extremely important for him to be silenced. Yet his death can’t be viewed just within the domestic context, this was also the time of the Cold War and Kenya was at a pivotal place in eastern Africa.”
Political life
Pinto was born in Nairobi on March 31, 1927, to parents of Goan descent. His father was among the many economic migrants from the Indian subcontinent who took up roles within the colonial administration in East Africa. Pinto, who spent his early school years in India, became politically engaged and joined liberation protests against British and Portuguese rule in the country, working with trade unions in Mumbai (then known as Bombay) and Goa.
A founding member of the Goa National Congress, his activism led to the colonial authorities issuing an arrest warrant so he was forced to return to Kenya in 1949. By then, India was independent, and calls for decolonisation were spreading across the British Empire, even to Kenya.
He learned Kiswahili and, as historian Sana Aiyar has noted, took on editorship roles at the Daily Chronicle newspaper, convincing the owner to print pamphlets in various vernacular languages. He also spoke out against the British on his Swahili programme for All India Radio, which colonialists described as a “consistent denigration of British rule in Africa”.
His role in supplying the Mau Mau – an anticolonial armed uprising led by the Kikuyu people – with arms and co-producing its media mouthpiece The High Command led to his arrest by the British in 1954. He was held until 1959.
British-Kenyan author Shiraz Durrani has been collecting documents on Pinto for 40 years. In 2018, Durrani published Pio Gama Pinto: Kenya’s Unsung Martyr. He told Al Jazeera that Pinto was a skilled journalist who knew how to use his voice to rally people.
“When he was not on the streets talking to people, Pinto used to spend most of his time writing letters and articles,” he told Al Jazeera. “He kept the outside world informed of anticolonial protests and exposed what the British were doing. His ideological stance was also very important and Pinto was not shy about saying that socialism was the solution.”
Indeed, he was also connected with anti-imperialist and socialist movements globally, as well as with American revolutionary Malcolm X.
Personal life
Stories of his personal and financial sacrifice are consistent throughout his brief life. For instance, in prison where South Asians received better treatment, Pinto would share his rations with Black inmates.
It was a contribution made further possible with the support of his wife, Emma Christine Dias, a Goan woman whom he married in 1954, five months before he went into prison. Pinto is said to have used the wedding money gifted to the couple by Emma’s father on a printing press.
“She constantly wrote to him in prison and my father said that without that link to the outside, he may not have survived as well as he did,” Linda told Al Jazeera. “He also taught other inmates to read using her letters. He was allowed to be a very absent father to me and my two sisters and dedicate himself to a larger collective of people.”
While there were also other South Asians who joined Black Africans in Kenya’s independence struggle, Pinto was the most visible among them amid the fight for an equal society across racial lines, Maloba told Al Jazeera.
“This idea – insofar as the colony concerned – was a big problem because the imperial colonial framework was based, and its survival depended on, the idea of divide and rule,” he said. “Pinto was against the idea that the Africans who were taking over from the British should perpetuate the system that oppressed and exploited Africans. His definition of independence was linked to economic power, equality, and sovereignty.”
After his release in 1959, he co-founded the Kenya Freedom Party, which later merged with the Kenyan African National Union, a political party that remained in power until 2002.
‘Nothing has changed’
In recent years, Pinto’s memory has increasingly returned to the surface, including in an exhibition on his life that launched at the Nairobi Gallery in March and is set to travel the country next year.
April Zhu, a Nairobi-based journalist who collaborated on a 2020 podcast series Until Everyone is Free that looks at Pinto’s life and politics, says the success of the first podcast has led to an expansion of the project that will begin airing next year.
She has encountered enthusiasm from young Kenyans when discussing this part of their history as it was missing in their school curricula. One of them is Stoneface Bombaa, host of the podcast and a 25-year-old community organiser from Mathare, an informal settlement in the capital.
“It was a very sanitised history,” he tells Al Jazeera of his time in school.
Having learned more about Pinto in recent years, he describes him as a beacon of hope in a society that remains unequal. “From a younger age, he was fighting for change, fighting for freedom, he wanted people to have their lands right back and to see the end to corruption, poverty, and disease. Since his assassination, nothing has changed, these are the things we are still fighting for today.”
Even with the renewed examination of Pinto’s legacy, Zhu acknowledges that there is still work to do in preserving his legacy.
“It would be a shame if he became memorialised without his politics being brought into the current context,” she said. “For example, why are there no militant trade unions left in Kenya? The things that still plague the majority of working-class Kenyans today are the very things that Pinto fought for. Going forward, that needs to be the centre of any effort to memorialise Pinto.”
Ogoja, Nigeria – Rebecca stares down her sandy street past the palm trees and T-junction. No sign of Blessing. It is already after 7:30am, and their school’s morning assembly will soon start. Rebecca sighs with relief when she sees her friend running towards her. “Sorry, sorry,” Blessing gasps, “I had to queue for hours to get water this morning.” The two 15-year-olds hug and quickly make their way to their secondary school, a stone’s throw from Rebecca’s home in Ogoja, a town in southeastern Nigeria about 65km (40 miles) as the crow flies from the Cameroonian border.
The best friends sport similar buzz cuts and wear the same white blouse and navy blue skirt uniform. As they hurry to school while chatting in Pidgin, there is little to suggest that they come from different countries. Yet Rebecca Jonas was born and raised in Nigeria, while Blessing Awu-Akat is a refugee whose family fled violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions where Francophone government forces are fighting English-speaking separatists.
Rebecca’s family lives in town in a duplex with a gas stove and indoor bathrooms. Blessing lives in Adagom I, a settlement on the outskirts of Ogoja where almost 10,000 Cameroonian refugees reside. Her family uses firewood to cook and shares latrines and showers with other refugees. And in the morning, when everybody is waking up, she has to wait in line to use the communal water taps to wash and collect water to prepare breakfast. Which is why Blessing’s friend cuts her some slack when she is late.
Blessing’s mother Victorine Ndifon Atop stands in front of the house shared by the family of nine in the refugee settlement of Adagom I [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
An open settlement
Blessing’s family fled to Nigeria in November 2017. She remembers the morning when an army helicopter suddenly hovered over their village of Bodam, which lies close to the Nigerian border. “Everyone started running into the bush. But there, soldiers were shooting at people,” she recalls.
A friend of hers was shot, Blessing says, shivering in horror as she points at where the bullet shattered her friend’s arm. She, her parents, her three siblings and two cousins, escaped on foot to the Nigerian border unharmed, but destitute. “There was no time for us to pack. All I had was the dress I wore that day.”
Just across the border, the violence was never far away, and at night, gunshots on the Cameroonian side kept the then nine-year-old girl awake. Because the border area was not safe for the thousands of refugees, Nigerian authorities decided to move them further inland. This is how Blessing’s family was resettled at Adagom I, 63 hectares (156 acres) of federal government land that Nigeria offered to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR to use as a settlement for the refugees. “Here I finally managed to sleep through the night,” Blessing says.
Adagom I, named after the village in the Ogoja area where the refugees were resettled, is not a refugee camp with curfews, exit restrictions and separate camp schools and clinics, but an open settlement of about 3,000 households where inhabitants can come and go as they please and interact with their Nigerian neighbours freely. In Nigeria, a country already faced with the challenge of more than two million internally displaced people (IDPs), mostly in the northeast, all 84,030 UN-registered refugees from Cameroon enjoy freedom of movement, access to healthcare, education and the right to work – rights that many wealthier countries in the world do not immediately grant to foreigners seeking refuge within their borders.
The government also waived school fees for refugee children to enable them to continue their education and return to as normal a life as possible. That is how Blessing and Rebecca became classmates and best friends at Government Technical College, Ogoja.
Blessing and Rebecca head to their classroom at Government Technical College, Ogoja [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
Knowing what it’s like to be new somewhere
Blessing and Rebecca barely make it to the school assembly on time; the band has just started playing the school anthem as they rush through the wrought iron gate. When the assembly is finished, they head to their classroom, where they always sit together, preferably at the front. As they wait for their English lesson to start, they recount how their friendship started.
It was Blessing who welcomed Rebecca on the first day she came to school in March 2021. Rebecca had just moved from Lagos with her mother and brother – her father stayed behind to run his business selling home appliances. She dreaded her first day in a new school. But there was Blessing, a friendly girl who had attended the school since her family arrived in Ogoja in September 2018. She greeted the more timid Rebecca when she entered the classroom and moved over to make space for her to sit down.
“She was the first to accommodate me,” Rebecca says with a smile. “She knew how it was to be completely new somewhere.” After school, it turned out, they took the same route home, and since that first day, Rebecca has waited for Blessing to pass by her house in the mornings so they can walk to school together.
Rebecca is aware that violence drove her friend out of her country, but she does not ask her about it. “I don’t want to make her cry,” she says.
Sometimes, she sees sadness in Blessing’s eyes, and her chatty friend grows quiet. Then Rebecca tries to cheer her up by telling her a silly story or getting her to sing – they love to sing gospel songs together. Sometimes, she notices Blessing finds it hard to concentrate in class. “Then I know that afterwards, she’ll be asking to take my notes home to copy them,” she says. Even though it means she won’t be able to study that day, Rebecca says, “I have to lend her what I can. She’s my friend.”
Their English teacher Comfort Ullah Solomon, 46, remembers how lost and lonely many of the refugee students appeared when they first arrived in Ogoja. “They seemed miles away, sometimes they were not even listening, as if they were in a trance,” she recalls. When Adagom I opened in 2018, a lot of Cameroonian children came to the school. In the first year, almost one-third of the students were from Cameroon. Today, as they have moved to other schools in Ogoja, about 150 of the more than 1,000 pupils of the secondary school are Cameroonian.
Comfort Ullah Solomon teaches English to students in Rebecca and Blessing’s year [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
Sometimes, in those early days, there was friction, the teacher says. She describes an incident where a Nigerian and Cameroonian student were running around when the former playfully shouted, “I will shoot you!” The Cameroonian teenager broke down, leaving his classmate puzzled. Comfort sat down with them and explained to the Nigerian pupil the violence his classmate had fled, and how for him the game might have felt real. “They became friends,” she says.
She made an effort to comfort the new students. “I kept them close, told them they were worthwhile. After a while, their absent-mindedness disappeared.”
Blessing confesses she was scared when she first arrived at her new school. “I thought the Nigerians would bully us and ask us what we are doing in their land,” she recalls. But the way the school teamed up the refugees with their Nigerian fellow students for the Friday quizzes and debate teams quickly made her feel accepted.
Her 17-year-old Nigerian classmate, Benjamin Udam, admits he was also worried when the new students came. “I thought maybe they had a different way of life than us. But we turned out to be just the same,” he says.
Blessing’s Nigerian classmate Alice Abua, 16, remarks that Cameroonians prepare their soup with very little water, another mentions they dance the makossa, while another suggests their English sounds a little different. Apart from that, they don’t see any substantial differences between Nigerians and Cameroonians. And when asked who has a friend from the other country, everyone in the classroom raises a hand.
Rebecca and Blessing prepare rice and beans at Blessing’s place [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
Rice and beans
After school, Rebecca joins Blessing at her place to cook rice and beans, their favourite meal. They stroll to the settlement market to buy condiments, over the redsand paths lined with papaya, palm and mesquite trees, past the one-storey houses refugee families built with bricks and roofing sheets provided by the UNHCR.
The market vendors are a mix of refugees and locals. Janet Aricha, the woman the girls usually buy crayfish from, is from Ogoja. She never saw the refugees as a threat. “I felt bad for them,” she explains. “Imagine to lose your home and everything in a single day.”
Much like the other Nigerian sellers at the market, she saw the influx of new customers as a business opportunity. Even in town, most people agree that economic opportunities in Ogoja, home to an estimated 250,000 people, grew with the arrival of Cameroonian refugees.
Meanwhile, the girls realise the money Blessing’s mum gave them has finished before they have managed to buy all the ingredients they need. “How did we forget pepper?” Rebecca asks her friend in disbelief. But Blessing has a solution; on the way back, she asks a neighbour if she could pluck some chillies from their garden.
At home, Blessing’s mother has started the fire. While her daughter and her best friend prepare the meal, Victorine Ndifon Atop talks about life in this new place.
It’s not easy, but for the children she tries to make life as familiar as the one they left behind, the 43-year-old says. She points at the garden in front of the 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) house the now family of nine shares. The small patch of lawn is meticulously cut and the white periwinkle and hibiscus shrubs are blooming.
She only knew Nigerians from Nollywood movies when they first came to Nigeria. “In those movies, they are always shouting at each other,” she says. “So back home, we thought they were all ruffians.” But six years in Adagom I changed her mind. When the refugees first arrived, complete strangers from town brought them clothes and provisions. And one day, a Nigerian neighbour from the host community of Adagom gave her a plot of land she now grows cassava on to prepare fufu, a popular Western African dish, to sell. “They embraced us and received us like family,” she says.
Nigerian vendor Janet Aricha, right, says she feels for the Cameroonian refugees who came to the area after losing their homes to violence in their home country [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
‘They are like us’
Down the road, a five-minute walk away, Adagom I chief Stephen Makong shrugs to indicate he finds his community’s hospitality towards refugees self-evident. “Of course, we gave them land to farm on. If you don’t, what are they going to eat?” he asks.
When the village leader was told about the refugee settlement plan in his community, he saw it as a blessing. “My father taught me: for strangers to come to your house, you must be a good person.” Not everyone in his community thought so, he adds. “Some young men were afraid they would come and claim ownership of the land. But I told them they did not come to steal our land. They are running from war. You cannot drive them away again.”
But there are occasional disputes. “Even when two brothers live in a house, they quarrel,” the chief says. When some refugees cut trees in the forest for firewood, a town hall meeting was called to explain that in Cross River State you only use deadwood for cooking. But life together has been largely harmonious, most people in the village say. They have also benefitted from the settlement’s development. The UNHCR divides investments in the local infrastructure between the refugee and host community, reserving about 30 percent of its budget for the latter. The drilled wells, water taps and the widened road through the village wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for the refugees.
On top of that, the locals discovered that some Cameroonians are from the same ethnic group as them – the Ejagham who live on both sides of the border. So they even share a language, says Makong. “They are like us. We are the same people.”
That cultural proximity, combined with the perceived economic advantages, could explain why Ogoja has taken in thousands of Cameroonians without much local resistance. Farmers who used the federal land where the refugees were settled may grumble a bit even though they have been compensated for the crops they could not harvest. And with inflation making everyone’s money far less valuable, the town’s economic activity has ground to a halt, much like in the rest of the West African country. But that does not make the refugees less welcome, says the chief. “We enjoy together, and we suffer together.”
This hospitality towards strangers on the run from violence is not an exception in Nigeria. Three-quarters of the Cameroonians seeking refuge in the country did not have to go to a refugee settlement – they found shelter within a community. Just as, according to the UN, more than 80 percent of Nigerian IDPs found refuge with fellow Nigerians.
Rebecca and Blessing greet each other in the morning before going to school [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
‘She is my friend’
Back at Blessing’s home, the two girls have finished cooking and sit in the shade with a plate of steaming rice topped with smoky bean sauce on the floor in front of them. For a while, the chatting stops and the only sound is the clicking of two spoons on the shared aluminium plate. When they finish their meal, Blessing teases her slender friend, “The way you eat! I don’t understand you’re not fatter.”
The sun is on its way down when Rebecca arrives back home, but her mother does not mind. She is happy her daughter has found such a good friend. “When I look at them, they remind me of my best friend and me back home in Akwa Ibom,” says 39-year-old Favour Jonas, referring to the Nigerian state she grew up in. “I remember how we used to gist, play and sing together as girls.”
Next year will be the girls’ final year in secondary school. Afterwards, even if they go to different universities, Rebecca is sure they will stay in touch. For now, she has more immediate things to think about. Tomorrow they have a maths and an economics exam, and Rebecca hopes Blessing won’t be late. But even if she is, she will wait for her. “I have to,” she says. “She is my friend.”
This article has been produced with the support of UNHCR.
Glasgow, United Kingdom – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spent the weekend trying to persuade rebel MPs from his own party to back his latest plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda ahead of a crucial House of Commons vote on the policy.
The embattled Conservative Party leader wants to hand over refugees and migrants to the African nation for potential resettlement in a bid to discourage people from crossing the English Channel to Britain in small boats.
But following the UK Supreme Court’s decision last month to strike down the original legislation on the grounds that Rwanda is not a safe country for asylum seekers, Sunak introduced the so-called Safety of Rwanda Bill, which would make it harder for courts to challenge British deportations to the landlocked republic.
The 43-year-old, who faces a potential rebellion from the centre of his party over concerns his policy contradicts international law, has denied that Tuesday’s Commons session is essentially a vote of confidence in his premiership.
Meanwhile. as well as concerns that the policy is illegal by international law, Conservative politicians further on the right declared on Sunday that it was not “sufficiently watertight”.
Sunak’s denial comes despite Robert Jenrick resigning his role as British immigration minister last week after accusing Sunak of presiding over legislation that was not fit for purpose.
Academic Tim Bale likened Sunak’s predicament to that of former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May’s ultimate failure to deliver on Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union during her tenure.
Bale said May was forced to stand down in 2019 after being “unable to negotiate a withdrawal agreement with the EU that would simultaneously satisfy all sides of a parliamentary party that – just like it is now – was not only ideologically split but panicking about polling which suggested it was losing support big time”.
The professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London told Al Jazeera: “The only difference is there’s no Boris Johnson-type figure waiting in the wings to take over, meaning that they’re probably stuck with Sunak – an agonising position both for him and for his MPs.”
Opinion polls show Sunak is facing political annihilation at the next general election, which is scheduled for no later than January 28, 2025.
The first Briton of Asian descent to secure the UK premiership took office after the resignation of Liz Truss in October 2022 after she had served 44 days in the post. Sunak was Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer from 2020 to 2022 under former premier Johnson.
But the wealthy former hedge fund manager – whose combined wealth with his wife, Akshata Murty, is estimated to be 529 million pounds ($664m), according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2023 – has so far failed to turn around the fortunes of the Conservatives, who remain about 20 points behind the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls.
Sunak has made his anti-immigration “stop the boats” campaign a central plank of his government’s agenda. He has also made it part of his campaign to win back right-wing voters, who have abandoned the Conservatives for the Labour Party, led by former lawyer Keir Starmer.
While “there are clearly some right-wing voters who are … obsessed with the small boats issue, … there’s nowhere near enough of them to win Sunak’s Conservatives re-election”, Bale said.
Moreover, the prime minister’s determination to deport asylum seekers to a deprived country 6,400km (4,000 miles) away is unlikely to play well with Britain’s more immigration-friendly voters.
“I think sending migrants to Rwanda is cruel and impractical in equal measure and was dreamed up to appease the Conservative right,” Elizabeth Moore, a designer from Bristol in southwest England, told Al Jazeera.
Central Africa expert Phil Clark said the UK “should be seen as a human rights pariah for its refusal to deal with refugee and asylum claims on its own shores”.
Clark, a professor of international politics at SOAS University of London, added: “However, there has been limited global outcry because many Western states want to emulate the UK’s offshoring approach. Already Denmark and Austria are negotiating similar migration deals with Rwanda. … What the UK is attempting to do with Rwanda, tragically, will soon be the norm for how wealthy countries outsource their refugee responsibilities to poorer states.”
Should Sunak emerge from Tuesday’s vote with his authority intact, he will likely press ahead with trying to turn his Rwanda policy into law in the hope of justifying the 240 million pounds ($300m) already given to the African state as part of the deal.
But many analysts see few long-term benefits for Sunak of pursuing such a controversial piece of legislation so close to the next UK general election.
“Most voters are clearly far more preoccupied with the cost of living and the state of the National Health Service,” Bale said.
“To them this is just a distraction and another example of the Conservatives fighting each other like cats in a sack – never a good look because divided parties tend not to win elections.”
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