A transnational investigation by the African Investigative Publishing Collective The war for grazing lands in Africa Nomadic cattle farming in Africa is often imagined as picturesque and idyllic. In reality, present-day nomadic cattle herders in the East and West of the continent carry Pump Action, AK 47’s, and other machine guns. They trample farms, raze villages and displace communities in a desperate search for fading green pastures. Vigilante farming groups, also armed, are increasingly...
A transnational investigation by the African Investigative Publishing Collective The war for grazing lands in Africa Nomadic cattle farming in Africa is...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective Uganda chapter Gulu Thursday February 16, 2017, 8 pm Outside Peyero bar on Gulu Municipality’s Langara road in north Uganda is a car which, by the last letter on its licence plate, belongs to State House, the official residence of the president. Upon inquiring I learn that both the bar and the car belong to Harriet Aber, the ‘social friend’ as she was called during...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective Uganda chapter Gulu...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective Cameroon chapter Bamenda, February 2017 “There were trees there,” says Patience Ndifor of the Society for Initiatives in Rural Development and Environmental Protection (SIRDEP) which receives funding from Germany, over the phone. “We planted them right there, in Nkwen, 2000 of them. To counter creeping desertification. But the farming women from the area came and...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective Cameroon chapter...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective Kenya chapter Nairobi, March 2017 They had come, way back in the year 2000, to promise Lucianna Wanjiku, 58, that her mud shack in Soweto settlement in Kibera, Nairobi, -often called ‘the greatest slum on earth- would be rehabilitated. She would get a title deed to the piece of land on which her single-room was built, the government men had said. She had forked out...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective Kenya chapter...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective Ivory Coast chapter “You won’t find anyone talking to you about these programmes,” says Amadi Sidiné, whose shop alongside the main road in Duékoué, among the street’s many vegetable stalls, sells everything from cans of tomatoes to light bulbs. “You can’t overcome this feeling of fear.” Duékoué is the main town in Ivory Coast’s war-damaged western region earmarked...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective Ivory Coast chapter...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective DRC chapter KATUBA LUBUMBASHI, April 2017 At 43, ‘Maman’ Kalunga, as her relatives call her, is worried about the education of her children of 6 and 12 years old. It is not easy to feed, clothe and educate kids when you are poor and live on the crossroads of 17 Street and Sakania Avenue in Katuba, Lubumbashi in Katanga province in the south of the Democratic Republic...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective DRC chapter KATUBA...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective “I won’t complain. They can kill my children with witchcraft.” Donor- funded development programmes in five extremely poor regions -of which two post-conflict- in Africa have benefited mainly the rich. An African Investigative Publishing Collective team that went on the ground in north Uganda (post Joseph Kony), Kinshasa in the DRC, Kibera township in Nairobi, western...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective “I won’t complain....
African investigative journalists and development aid workers from the West who work on the continent are strange bedfellows. Both groups feel sadness and outrage when they see Africans starve, work under inhuman conditions, or don’t have access to medicines when sick. Both often work together, for example in protest against polluting multinationals that evade tax, or pharmaceuticals that prioritise ‘western’ diseases in their research. Both want the best for suffering communities. But with being...
African investigative journalists and development aid workers from the West who work on the continent are strange bedfellows. Both groups feel sadness...
Several months ago ZAM published a nuanced report on the operations of ruby multinational Gemfields in Mozambique. Whilst highlighting forced removals of villagers and murders of artisanal miners by local police, the article took care to do justice to Gemfields. Ethical mining in a country ruled by a criminalised and ruthless regime was surely a challenge. To our surprise, instead of engaging on the issues, Gemfields has consistently attacked us and our reporters ever since. At times I have felt...
Several months ago ZAM published a nuanced report on the operations of ruby multinational Gemfields in Mozambique. Whilst highlighting forced removals of...
Journalist and peace activist Ahmad Salkida has been arrested in Nigeria. He had flown there from exile in Dubai to share information on Boko Haram with the authorities. The journalist, who was often under suspicion of ‘terrorist sympathies’ only because he had sources in Boko Haram, was recently declared ‘wanted’ again. He had then offered to come voluntarily to Nigeria to assist the authorities and had received the message that all the military wanted was to ‘talk.’He was arrested on Monday....
Journalist and peace activist Ahmad Salkida has been arrested in Nigeria. He had flown there from exile in Dubai to share information on Boko Haram with...
Journalist and peace activist Ahmad Salkida has been arrested in Nigeria. When Nigerian journalist and ZAM network member Ahmad Salkida writes of the "Tears of Maiduguri,” he is writing about his own tears. Salkida spent his childhood in this town, the main stronghold of Boko Haram. As a boy growing up in a Christian family, he climbed trees together with Muslim friends. When it was time for their Islamic ritual washing, he helped fetch their buckets; in turn, they waited for him next to the church...
Journalist and peace activist Ahmad Salkida has been arrested in Nigeria. When Nigerian journalist and ZAM network member Ahmad Salkida writes of the...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Bill Gates is not making malaria better, but worse. The fight against terror is creating more and more terrorists in East and West Africa. Witches are no fairy-tale creatures: they operate powerful mafia-type rackets in Cameroon and other countries. Ruthless elites in Mozambique treat villagers far worse than a multinational company ever could. Good civil servants risk their lives fighting corruption in Ghana and Nigeria. These are some of the conclusions of the six...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Bill Gates is not making malaria better, but worse. The fight against terror is creating more and more terrorists in...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Witches are real. They exercise political power in West African societies Witchcraft pervades some developing societies up to the highest levels with devastating effects. Demonic spells, marketed as miracle cures that give wealth and power, strengthen those who wield them most violently and disempower everyone else. Once part of a spiritual belief system at the service of communities, the practice is now owned by secret societies that operate like mafias. A report...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Witches are real. They exercise political power in West African societies Witchcraft pervades some developing societies...
The ruby company writes to ZAM about ‘gross distortions’ in our story about mining in Montepuez. ZAM responds ZAM Chronicle 22’s article on human rights violations associated with ruby mining in Montepuez , Mozambique, caught the attention of the London-based majority shareholder in Montepuez Ruby Mining. Gemfields PLC wrote to us complaining about ‘gross distortions’ in the story. We wrote back and corrected some details. But the correspondence is about more than issues of journalism. It...
The ruby company writes to ZAM about ‘gross distortions’ in our story about mining in Montepuez. ZAM responds ZAM Chronicle 22’s article on human rights...
After the publication of our fifth AIPC-ZAM investigation, titled ‘The Ruby Plunder Wars of Montepuez,’ ZAM received correspondence from Mr Brian Cattell, a consultant for Gemfields, which –as majority partner in the Montepuez Ruby Mining company- features prominently in the story. In an email titled ‘Problematic article,’ Mr Brian Cattell explained that he found that the story contained “a number of major factual inaccuracies (and) gross distortions;” and that it omitted “critical facts that are...
After the publication of our fifth AIPC-ZAM investigation, titled ‘The Ruby Plunder Wars of Montepuez,’ ZAM received correspondence from Mr Brian...
After his last undercover investigation, Ghana’s judicial authority sacked twenty-one judges and nineteen judicial service workers. A portrait of Anas Aremeyaw Anas. Say what you want about undercover filming, but it has proven to be an effective tool in investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas' daily practice. Anas, a leading member of ZAM’s partner the African Investigative Publishing Collective , continues with his exposure of rot in Ghana’s and other African societies’ governance. Having...
After his last undercover investigation, Ghana’s judicial authority sacked twenty-one judges and nineteen judicial service workers. A portrait of Anas...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Conscientious African officials and their fight against corruption State structures in African countries are often inhabited by officials who rather line their pockets and please those above them than render a service to the public. But some public servants swim upstream, trying their best to do a good job even where those in power don’t want them to. In turn they risk getting fired, smeared and even shot at. An investigation by the African Investigative Publishing...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Conscientious African officials and their fight against corruption State structures in African countries are often...
The African Investigative Publishing Collective and ZAM’s first two investigations -on failing malaria aid and the ‘war on terror’- were met with interest worldwide. From the Global Investigative Journalism Network to Spanish, Swiss, German, Dutch, South African and United States-based colleagues and media houses, tweets, follow-up queries and co-publishing partnerships were received from all these. ‘The Siren Call: how jihadi movements recruit their followers’ has already been co-published by ‘De...
The African Investigative Publishing Collective and ZAM’s first two investigations -on failing malaria aid and the ‘war on terror’- were met with...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Presidential arms dealers and securocrats rule Africa’s ‘success story.’ Botswana is mostly known from stories about ‘authentic’ tribes living in the Kalahari desert area, rich diamond deposits, relative prosperity, democracy and books about a lovable detective called Mma Ramotswe. In reality however, the tiny country squeaks under the weight of a massive money-guzzling army that made President Khama’s brothers as rich as it made various international arms dealers....
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Presidential arms dealers and securocrats rule Africa’s ‘success story.’ Botswana is mostly known from stories about...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Let down by ruling elites, it is difficult for youth in East and West Africa to withstand the ‘siren call’ of jihadi movements A military-only approach to terrorism in East and West Africa only creates more and more terrorists. An AIPC-ZAM team discovered how in Kenya police death squads drive youth into the arms of Al-Shabaab, whilst in Mali a neglected and abandoned people is ready to join ’any party that does something for us’ and in Somalia a corrupt and weak...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Let down by ruling elites, it is difficult for youth in East and West Africa to withstand the ‘siren call’ of jihadi...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations How villagers fight a mining pact from hell in the world’s richest ruby deposit Western multinationals are often blamed for a lack of ‘Corporate Social Responsibility.’ But an investigation into ruby mining in Mozambique shows that it is hard to blame just one side when the rulers in the ‘partner’ country abuse their own citizens. In Montepuez, the richest ruby deposit in the world, a local General pockets his proceeds of an UK-Mozambique ruby mining partnership...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations How villagers fight a mining pact from hell in the world’s richest ruby deposit Western multinationals are often blamed...
