Hi, Quartz Africa readers!
Stepping down
This week, Angolans said goodbye to president José Eduardo dos Santos. After 38 years in power, he’s the second-longest serving ruler on the continent—the only leader a generation of Angolans have known.
Even after almost four decades, his decision to step down, without war or international intervention, appears to buck the trend for a generation of his peers who cling to power with aging knuckles.
In January, it took a regional military intervention to force Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh to leave office after 21 years. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, 93, is tipped to run in the country’s elections next year for the eighth time since Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni secured a fifth five-year term last year. A new generation of strongmen is also emerging: Rwanda’s Paul Kagame won a third term, securing a supposed 98% of his country’s votes earlier this month. He could potentially stay in office until 2034.
But is dos Santos really an example to other long-term rulers? Angola’s new president-elect, João Lourenço, also known as ‘Jlo’, emerged as a surprise successor to dos Santos, when many assumed dos Santos’ children would take the helm. Lourenço has promised a transparent government with less state intervention. The former defense minister, however, is a general and a veteran of the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). He is already firmly ensconced in Angola’s wealthy political elite.
Dos Santos isn’t exactly riding off into the sunset either. Before stepping down, the Angolan parliament created the special position of “president emeritus,” which means he’ll enjoy some of the perks of a sitting president, including immunity against prosecution. He also remains the head of the MPLA, while his daughter Isabel dos Santos still heads up the state oil company.
The dos Santos dynasty seems well secured in what should have been a new dawn for Angola. If anything, dos Santos has taught us that it’s not enough just to step down.
—Yomi Kazeem and Lynsey Chutel, Quartz Africa correspondents in Lagos and Johannesburg
Stories from this week
Kenya’s “Silicon Savannah” expands. For years, Kenya’s capital has been the host of the country’s most innovative hubs and startup accelerators. As Abdi Latif Dahir reports, widespread mobile connectivity and fast internet speeds are now making cities across the country fertile territory for new hubs.
How diplomatic immunity becomes impunity. Zimbabwe’s first lady was granted diplomatic immunity after being accused of assaulting a model during a personal visit to South Africa. International criminal law professor Gerhard Kemp argues diplomatic immunity shouldn’t substitute for accountability or be used to shield impunity.
To see how delivery drones should work, look to Africa. Zipline, the world’s first commercial drone delivery service, is expanding its blood delivery operations from Rwanda to Tanzania. The operation in Tanzania will deliver medications and vaccines, Mike Murphy writes.
Post-apartheid South Africa is failing the people it liberated. More than half of the country—55%—now live below the poverty. As Lynsey Chutel writes, an additional three million South Africans have been pushed below the poverty line since 2011, most of them black South African children.
Ghana launches a radio telescope to promote “brain gain.” Ghana has turned an old telecommunications dish into a radio telescope, writes Sarah Wild. It forms part of a network of telescopes called the African VLBI Network that will be used to observe the southern and northern hemispheres, both visible from Ghana, and train a generation of African scientists and engineers.
Louise Linton’s “white savior” Africa memoir. Louise Linton, wife of the US treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, faced backlash after deriding a 45-year-old mother of three on Instagram for her lower tax bracket. This isn’t the first time Linton has been on the receiving end of public scorn. She’s also the author of a widely ridiculed memoir about living in Zambia that she eventually retracted.
Chart of the week
Kenya is king of domestic air travel. Nairobi was the only major African city this year where domestic air travel outpaced international traffic. Nairobi’s domestic air travel between Jan. and Aug. 2017 grew by 22% in 2017, beating major airports in key African cities.
Other Things We Liked
Angola colonizes Portugal. Wealthy Angolans are buying up sport teams, newspapers, wineries and more in Portugal, the southern African nation’s former colonial power. In the New York Times, Norimitsu Onishi writes about the changing power dynamics between the nations.
A beginner’s guide to Pidgin. The BBC has launched an online news service delivering news in West African Pidgin English, a mixture of English, local languages, and street slang. Kobby Ankomah-Graham argues in the Guardian that the inventiveness and wit of Pidgin means it isn’t just “broken English.”
Teaching computers to recognize malaria. Intellectual Ventures Lab, a Washington-based patents company, is working on automating the process of detecting malaria parasites, a disease that kills 400,000 a year, Julian Smith explains in the Pacific Standard.
Keep an eye on
The final Atlas for Africa training (Aug. 30). As part of our ongoing effort to bring Quartz’s chart-building platform to newsrooms and organizations across Africa, Quartz reporter Nikhil Sonnad will be conducting our final video conferencing session on Wednesday at 9 am ET. Interested participants should email us at atlasforafrica@qz.com for an invite to the one-hour workshop.
Kenya’s supreme court will decide on the presidential election (Sept. 1). After losing the Aug. 8 polls to incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta, opposition leader Raila Odinga challenged the results. The supreme court has a deadline of Sept. 1 to announce its verdict. President Kenyatta’s swearing in on Aug. 29 has been put on hold, pending the court’s decision.
Our best wishes for a productive and thought-filled week ahead. Please send any news, comments, suggestions, Pidgin translations, and delivery drones to africa@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter at @qzafrica for updates throughout the day.
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