Nickson Mpofu (38) a resident of Cranborne, a medium-density suburb in Harare the capital of Zimbabwe, recalls how they used tea leaves to treat colds growing up in his rural home, Zvishavane.
As a young boy, he did not know the plant would one day treat the symptoms of a novel virus: COVID-19.
Last year, after many decades he realized the power of the plant in saving lives when he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
“I first developed a severe headache. I suspected it was just flu,” he tells Ubuntu Times.
“As the day went on the headache and fever became worse.”
Mpofu went to a COVID-19 testing center in Harare where he tested positive for Coronavirus.
He was asked to quarantine at home.
At that time little was known about COVID-19, thus, Mpofu turned to Zumbani tea leaves.
“I took Zumbani tea leaves. I also steamed using Zumbani, lemon, gum tree and guava tree leaves,” he said.
Since March 2020 when Zimbabwe recorded its first COVID-19 death, people have been using local remedies such as Zumbani to treat illnesses related to the virus.
Zumbani, a woody erect shrub that grows naturally in Zimbabwe and other African countries, is known scientifically as Lippia javanica.
Up until now, the world is battling to find a cure to the pandemic.
But as research efforts go on citizens of poor countries, who can hardly afford medical treatment have had to rely on local remedies to treat the symptoms of COVID-19.
Several countries have developed vaccines that are currently being rolled out including United States’ Johnson and Johnson, Russia’s Sputnik V, China’s Sinopharm vaccine.
After receiving a donation of 200,000 Sinopharm vaccines from China, Zimbabwe rolled out its COVID-19 vaccination program on the 18th of January 2021.
The initial phase of the vaccination program targets health workers, members of the security sector, and journalists.
The government aims to inoculate 60 percent of its population of over 14 million people with vaccines from China, Russia, and the Far East.
In April 2020, the government allowed traditional herbalists to treat COVID-19 using herbs since very little information was available on how to treat the symptoms of COVID-19.
Zumabani, known scientifically as Lippia javanica, grows naturally in Zimbabwe and other African countries and has been used to treat ailments such as colds and flu. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe / Ubuntu Times
The southern African nation is experiencing its worst economic crisis in decades which has hit the health sector characterized by shortages of medicines and personal protective equipment (PPEs).
Poor countries like Zimbabwe are struggling to purchase vaccines for their citizens.
They are relying on vaccine donations from developed nations.
Towards the end of 2021 COVID-19 cases surged as Zimbabwean residents returned from neighboring South Africa for the festive season.
As of the 16th of March 2021, COVID-19 had claimed the lives of over 1,500 people while infecting more than 36,500 people in the southern African nation, according to the Health Ministry.
At this time, the majority of people in Zimbabwe—constituting almost 80 percent of the population resorted to using home remedies to treat common illnesses before seeking modern medical care services, according to Itai Rusike, the executive director of the Community Working Group on Health, a network of community-based organizations.
Another Zimbabwean, Constance Makoni says her parents tested positive for COVID-19 in July 2020 and they took Zumbani and other home remedies.
“When they tested positive we asked them to steam. My father was in terrible shape. He was not breathing well.”
“My parents could steam 15 times a day. They also drank Zumbani tea leaves. My father was later put on oxygen. They all recovered,” she said.
Zimbabwe is not the only country that at the height of the pandemic resorted to home remedies.
Other African nations such as Madagascar and Tanzania authorized and promoted the use of home remedies to cure COVID-19.
In April 2020, Madagascan President Andry Rajoelina launched a herbal tea that was marketed in bottles.
The herbal remedy made from artemisia-a plant with proven efficacy against malaria, according to the Malagasy Institute of Applied Research.
This herbal remedy was reportedly exported to other countries.
In Tanzania, President John Magufuli, who did not put the east African nation on lockdown while declaring it COVID-19 free, also ordered a shipment of the Madagascan herbal to treat the respiratory disease in May 2020.
Magufuli died from heart-related complications aged 61 on the 17th of March 2020.
In Zimbabwe, there has been a rise in the number of traders packaging Zumbani tea leaves, for sale in major cities.
The World Health Organisation has been urging nations to use scientifically proven traditional medicine to treat COVID-19 related illnesses.
Zimbabwe’s Health Minister Constantino Chiwenga has encouraged medical facilities to undertake a scientific study to ascertain the efficacy of traditional medicine and herbs to combat COVID-19.
In Zimbabwe, entrepreneurs are packaging Zumbani tea leaves for sale in major cities. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe / Ubuntu Times
Africa University, located in the eastern part of Zimbabwe, is in the process of developing cough drops made from the Zumbani plant.
The cough drops are not going to be sold as a pharmaceutical drug for now but as a herbal remedy and will be available commercially in one month’s time, according to Africa University.
Despite its popularity among poor Zimbabweans medical practitioners are not convinced that it can treat COVID-19.
“Zumbani is a herbal remedy which is probably good for general health and wellbeing. It has been found to have antioxidants like rooibos. It has no known specific effect against any particular bacteria or virus,” Shingai Nyaguse, president of the Zimbabwe Senior Hospital Doctors Association tells Ubuntu Times.
Medical experts say prolonged use of the triterpenoids in Lippia javanica causes liver damage, with jaundice being the most notable result.
Before jumping into her first sermon for 2021, Rev. Agnes Philips took time to stress something to her largely middle-class congregation in the Legon Interdenominational Church. Concern for the environment.
“We are stewards, not owners; caretakers, not proprietors,” a pamphlet she brandishes reads.
Watching from home because of the Coronavirus pandemic, 70-year-old Dr. Robert Otsyina derives some satisfaction from fellowshipping in a church willing to engage with environmental conservation.
Caring for the environment has been dear to him for three decades as he worked for the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) as a researcher in Tanzania.
Just as dear to him, especially in the last 15 years which he returned to Ghana, has been his Christian faith.
It hadn’t been until 2015 when he formally joined the Legon Interdenominational Church and connected with its albeit relatively-small environmental action.
And Dr. Otsyina is not averse to starting small, as he lauds the consistency of his church’s moves to combat plastic waste with a recycling program.
Whilst grateful for such opportunities to participate and think about ways to preserve the environment within the context of his fellowship, Dr. Otsyina knows the Church in Ghana as a whole needs to reorient its followers for change on a national scale.
But there is a lack of awareness for the earliest mandate from God to Christians that concerns him.
“I think Christians don’t really understand this. They don’t see protecting the environment as a significant responsibility,” he remarks. “God didn’t just put Adam and Eve in the Garden but he gave them the task to take care of the land.”
On the other end of the generational spectrum, 24-year-old Daniel Anyorgyia, a journalist and environmental activist, faces similar concerns with the Church in Ghana.
Reducing carbon emissions and developing solutions to climate change and renewable energy are things he has been thinking about over the past four years.
The same can’t be said of his church.
“You hardly hear anything on environmental conservation,” he laments of Deeper Life, the church he fellowships with.
Protecting the environment really should be a basic way of fulfilling key Christian edicts, he stresses.
“If churches are not looking at how to conserve the environment as a way of caring for another, that means there is either a knowledge gap or no one seems to care.”
Daniel Anyorigya has spent most of his adult life working to protect the environment. Credit: Daniel Anyorigya
The church in Ghana wields tremendous influence with over 70 percent of Ghana’s population professing to be Christian.
This influence grows when narrowing in on some mega-churches which command allegiances of hundreds of thousands nationwide but are criticized for settling for the prosperity gospel instead of using their reach to consistently force social change.
Ghana’s environmental situation has worsened in the last five years.
The prevalence of illegal mining has threatened food and water security and resulted in the loss of forest cover to devastating effect.
Using remote sensing and satellite data from the University of Maryland, Global Forest Watch estimated that there was a 60 percent increase in Ghana’s primary rainforest loss in 2018 compared to 2017. That was the highest in the world.
The loss of forest isn’t exclusive to illegal factors though.
Currently, activists are on edge because of the Ghana government’s decision to mine bauxite in the Atewa Forest Reserve which is one of the world’s Key Biodiversity Areas that harbours extraordinary wildlife and provides water for millions of Ghanaians.
These are some of the issues Dr. Otsyina would like drummed home within Christian circles but he laments that “the awareness is just not there.”
He thinks the Church may be Ghana’s last hope for saving the environment as he notes the little faith he and most Ghanaians have in the government.
“More focus and actions should be directed towards sustainable environmental conservation. The Church should work closely with the government to save the environment.”
For as much as is demanded of the Church, there are a number of environmental activist groups that base their work on biblical principles.
Foremost among them is A Rocha Ghana, which has been on the vanguard of protests to preserve the Atewa Forest Reserve.
Emmanuel Turkson, the Creation Care officer at A Rocha Ghana, says a crucial part of their work has been trying to change the mindset of churches.
“We use scripture references as an approach to integrate environmental action into their whole mission,” says Turkson.
And there has been some progress on a surface level as churches put environmental plans on paper.
But this seldom translates to actionable outcomes, Turkson notes.
“In terms of prioritization and commitment, you can tell that we are not really interested in prioritizing these actions.”
This notwithstanding, over the last decade, churches have been “opening doors to these conversations” and Turkson views this as a win.
He cites the Pentecost Church of Ghana, the Evangelical Presbyterian, and the Christian Council of Ghana for commendation in this regard.
Pentecost Church, which has a reach of over 4 million Ghanaians, has even gone on to develop a creation care course in its theological school.
And he further expects things to get better.
“There is no institution in Ghana which is able to change behavior and perception like the church.”
Beyond affecting the direction of churches, A Rocha Ghana is on hand to offer support to smaller environmental groups, especially those with religious inclinations.
Turkson was on hand when a group made up of young Catholics, Christians Advocating Respect For the Environment, took time to engage students in the Accra Traning College in a tree planting exercise.
Seth Akagla, the Chairperson of the group, thinks of only nourishing the earth when the call to stewardship comes to mind.
“Having dominion over the world doesn’t mean that creations should be objects that we have to exploit but subjects that we need to protect.”
Seth Aklaga (R) takes baby steps towards a greener Ghana with a tree-planting project. Credit: Delali Adogla-Bessa / Ubuntu Times
Seth is proud of the work organizations like his and A Rocha Ghana do to keep Ghana green.
He perhaps wishes they made more noise about it.
“The only challenge is that they [faith-based environmental groups] don’t trumpet the things that they do with regards to environmental protection.”
Whatever publicity he is able to drum up for his group’s advocacy, it still won’t trump the potential gains the organized Christianity could make.
His charge to them is simple.
“I believe that in the next five years, we should have environmental protection groups in all churches in Ghana.”
As Christians look forward to the second coming of Jesus Christ, there is a tension between escatology and the need to breathe life into a dying earth.
That the church is known to filter issues on climate change, which is causing devastating changes in weather patterns, through teachings on the end-times irks Daniel.
“Outbreak of diseases, the pandemic, famine, droughts; these are things that the church will label as the second coming of Jesus Christ,” he says.
Moving forward activist hope the keyword for Christians is balance; balancing the concern for eternity and their temporary existence on earth.
“We need to find a middle ground where we have religious leaders communicate effectively on environmental conservation with their congregants by highlighting issues like climate change,” Daniel says.
A group of women gather on a synthetic lawn one Sunday in Labone, a suburb of Accra.
Clad in sports gear, they pick up little tricks from an instructor to defend themselves from attackers who may be twice their size.
Despite the roundhouse and elbow strikes being taught, the surface goal of the class was simple – give yourself a chance to run.
With a society that stacks the odds against women, there are few options better than running for women faced with the threat of sexual and gender-based violence.
The idea of self-defense classes in Accra is rare, so the quirkily named The Boring Talkative support group saw an opportunity to add another layer to its advocacy with this move to empower women who are justified in their fears.
Just how hostile is Ghanaian society towards women?
This is a question that at times prompts comparisons to horrific accounts of violence against women in notorious countries like South Africa or India.
Some have called this a subtle form of gaslighting that ignores an insidious problem that prompted the various forms of advocacy from The Boring Talkative.
Farida Yusif, the founder of the Boring Talkative, wanted to create a safe space for women with her group, especially women victims of physical and sexual abuse, and make sure they were heard.
“We are constantly faced with threats of someone trying to attack us,” she said to Ubuntu Times after a second meeting of the class back in 2020.
By the strict definition, one could set a watch by the kinds of sexual violence women and girls in Ghana face daily.
Unwanted sexual comments or physical contact all count as sexual violence. The former is rampant online.
Incidents of sexual and gender-based violence are grossly underreported and the police is not able to effectively investigate cases.
In a lot of instances, some victims are even priced out of justice.
As at 2019, doctors were charging 300 to 800 cedis ($51 to $137) to fill out police medical forms for rape victims and 1,000 to 2,000 cedis ($171 to $343) for medical opinions in legal processes.
Idrissa Hamdiya, a school teacher in Accra, was one of the participants in the self-defense class and she is very aware of these threats to women and the role they play in propping each other up.
For her helping survivors of sexual violence isn’t just about coping with trauma.
“Statistics show that for most people who have been raped once, the probability is high that they are going to get raped again,” she notes.
“When we talk about ladies who go through sexual harassment and all that, first we have to help them heal emotionally and we also have to teach them to defend themselves.”
The women are constantly reminded by their instructor that the goal is to create an opportunity to run. Credit: Delali Adogla-Bessa / Ubuntu Times
Idrissa seemed impressed with her experience in the class and wished more women had such an opportunity.
She, like some of the women in the self-defense class, was mindful of their privileged position.
They didn’t need reminding that they were but a drop in the bucket of a larger fight.
Ghanaian society needs a new awareness of the threat posed to women if it is to get safer, stresses Farida.
She says her ultimate goal is “to educate people and reorient our society and help us unlearn certain attitudes that oppress women.”
On the other side of Accra in Haatso, Doreen Raheena Sulleyman, a journalist and women’s advocate, was nursing her second of two daughters, having recently delivered.
She is worried about the Ghana she will have to bring up her daughter in and is especially vexed by the casual grooming of children, some barely old enough for pre-school.
Doreen recalled to Ubuntu Times she once had cause to dress down a male shop keeper who spoke inappropriately to her daughter.
This is a pathway to sexual abuse she is hyper-aware of and one she will never indulge.
“Those things agitate me. They get on my nerves easily,” she says.
With her journalism, she has tried to highlight the issue of gender violence both on and offline.
She has found that state institutions like the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit have not only done little by way of enforcement but not offered much support to reporters striving for in-depth coverage.
For example, there doesn’t appear to be any recent organized data on gender-based violence according to suggestions from a police source to Ubuntu Times.
“It would be most disappointing if that were the case,” the source said with worry.
Recently in Ghana’s Parliament, the Minority leader also complained that relevant committees had not been privy to any crime data since 2016.
The most visible data on sexual violence available appears to be from a UK-funded report commissioned by Ghana’s Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.
The commitment of Ghana’s Ministry for Gender to protecting women has been questioned by critics. Credit: Delali Adogla-Bessa / Ubuntu Times
It showed that 30 percent of women (older than 15) experienced sexual violence at least once over their lifetime.
Doreen also works outside of mainstream media because support for her passion is lacking from the architecture of established media organizations.
She also questions the ethics of mainstream media in reporting on sexual and gender-based violence.
This hasn’t gone unnoticed by observers.
A 2018 research article by BMC Women’s Health came to the conclusion that media framing of violence against women was in Ghana “episodic in nature” and normally reported without wider social context.
The article also raised concerns with the victim-blaming language that was largely used in the news articles.
It is common to see news reports that recklessly put out the identities of victims of gender-based violence.
Doreen on the other hand says she once went as far as preparing a Non-Disclosure Agreement for victims of sexual violence she once interviewed for a story.
“They didn’t request for it but I just wanted them to feel safe, to feel secure, to feel okay to pour everything out,” she says.
Like The Boring Talkative, she too believes ultimate safety for women will come when Ghanaian society unlearns the norms that foment a hostile environment for women.
For this to happen, the state will have to take charge with shaping narratives, she says.
Private media may be popular but it seldom commits to issues like gender-based violence unless there is a sensational angle.
“If it is not bringing them [private media] money, they will not worry themselves about it,” Doreen remarks.
That leaves the state which owes its women a safer society, she insists.
And this will come about through better education – education that is so far non-existent.
“The Social Welfare Department is there. The Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit is there and I don’t even know what they are doing,” Doreen says with frustration.
She further ropes in Ghana’s National Commission for Civic Education and Ministry for Gender, Children and Social Protection in this regard.
In as much as she distrusts the press’ handling of matters of gender-based violence, people outside metropolitan areas really only have broadcast media as their main source of information.
And the state media is best positioned to cast the widest net given its obvious reach and influence outside metropolitan areas.
“Whatever they hear from the news they believe it so they rely on the media for so many things,” reminds Doreen.
“Why can’t the Ministry of Gender set up a TV channel specifically for education on sexual violence? They can get people to educate in numerous languages being spoken across Ghana.”
Issues bordering on sexual conduct have never been mainstream in Ghana and as things stand, no conversations on sexual and gender-based violence in public schools or even churches and Doreen says this needs to change.
She tries to do her bit when she can.
“The culture of silence has a huge impact on us. Me, I try as much as possible to talk to my age mates who have children and other women,” she says.
“When it comes to issues of gender-based violence, I am not shy about me. It invigorates me.”
Beryl Darkwa, a fellow coordinator of the Boring Talkative’s activities also believes the buck stops with the state.
“For us to see proper change; for us to feel the change we are hoping for, the state must help. The state must step in,” she says.
“Like it or not, sexual and gender-based violence is also a Ghanaian problem. It is not just a Ghanaian women’s problem.”
Farida (L) and Beryl (R) encourage the women to open up about some unpleasant experiences. Credit: Delali Adogla-Bessa / Ubuntu Times
In the meantime, as we wait for some significant change, women like Farida, Beryl and Doreen want to encourage victims to speak out more.
“We should be able to normalize talking about the trauma that happens to us because if we don’t do it, more people get away with these things,” Beryl says.
With the lack of support from the state, the only allies women probably have are themselves.
Though Beryl feels shared fears and traumas connect women, it is also a “sisterhood” that gives her hope.
“Even though they are individual traumas. It is something every other woman can relate to. So it is important that women band together.”
Nairobi, January 22 — For more than half a century, John Mwangi has lived in the streets, the only place he’s known as being his home. He has seen it all here in his 56 years of life, including getting arrested and imprisoned, as well as losing his wife and sons who walked out of his life.
The father of two grew up an orphan after his parents died when he was only one year old and after being brought up by their neighbor, he finally gave up and resorted to street life. His only sibling, a brother, later died and he was then left without a family.
He never then got the opportunity to know his parents as they died while he was still too young.
“You know, here in the streets, sometimes you get napped by the police on the wrong side, not that you did anything wrong. And they take advantage to imprison you. That happened to me and after I came out, I found that my wife had left and gone to her rural home. I was in my 20’s then,” Mwangi says as he pulls a rake full of trash.
Today, he joins a group of other street families in cleaning up Nairobi city streets, something that is contrary to popular belief that street families are mostly responsible for the filth in the streets. And as he puts it, he understands the importance of a clean environment.
“Out here in the streets, we have witnessed our friends dying of diseases that were brought about by the dirt around where we stay. That’s why we feel the importance of at least cleaning it so that we can stop more deaths,” Mwangi says.
The cleanup had been organized by Plogging Kenya, an organization that is working to encourage people to pick up litter on their paths especially while on outdoor events such as jogging, walking, cycling, and hiking; that in most cases they organize for them.
The organization brought together climate activists and, companies, and other environmental enthusiasts to clean up along the Nairobi River, which is filled with filth and whose banks are home to many street children in the city.
The area is called Grogon, and according to Mwangi, it used to be too dirty but such initiatives to clean it have ensured that it continues to be tidy over time.
A street child sniffs glue as he watches the water flow on the Nairobi River during the street cleanup. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
The organizer, Zablon Ogolla who is also the founder of Plogging Kenya also took part in the cleanup and says that the event was necessary in order to enable the street families to take responsibility for their own environment and ensure that their health is also good.
“You have to understand that a number of them are not environmentally conscious, and are not so concerned about a clean environment. And so if we bring an idea and partner with them, we will have achieved an objective as they will know that is important to have a clean environment and to segregate the same waste that we pick so that we can know the composition of the waste that we have picked. And as you can see, 99% of what we have picked is plastic. So, plastic is really choking our nation and it’s time we did something about it,” Ogolla says.
Also taking part during the street cleanup were the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, an umbrella organization whose members are largely responsible for the manufacture and distribution of single-use plastics that are, in turn, spoiling the environment. Its members have, from time to time, found themselves on the wrong side as environmentalists have accused them of being the ones making and distributing plastics through food, drinks, and other product packaging, without minding where the plastic waste ends up.
Sharon Okwany, the PET Sub-sector Liaison Officer at the Kenya Association of Manufacturers says that their members have resorted to creating awareness among the public on how to manage and dispose of the plastics after they sell them to the public.
“Yes, the plastics are produced and sold to the public through packaging, but the public is not aware of how they are supposed to properly manage and dispose of this waste at the end of the day. So, as KAM, what we try to do on behalf of our members is to create that awareness through cleanups, putting up bins in different areas, engaging in media campaigns, engage different partners who can bring in communities just to talk about proper waste management, and other different initiatives that we do,” Okwany says.
Members of the street families clean up the Nairobi River during the street cleanup exercise. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
And as for Mwangi and his friends, they are happy that now they are going to live in a cleaner environment, and that people will no longer shift the blame on them for a dirty city.
“You know now, people will not be looking at us and saying that we are the ones spoiling the city,” Mwangi says as he smiles and enjoys a meal with his friends, provided by the partners at the end of the cleanup exercise.
Harare — His house stands out in the midst of water, with the entire driveway concealed under water, apparently with nowhere to step on, yet for 15 years, 50-year-old Jimson Ruvangu in Westlea suburb in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, has managed to evade censure from the city’s local authorities.
Ruvangu claims he acquired the piece of land on which he built his home through a local housing cooperative.
But climate change activists, even as many like Ruvangu are apparently getting away with murder, warn that illegal construction of homes and commercial buildings is fueling climate change impacts across Zimbabwe.
Yet, many like Ruvangu even as they dwell in the midst of wetlands, he (Ruvangu) is happy that he has somewhere to lay his head.
Makeshift homes are rising rapidly on undesignated pieces of land in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, with pieces of land being cleared of trees prior to the erection of the temporary homes as people invade vacant land in Zimbabwe’s towns and cities, this fueling climate change impacts. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
“I have a home; that is what matters. Whether it was built illegally or not, that is another matter, but look, I am nearing two decades living here and nothing has happened to me,” Ruvangu bragged.
For climate change activists here like Happison Chikova, it is illegal construction that particularly fuels climate change impacts across this Southern African country.
“The haphazard construction of houses in the major cities and towns in Zimbabwe has contributed immensely to climate change in Zimbabwe. The unplanned housing schemes has contributed to high emissions of green-house gases into the atmosphere due to rampant deforestation and destruction of wetlands,” Chikova told Ubuntu Times.
As construction occurs on undesignated places, according to Chikova, ‘the destruction of biodiversity and the ecosystems reduces carbon sequestration as huge amount of carbon dioxide is lost into the atmosphere as vegetation acts as carbon sinks.’
That in fact has not moved illegal urban land occupiers like Ruvangu who claim nothing will move them, but in the eyes of climate change experts like Chikova, many like Ruvangu have brought more harm than good.
Hundreds of illegally built yet luxurious homes are emerging on undesignated pieces of land, with climate change experts saying this is often taking place on wetlands thereby fueling climate change impacts as the construction of such homes dries up groundwater. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
“The haphazard construction of houses in urban areas is resulting in increasing the heat in the cities, thereby creating heat islands. This is because the houses are not built according to the city standard as well as following green cities foot prints,” said Chikova.
He (Chikova) also said as construction is often done illegally, ‘the destruction of wetlands has affected local climate as the wetlands are responsible for cooling the environment hence increase in temperature.’
Apart from being a holder of a degree in environmental studies from Zimbabwe’s Midlands State University, Chikova is a student at the University of Edinburgh in the UK studying global food security and nutrition.
For Harare Wetlands Trust, a conservation group here, disorderly constructions across Zimbabwe’s wetlands have also fueled climate change impacts.
Incomplete luxury spacious homes stand out on undesignated land pieces in the capital Harare, where climate change experts say trees important for retaining water vapor in the atmosphere for the accumulation of rains are wantonly cut down paving way for illegal construction of properties. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
“Construction covers wetlands with hard surface. The water can no longer seep into the soils to be stored. So, water runs off and floods on hard surfaces downstream. It is not available underground to keep streams flowing during droughts and dry seasons and we blame climate change when we changed a crucial landscape and contributed to climate change,” Selestino Chari told Ubuntu Times.
To him (Chari), ‘it is effectively an ecocide to build (homes) on something that supports us when we can build elsewhere. And where will all this built-up area get its water from after it runs off the hard surface down to the sea?’ Chari said.
Even the country’s top academics have weighed in, apparently irked by the growing climate change impacts emanating from rife construction on undesignated points here.
One such intellectual is Professor Johnson Masaka, the executive dean at the Midlands State University’s department of Land and Water Resources Management, who has spelt out the harm wrought by the chaotic constructions.
“Firstly, the unplanned constructions will necessarily require that trees, bushes and grasslands are cleared on construction sites. The vegetation that fixes carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas or global warming gas, in photosynthesis is destroyed in the site,” Masaka told Ubuntu Times.
With haphazard construction all over Zimbabwe’s towns and cities, Masaka said climate has had to suffer the results amid wanton cutting down of trees as people in illegally built homes have no access to electricity.
“Provision of electricity in such haphazard settlements is almost impossible due to legal requirements; so, people resort to use of fuel wood. Upon burning, the wood releases a series of global warming gases such as carbon monoxide and methane into the atmosphere where they cause warming of climates,” said Masaka.
But many urban dwellers like 56-year-old Hector Ruvende based in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest town, see nothing amiss dwelling on a wetland upon which he built his home two decades ago.
“Electricity will be connected to my home one day; what matters is that I have a roof above my head; of course, we use firewood which we buy from wood poachers,” Ruvende told Ubuntu Times.
A foundation is laid out for a home being illegally constructed in one of the suburbs in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, unlawful acts of which climate change experts blame for the rising climate change impacts across Zimbabwe’s towns and cities. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Such actions by Zimbabweans like Ruvende, to Professor Masaka, ‘participate in loading the atmosphere with global warming gases.’
Yet even climate change activists in Zimbabwe like Kudakwashe Makanda who is the programmes manager for the Youth Initiative for Community Development (YICD), a youth civic organization, blame disorganized construction for worsening climate change impacts in the country.
“I think you understand that most local authorities have been allocating housing land on wetlands mostly; this then undermines the crucial role that is played by wetlands which is to service the water sources that we do have across the country and also to clean the water; by constructing houses on wetlands, it means the water being reserved or kept there will stop being available,” Makanda told Ubuntu Times.
For Makanda, chaotic urban construction of homes has in fact brought more harm than good.
“Cutting down trees so as to pave way for residential areas also reduces the amount of vegetation that is necessary to supply the atmosphere with water vapor and that alone then leads to less rains being experienced,” said Makanda.
To Makanda, ‘the major challenge is that most local authorities are prioritizing development at the expense of environmental consciousness and the way that they are apportioning the land is not being done in a well thought out manner.’
Yet for independent climate change experts like Gilbert Musungwa in Zimbabwe, corruption in the country’s urban local authorities has fueled illegal construction of homes, subsequently leading to noticeable climate change impacts.
“In other sectors like the construction industry, the issue remains a sub-issue and often overshadowed in the offices; whenever there is an intention to have some infrastructural development, oftentimes environmental impact assessments (EIA) are requested. It boggles the mind how some developments pass the required EIA,” Musungwa told Ubuntu Times.
On a rainy day in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, prison officers armed with AK47s are monitoring prisoners disembarking from a prison van at Harare magistrates court.
A few prisoners have leg cuffs which are often used for prisoners with grave crimes such as serial armed robberies and those who are a flight risk.
One of these prisoners is familiar to Zimbabweans, especially in opposition politics circles.
His name is Job Sikhala, the MDC Alliance vice-chairperson who was arrested on allegations of communicating falsehoods.
Sikhala was arrested on the 9th of January 2021 at the same court when he had come to offer legal assistance to investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono who had been arrested a day before and charged with communicating falsehoods.
Just like Sikhala and Chin’ono, on the 11th of January MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere was also arrested on the same charges.
Mahere was freed on bail, on Monday the 18th of January 2021
Chin’ono was also freed on bail on the 27th of January 2021 while Sikhala was released on bail on the 1st of February this year.
The trio are accused of using their Twitter handles to spread false information. They allegedly spread falsehoods that a child was killed by a police officer during skirmishes with illegal minibus drivers in Harare’s central business district on the 5th of January 2021.
The post by the three followed a video, which was circulated on social media by many users, shows a mother manhandling a cop asking why he had beaten up his child who was hanging helplessly in her arms.
The child allegedly died.
MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere was also arrested for communicating falsehoods, a law that was declared unconstitutional by Chief Justice Luke Malaba back in 2014. Credit: Ruvimbo Muchenje
However, the Zimbabwe Republic Police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi denied the claims.
“The child is not dead as alleged on social media and this has been confirmed by medical personnel who are now in touch with the police and parents,” he said.
The law under which the trio were arrested was outlawed by the Constitutional Court led by Chief Justice Luke Malaba back in 2014.
In his ruling, Malaba said, “government is prohibited from appointing itself as a monitor of truth for people.”
This is the third time that Chin’ono has been arrested in a period of six months.
He spent 45 days in remand prison on charges of inciting people to commit violence and another 17 days on charges of obstructing the course of justice.
Media Institute of Southern Africa-Zimbabwe Chapter official Nqaba Matshazi told Ubuntu Times that it was quite strange that people were still being arrested for publishing falsehoods in the 21st century.
“Publishing falsehoods is an effective tool in a dictators’ tool box. It is easy for dictators to use such laws to descend on political opponents,” he said.
Matshazi said there is no need to criminalize publication of falsehoods.
“When a journalist lies. It is the journalist who loses his or her credibility. There is no need to criminalize the offense. There is a norm of retracting and issuing apologies,” he said.
This is the third time that investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono is being arrested in a period of six months. Credit: Ruvimbo Muchenje
Media Alliance of Zimbabwe programs manager Nigel Nyamutumbu said arresting citizens on account of peddling falsehoods is unsustainable and amounts to criminalization of freedom of expression, and by extension journalism.
“Government should walk the talk in respect of reforms and be consistent on the same. It is an act of hypocrisy to, one hand purport to be repealing draconian laws such as [Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act] AIPPA during the day, while at night resuscitating dead laws as a means of targeting political opponents, muzzling journalists, criminalizing expression and crushing dissent,” he said.
In a related case, Harare mayor Jacob Mafume had been languishing in prison since 2020 after he was arrested on allegations of tampering with a witness in another case involving abuse of office for which he was already out on bail.
Mafume was released on bail on the 15th of January after his lawyers had several times unsuccessfully requested he be granted bail so that he can get treatment at a health facility of his choice as he was ill.
The list of people arrested in the past months for inciting violence is cumulative.
University of Zimbabwe student Allan Moyo (23) is also in prison after getting arrested on the 7th of December 2020 and charged with inciting people to revolt against Mnangagwa’s government.
Moyo has been denied bail several times.
In a statement, MDC Alliance deputy spokesperson Clifford Hlatywayo said his party strongly condemned the continued abuse of justice institutions through the arrests of Mahere, Mafume, Chin’ono, Moyo and other wrongly convicted prisoners that include Last Maingehama and Tungamirirai Madzokere.
He said the government is abusing State institutions by continuously persecuting opposition leaders and human rights defenders.
“The arrest pertaining to non-existing crimes represents dictatorial rule, severe abuse of power and an attack on the rule of law. Persecution through prosecution reflects authoritarian consolidation rather than democratization,” he said.
There have been allegations of judiciary capture in Zimbabwe with Mnangagwa himself allegedly calling the shots from his office.
In October 2020, judges wrote a letter to Mnangagwa and the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission, claiming that the judiciary was under siege and judges were captured thereby unable to independently execute their duties without interference from the executive and State agencies.
“What is repeated in the public domain and on social media about the capture of the judiciary is no longer fiction or perception, it is in fact reality. It is an open secret that right across the judicial structure, the Chief Justice now rules without a fetter,” reads part of the letter.
“Where magistrates used to be subject to administrative supervision by their superiors, it is now an open secret that the Chief Justice now routinely interferes with magistrates and their decisions through the Chief Magistrates’ office.”
Human rights defender Musa Kika told Ubuntu Times that the arrests simply provided the latest evidence in what has become a clear pattern of manipulating the judicial system to silence and eliminate dissent.
“Chin’ono, Mahere and Sikhala are perceived leaders in dissent, and their arrest is meant to dissuade others from speaking ill against the regime,” he said.
Kika said as the norm the goal is never to convict them but to punish them through prolonged pre-trial incarceration and the harassment they endure in the process.
Even some people who are publicly perceived to be supporters of Mnangagwa are beginning to be critical of his administration.
In a statement, media mogul and member of Mnangagwa’s advisory council Trevor Ncube said the attack on Chin’ono’s rights to freedom of expression limits the rights of citizens to know what is going on in Zimbabwe.
He said the response of the State should be to set the record straight, not to arrest or harass those who express themselves freely.
Immediately after the announcement of the 2007 presidential election results in Kenya, all hell broke loose across the country as neighbors turned against each other, divided along tribal lines as they defended their political inclinations.
Mary (not her real name), was living in an estate next to a slum in Nairobi when her neighbor’s friend came to her home and purported to be looking for his friend before taking advantage of the situation to pounce on and rape her.
“We fought for quite some time but eventually he overpowered me and that is when he succeeded in violating me,” she narrates.
Traumatized, Mary could not go to the hospital nor police station to report the matter as it was also unsafe for her with the violence that had just broken out. When she finally did, two days later, the officer on duty at the nearby police station put her off.
“He told me to go away as there were more serious matters to deal with at that moment,” Mary says.
The then 40-year-old mother of four had just lost her husband and her fourth-born child was hardly a year old. A few weeks later, she discovered that she had gotten pregnant from the rape. And like many other women who were victims of rape during this period, she never wanted to have the baby; she contemplated abortion and failed three times.
“I then went to the Children Services department and registered to give away the child. But in my delivery room, the nurse on duty was not aware that I was not supposed to even see the child and after I delivered, she put her next to me. When I woke up, I kid you not; I heard the sweetest sound of a child on earth! That is when I embraced, loved and protected her jealously up to now,” she says.
Her daughter is now twelve and Mary says that she’s a very adorable child who according to her is a piece of work, as she is a girl scout, a football captain, and a music leader; a wonderful, beautiful little girl.
Two years later, Mary met the man responsible for the atrocity and says that she froze. “I met him once on the road and he just looked down and walked away. He knew I had a child from the rape. That is when I realized that I had been punishing myself by hating on someone who might not even be aware of what scar he had left in my life. I decided to forgive myself and embrace my life,” she says.
Cases of sexual and gender-based violence are still rampant in Kenya, and even more with the containment measures imposed by the government to curb the spread of COVID-19. A UN situational report from October this year pointed out that 23.6 percent of Kenyans have witnessed or heard cases of domestic violence in their communities since the introduction of COVID-19 containment measures.
After post-election violence, there was hope that the government would come in and ensure the protection of the rights of sexual and gender-based violence survivors are recognized and protected, and also so that they can get meaningful reparation.
A front view of the Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi. Judge Weldon Korir delivered the ruling awarding sexual violence victims on December 10th at this court. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
In what human rights activists have termed a landmark ruling, the High Court of Kenya, on 10th December, ruled in favor of four of the eight survivors who were backed by several human rights groups.
The four women were awarded 4 million Kenyan Shillings (about $36,596) each in damages. The four, according to the High Court were either violated by police officers and the GSU personnel or had reported the incidents and to the police, got registered in the police records and the police didn’t do anything.
In his judgment, High Court Judge Weldon Korir said that the Kenyan government had failed to conduct “independent and effective investigations and prosecutions” of sexual violence during the period within which there was unrest in the country after the election results were announced.
Naitore Nyamu, a human rights advocate and head of Physicians for Human Rights’ Kenya office (one of the four institutional petitioners in the case) says that as institutional petitioners who supported the survivors go through the petition, they did not agree with that part of the court decision.
“The criteria used by the court to award the four survivors was that three of the individual petitioners had been violated by state agents (meaning the police or GSU officers), and one had registered her case with the police and no action was taken. This does not make all the other cases right,” says Naitore.
However, these were not the only survivors of sexual violence during the skirmishes. Official records from government-supported reports indicated that 900 Kenyans, both male, and female, had suffered sexual violence during the post-election violence period.
Mary says that even though her case did not see the light of day after being thrown out by the police officer when she went to report, the ruling in which her fellow victims were compensated meant a lot for the country in the future. “This will at least ensure that our efforts to have the victim’s voices heard have not been in vain,” she says.
For Naitore, the length of time that it has taken to get justice for these victims is a case of justice delayed and therefore denied.
“When such a weighty case takes long in court, it is justice denied for these survivors. However, it’s a very important case coming from a domestic national court. It’s a landmark case as it is the first of its kind whereby the state is being held to account on sexual and gender-based violations at the national level,” she says.
On the morning Ghana’s new Parliament was set to be sworn in, there was unexpected rainfall amid the dry season across the country.
It would have been almost fitting for Ghana’s new democratic dawn had everything gone according to plan.
But as the showers put the dust at bay, for the time being, Ghana’s new legislators had been in an almost five-hour deadlock over voting processes to elect a new Speaker of Parliament.
The 2020 election left Ghana’s Parliament with no clear Majority after the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) won 137 seats each, with one independent MP.
Tensions started from the onset of the sitting before midnight on January 6 when the NDC legislators trooped in early to occupy the Majority side of Parliament.
Most of the NPP MPs who came later on decided to indulge their colleagues but a few of them got agitated with one of them getting into a shoving match with NDC MPs.
The tone had been set for the evening.
Opposing Legislators square off in Ghana’s Parliament. Credit: Delali Adogla-Bessa / Ubuntu Times
After heated debate over the status of an opposition MP-elect who had been barred by a court from taking part in the inauguration of the new Parliament, what followed was a standoff over the voting process for the Speaker as the NDC insisted on a secret ballot in the belief that there were some NPPs MPs planning to stray from the party line.
For hours, scuffles broke out, led by the NDC legislators’ Whip, Muntaka Mubarak, who tried to make sure his opposing Whip was not policing ballots.
At the situation’s most intense, brawls broke out with NDC MPs ransacking the voting areas and snatching the ballot box on live TV.
Armed military and police personnel then stormed Ghana’s Parliament adding to the chaos in what was one of the most jarring and shocking occurrences since Ghana returned to democratic rule.
A security analyst, Col. Festus Aboagye told Ubuntu Times the military intervention was unacceptable and further evidence that Ghana’s democracy was on tenterhooks following the 2020 election.
Col. Aboagye was already unhappy that the military was used to police the polls.
Their presence in Parliament made it clear to him that Ghana’s democracy, which is consistently hailed by the international community, is actually becoming more violent.
“Everything that was happening in the House was a pure question of law and order, not a security situation as if some terrorists had crashed into the House and held hostage the Parliamentarians.”
“Why bring ourselves to a point where every issue should have the military in front line deployment? It is not appropriate,” he adds.
Like Ghana’s general election, the military presence was again criticized for trying to police a voting process. Credit: Delali Adogla-Bessa / Ubuntu Times
The opposition leader, John Mahama also condemned the chaos, mainly the invasion by the military personnel.
“The recent use of the military in civil democratic processes has become a major worry and gives the impression that this administration is continually seeking to resurrect the exorcised ghosts of our military past,” said Mahama in a statement.
The military and police were in the chambers for about 15 minutes before marching out after the NDC MPs refused to back down.
They chanted “we shall resist oppressors’ rule” whilst hooting at the soldiers.
When things calmed down and voting began, Ghana had officially gone almost five hours without a Legislature because no Speaker had been elected to swear in the new Parliamentarians.
The aggression of the NDC MPs appeared to pay off as they started celebrating during the counting as it became apparent their nominee for the Speaker position, Alban Bagbin had the most votes.
The situation escalated after one NPP MP, Carlos Ahenkorah, snatched some sorted ballot papers due to be counted and tried to run out of the building with them.
The NPP MP was stopped by some NDC MPs beaten up before Parliament security intervened.
NDC MPs try to hijack the ballot box as they fight to ensure a secret ballot. Credit: Delali Adogla-Bessa / Ubuntu Times
For a research fellow with the Institute of Democratic Governance, Ewald Garr, the whole evening “shows how low we have descended as a country.”
The MPs are only “thinking about partisan interests and not the national interest,” he tells Ubuntu Times.
Hours later, the frustration of what he called infantile behavior by the MPs was still in his voice.
The hung Parliament has increased the need for more consensus-building than in past Parliament were there have always been clear majorities.
President Akufo-Addo, who’s swearing-in later on January 7 hinged on the election of a Speaker, had earlier been stressing the need for both sides of Parliament to work together.
But Garr, like many Ghanaians watching, was left upset by the fact this Parliament failed at the first hurdle.
He, however, notes they can learn from this nadir.
“We should see it as an insight into the future. There is definitely the need for our Parliamentarians to be a bit more consultative, build consensus on issues, and put Ghana first,” says Garr.
After the chaos, Bagbin was elected Speaker and swore in the new MPs. It was the first time Ghana has had a President and a Speaker from different parties.
Later that day, President Akufo-Addo stood before Parliament to be sworn-in as President but his first address as President for the next four years made no mention of the embarrassing breakdown of law and order earlier.
Nana Akufo-Addo was sworn in hours after the chaos in Parliament. Credit: Delali Adogla-Bessa / Ubuntu Times
The government is yet to officially comment on the incidents though there are some suggestions that Parliament will probe the incident.
It also remains unclear who ordered military incursion on the chamber of Parliament.
Garr shied away from saying he was disappointed but said he wished President Akufo-Addo would have condemned the chaos and “spoken about it to show that he abhorred what happened.”
It’s before sunrise but artisanal gold miner Rose Namukasa is already scouring muddy water for small nuggets of gold in this mining area in Mubende, central Uganda, one of the largest gold mining headlands in the country, where mercury is a staple.
Armed with a basin, the 30-year old mixes muddy water with mercury with her bare hands without protective gloves, ignoring the risk of mercury poisoning, an early link to wide-ranging mercury pollution that has affected most gold mining areas of Uganda.
Women mine for gold using mercury to recover minute pieces of gold that are mixed in soil and sediments. The use of mercury poses health risks for the miners. Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times
“If I don’t work what will my 4 children eat? they will starve, I don’t have money for gloves either,” says the single mother.
A gold rush in Uganda has spiked demand for mercury as artisan miners seek to cash in on the highly demanded precious metal amid climbing international prices.
Namukasa is among the over 300,000 artisan and small-scale gold miners in Uganda who produce most of the country’s gold while they risk their lives every day, working in dangerous conditions.
“Mercury use is totally unacceptable and the government will revoke licenses of miners that are found using this dangerous chemical,” said Sarah Opendi Achieng the Minister of State for Energy and Mineral Development, at a recent national citizens’ conference on mining.
Uganda’s mining sector is dominated by artisan and small scale miners whose activities are largely unmonitored and unregulated. In gold mines, mercury is used to recover pieces of gold mixed in soil and sediments. Mercury and gold are combined together to form a gold-mercury amalgam. Gold is then extracted by vaporizing the mercury. The remnants of this amalgam then percolate into the soil or flow to the nearby environment, eventually finding their way into water streams. This poses a great danger to local communities and the environment in gold mining areas.
Although mercury is a naturally occurring element, it is highly toxic to humans, animals, and the environment when not handled properly. Prolonged and high exposure to mercury by inhalation damages the nervous, digestive, and immune systems.
Artisan gold miners engage in the use of hazardous chemicals to mine gold as mining activities go on unregulated and unmonitored by the government. Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times
A recent research report by Water Governance Institute a local environmental organization titled Mining Industry’s Compliance to Social and Environmental Safeguards in Uganda found that mercury levels around gold mining areas of Kitumbi and Kasana sub-counties in Mubende were four times higher than the safe limit established by the World Health Organization WHO. The researchers analyzed 20 samples of water and soil collected from different gold mining sites where mercury is used including gardens and water bodies around these mining sites.
The report co-author Henry Bazira says that gold mining communities need to be monitored and educated about the dangers of using mercury in gold mining.
“Mercury pollution is a serious issue not just for communities in Mubende but the entire population is at risk of exposure because of the cumulative effect of mercury releases in the environment,” he said.
The report also states that several gold miners interviewed complained of unusual symptoms such as convulsions, loss of muscle coordination, miscarriages, paralysis, anemia, and tremors all of which are symptoms of mercury poisoning.
“No bio-monitoring of mercury effects on humans has been undertaken in Uganda and we lack capacity at medical level to fully diagnose mercury-related ailments,” says Bazira.
He adds that the government should work towards making alternatives such as borax affordable and accessible. “Borax is a better option because it breaks down in water due to its high affinity for oxygen but remains expensive for these communities”
Mercury laced water is disposed off anyhow in the open finding its way into the surrounding environment. Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times
Mercury use in gold mining also flouts the Minamata Convention on mercury which Uganda became a signatory to in 2013. The objective of the convention is to protect human health and the environment from the anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds. Article 3 of the convention, seeks to reduce global mercury pollution through complementary measures to minimize mercury supply and demand.
Mercury pollution is also one of the causes of climate change that is already a reality in Uganda. Mercury’s interaction with air forms mercury oxide which contributes to the depletion of the ozone layer. Smuggling of mercury across the country’s porous borders is also common.
Uganda is endowed with a vast array of metallic and industrial minerals that have the potential to be developed commercially however most of these remain essentially under-developed.
The increase in international commodity prices triggered a number of processes in the country including putting in place laws to guide and govern the emerging minerals sector and conducting aerial-magnetic geological studies to determine the mineral deposits in the country.
A World Bank-funded survey divided Uganda into six blocks and found that western Uganda, which borders the mineral-rich but restive Eastern Congo the most endowed. The country’s central region also holds huge potential.
Three years ago, a Belgium-based refinery set up a $20 million gold plant in the country. Statistics from the ministry of trade indicate that gold exports fetch $1 billion every year and have overtaken coffee as Uganda’s leading export commodity.
According to Vincent Kedi the Principal Engineer on mining at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development of Uganda, the new legal framework to govern mining activities in the country -the mining and minerals bill 2019 will soon be tabled in Parliament.
The old law which is the mining act of 2003 was lax on enforcing compliance to social and environmental safeguards in mining activities, penalties for noncompliance as well as mitigation and rehabilitation strategies.
“We are trying to expedite the process to put in place a new mining law. The new law has taken great care to address most of the challenges in the sector including mercury use in gold mining and stringent penalties for environmental degradation ”. He added that monitoring mining activities had been affected by the outbreak of COVID-19 and the national lockdown.
Binga — With its classrooms thatched, its walls built using home-made bricks and located in Binga, a remote area in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland North Province, Zumana Secondary school apparently stands weighed down by leaking roofs, with the grass thatch gradually falling apart.
Approximately 436 kilometers from Zumana school South-East of Binga, lies yet another perishing school — Melisa secondary, which is in Silobela, an agricultural village located in Kwekwe district in this Southern African nation’s Midlands Province, about 60 kilometers west of Kwekwe town.
One of the classroom blocks with ages-old fading greenish paint stands out without half of its asbestos roofing sheets, blown away by the wind in the previous years, according to local pupils.
“I remember I was doing grade three when the roof was taken away by the wind and I’m in grade seven now,” a 15-year-old school pupil who identified himself as Melusi Mpabanga, told Ubuntu Times.
A wide crack that has taken shape at a classroom at Melisa Secondary School in Silobela in Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province signals the imminent fall of one of the school’s classrooms. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
A teacher who preferred to remain anonymous saying he was forbidden to speak to the media, said, ‘here at Melisa, most of my students have to sit on the cracked floors each time during lessons conducted in classrooms with broken window pens.’
Fearing victimization, yet another teacher at Binga’s Zumana secondary school who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said ‘we have four thatched classrooms which we use for teaching and learning.’
“The thatched classrooms all have leaks and during rainy seasons, learners’ books get destroyed. Teaching at such an institution is really a bad experience. The teachers’ cottages are also grass-thatched and they leak, which makes life unbearable for us,” the Zumana school teacher told Ubuntu Times.
A typically worn-out thatched classroom block at Zumana Secondary School in Binga is pictured in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland North Province. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Yet the sorry state of Zimbabwe’s schools is not only in the remote areas but has also cascaded down to urban areas amid a comatose national economy.
Civil society activists blame authorities for not prioritizing education, instead directing government revenue towards fattening their own pockets.
“For selfish reasons, government leaders are clearly paying zero attention to the sad developments in schools in terms of infrastructures which have collapsed,” Claris Madhuku, who is director of the Platform for Youth Development, a Zimbabwean civil society organization, told Ubuntu Times.
A classroom at Nyatsambo Secondary School in Mhondoro in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland West Province has grass growing inside it after years of negligence by authorities even as pupils still use the classroom for lessons. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Touched by the state of Zimbabwe’s deteriorating schools’ infrastructure seven years after he left office, David Coltart who was the Minister of Education back then, pinned the blame on lack of prioritization of the country’s education system by the authorities here.
“For years, in fact for decades, schools’ infrastructure has been deteriorating because to be frank there is simply insufficient budget being allocated to education; government boasts about the fact that the bulk of the budget goes to education, but in my experience, the amount actually paid out, there is no relationship with the theoretical budget figure; and even that theoretical budget figure is insufficient,” Coltart told Ubuntu Times.
For 2021, Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education received a total allocation of $55,221 billion (in local currency), an equivalent of about 55 million United States dollars.
This to Coltart, is a drop in the ocean.
“If we wish to make education a priority, that needs to be reflected in the amount of money that we spend and there need to be dramatic cutbacks elsewhere, in govt spending,” said Coltart, who is now treasurer-general of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC Alliance).
One of the schools in Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province in Silobela, Melisa Secondary School stands out with a classroom ridden with cracked floors. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
The Zimbabwean government has however been on record in the media claiming to be making major boosts of the country’s infrastructure in schools.
Earlier this year, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Edgar Moyo told parliament government was aware of the run-down infrastructure at some schools in the country, saying government continued to prioritize revamping them.
But even as dilapidation haunts Zimbabwe’s schools, government instead boasts of having more schools, about 6,000 primary and secondary schools, according to statistics from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT).
At Zumana Secondary School in Binga in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland North Province south of Kariba dam, thatched residence of teachers stands out apparently worn-out, this development way into the 21st century. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
For teachers’ trade unions, even as the regime brags about having multiple schools, it amounts to nothing amidst dereliction of the infrastructure.
“The level of dilapidated infrastructure in schools is not only worrisome but rather pathetic and in a sorrowful state. The infrastructure is basically from the colonial era and not much changes have been effected to go with modern time and in most instances, especially in rural areas, the infrastructure is virtually nonexistent as teachers and learners are forced to conduct lessons in makeshift structures and under trees,” Robson Chere, secretary-general of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ), told Ubuntu Times.
Yet as they earn little, Zimbabwean teachers want the best to help them deliver service to the country’s learners.
The lowest-paid teacher in Zimbabwe now earns a monthly salary of $19,975 in local currency, which is the equivalent of 245 USD, with the highest-paid teacher earning 281 USD.
A thatched lanky classroom block built using home-made bricks at Zumana secondary school in Binga in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland North Province stands out under the weight of an almost curving roof, this as the school undergoes dilapidation for years now. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
“As a union, we are advocating for an educational equalization fund; our dream is to see a Zimbabwe which provides equal opportunities in education regardless of the location of a learner or school,” Munyaradzi Masiyiwa, ARTUZ deputy Secretary-General, told Ubuntu Times.
But amid dilapidated infrastructure across Zimbabwe’s schools here, Masiyiwa’s may remain a pipe dream, for before, some like Coltart tried with little success to revamp the country’s citadels of education.
“I last made an attempt to tackle the deteriorating schools’ infrastructure in my last year in cabinet in 2013; I developed the schools development project working between UNICEF on the one hand and individual schools on the other and we devised a program whereby money went straight from donors to schools committees and headmasters; I’m not sure how that is running now, but driving around the country, it seems to me there is very little taking place and schools’ infrastructure is collapsing everywhere,” Coltart said.
Rorya, Tanzania — At Koryo village, in Tanzania’s northern Rorya district brightly dressed women flock to the river with piles of their laundry bags.
Some of them walk for hours just to be on time to access an increasingly endangered resource: water.
Nestled on the Tanzanian border with Kenya, the village receives enough rainfall, but for some reason, the water doesn’t meet the growing needs of the inhabitants.
“We have lost six permanent rivers in the past two decades,” says 57-year-old Andrew Nyamaka a local resident, adding “When the dry season sets in finding water is a constant struggle.”
Endangered Livelihoods
Depleting water resources in this impoverished village highlight the worsening plights of people in the wider Mara basin whose lives are increasingly endangered.
Hippopotamuses usually suffer in the dry season due to water abstraction. Zuberi Mussa / Ubuntu Times
The livelihoods of 1.1 million people in Kenya and Tanzania are on the brink as fish are driven to extinction, according to WWF.
A new report by the wildlife NGO says the trans-boundary river is threatened by among others, unsustainable farming, deforestation, mining, illegal fishing, and invasive species.
The report, which examined freshwater biodiversity in the river basin identified 473 native freshwater species including four mammals, 88 water birds, 126 freshwater associated birds, four reptiles, 20 amphibians, 40 fishes, 50 invertebrate species, and 141 vascular plants.
According to the report, some fish species including; Niangua, Singed and Victoria tilapia are critically endangered and increasingly threatened by the Nile perch that had been introduced in Lake Victoria.
Birds Too At Risk
The report also listed some bird and fish species including Madagascar pond-heron, grey crowned crane, and killifish as endangered whereas the shoebill, and some crab and freshwater mussel species, are described as vulnerable.
Amani Ngusaru, country director, WWF Tanzania said the river is under huge pressure from destructive human activities such as unsustainable agriculture, tourist facilities, water pollution, and land degradation.
An artisanal gold miner displays his refined find. Credit: Zuberi Mussa / Ubuntu Times
“Several aquatic species have not been seen for many years and may be extinct before they have been studied,” he said in the report.
His remarks were echoed by Yunus Mgaya, professor of Marine Biology at the University of Dar es Salaam, who concurs with the report saying that the farming and irrigation activities have seriously affected the river flow and ecological balance of the basin.
“The basin is facing a bleak future that put the river at risk, unless deliberate efforts are taken to reverse this trend many livelihoods will suffer,” he told the Ubuntu Times.
As the world is grappling with rapid decline of freshwater biodiversity due to the changing weather patterns, WWF is calling for joint efforts to preserve critically endangered freshwater biodiversity.
Tourist Attraction
The Mara basin, which sprawls across 13,750 sq km is home to many plant and animal species. Known for its great spectacle of wildebeest and zebra migration, the area attracts tourists who inject millions of dollars in Kenya and Tanzania economies.
A group of artisanal miners working close to the river. Credit: Zuberi Mussa / Ubuntu Times
Tourism plays a pivotal role in the economies of both countries. The sector provides direct employment to thousands of people and contributes roughly US$1 billion to the economies of Kenya and Tanzania.
The Maasai Mara National Park, for instance, attracts more than 300,000 visitors every year, bringing roughly Kenyan Shillings 650 million, or 8 percent of the country’s total tourism earnings.
Water Abstraction
As the only water source in the dry season, the Mara River, which runs through Maasai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya and the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, has experienced erratic flow, partly due to the abstraction of water for irrigation and hydropower.
The basin and its adjoining wetland is under increasing strain due to farming, overgrazing and irrigation activities, which have affected the quality of water and the flow of the river.
Fishing and agriculture are the main economic activities and sources of livelihood for many people in the Mara basin. More than 80% of the population in communities around the swamp are engaging in farming and fishing.
Local residents both in Kenya and Tanzania rely on fish and other aquatic foods harvested in ponds, lakes, and rivers to get healthy diets for their families and livelihoods.
Rose Kasoka, a 44-year-old fish vendor travels far to buy a stock of dried fish to sell at retail price.
“I don’t realize much profit because I don’t often get Ningu which most customers love,” she said.
Reversing Deforestation
In the village of Ikoma, Waridi Mwita, a 51-year-old farmer, is busy packing soil into plastic seedling bags. She’s trying to plant trees in the hope to restore forest cover that has long been destroyed.
“People are very busy making charcoal, they don’t realize they are destroying the environment and are preparing for their own extinction,” Mwita told the Ubuntu Times.
Deforestation especially in the Mau Forest and dry-season soil erosion have exacerbated the effects of drought as the water level drops to its lowest ebb, consequently affecting humans and wildlife.
Indigenous forests have been logged for timber and charcoal burning.
“One of the reasons trees are cut down is to produce charcoal, which is a lucrative business in these communities,” Mwita said.
In this tiny village, perched on groves of banana trees, water was once plentiful. But due to spells of drought, most small rivers have dried out.
Recurring drought spells have affected migration patterns of wildebeests. Credit: Zuberi Mussa / Ubuntu Times
“When I was young, my parents never experienced water problems that we experience today,” she said.
According to WWF report, the quality of water in the Mara River is also affected by domestic waste whose disposal has negatively affected aquatic life by reducing fish spawning sites and even clog their gills.
“Heavy metal contamination from mining activities is posing a huge risk to ecology and people,” the report warned.
Every morning, a harmonious voice crosses the airwaves and finally lands in the countryside of Kajiongo village in Tharaka Nithi county. Here it meets people shut from modernization, and wake them up to the rhythm of the day.
The voice is Mwenda Antu radio. A community-based radio airing vernacular educational programs, updates and entertainment in this geographic location.
Just a few months ago, the little community could be accessed only through a one-way path that came to a dead end. However, the radio facilitated the opening of the village by forwarding their grievances to elected officials who responded by initiating the construction of abandoned roads.
This was briefly after the first case of Coronavirus was reported in the country. At that time, the radio had found itself with a challenge of reaching out to people.
A new road under construction in the rugged terrain of Kajiongo village has enabled Village HopeCore to provide maternal healthcare to many women. Kelvin Mutugi / Ubuntu Times
Today, a network of roads converges at this community. Some constructed and others are underway.
”The road here was demarcated before independence. It had begun to disappear until Mwenda Antu radio came, and we expressed our challenges to our elected representatives,” says Muriuki, 65, as he points to the trail of road under construction.
Tractors winding up the construction of the road linking Kajiongo community to the Nairobi-Meru highway. Kelvin Mutugi / Ubuntu Times
Besides acting as the intermediary between the people and their representatives, the radio seeks to fill the literacy gap by offering educational programs. Occasionally, agricultural and health experts are invited to extend their knowledge to the residents.
Evidently, improved agricultural practices have increased their produce giving them enough food during challenging times of the drought and pandemic.
In the complex world of cutting-edge technology, a radio would not seem useful. This is not the case for Kajiongo community.
Constructed roads which now link this remote village has enabled Village HopeCore, a non-profit organization, to provide home-based maternal healthcare to girls and women, having reached more than 500 homes so far.
HopeCore loading up the vehicles to distribute hand washing tanks to the community. Credit: Village HopeCore
Village HopeCore is committed to eradicating poverty in the villages through mobile health care, education, and empowerment.
“We provide hold educational meet up with girls and women while providing mobile healthcare,” says Mutwiri, a field health practitioner for Village HopeCore.
Through the agency of over 200 trained community health volunteers, Hopecore mobile healthcare programs have managed to help many vulnerable girls in these communities.
Teenage girls receive sanitary towels at Mwimbi and Muthambi sub-county. Credit: Village HopeCore
For instance, Acosta, who is a community health volunteer, was notified about an incident where a 17-year-old girl from Ikumbo community had decided to get rid of her pregnancy by drinking a bottle of bleach.
She had no one to support her, so he visited and referred her to Magutuni sub-county hospital. Even then, she was determined to commit suicide. Through relentless effort, he advised and counseled her until she eventually accepted her situation and agreed to attend ANC clinics. Currently, she is relaxed and awaiting delivery.
Community health volunteers gather with social distancing measures to receive training on how to educate and promote prevention measures on COVID-19 in their communities. Credit: Village HopeCore
For many women, the thoughts of pregnancy bring on a feeling of excitement. However, for teenage girls, forced into adulthood with hard decisions to make, it’s associated with uncertainty, fear and anxiety.
Equally important, Village Hopecore reaches out to school girls and give them free sanitary pads (enough to last for 6 months). Frequently, lack of sanitary towels lead them to engage in ‘sex for pads.’ Thereafter, they educate them on menstrual hygiene management and sexual reproductive health and rights.
HopeCore educate Girls on sex health rights. Credit: Village HopeCore
According to the Grace Cup report, 65% of girls and women in Kenya cannot afford sanitary pads due to poverty. 1 in every 10 Kenyan adolescent girl ends up missing school during her menstruation period which affects her performance.
“We know that young girls who get pregnant do not access healthcare services like adult females because of the judgment,” said Ademola Olajide, the United Nations Population Fund representative in Kenya.
That makes them more vulnerable to health complications and unsafe abortions, he added.
Globally, pregnancy and childbirth are the leading causes of death for girls aged between 15 and 19, according to the World Health Organization.
Mwenda Antu radio and Village HopeCore are among many other organizations giving hope to vulnerable populations.
Whereas the pandemic has impacted many aspects of our society, reproductive healthcare is among the worst hit.
Two months ago a video surfaced on social media appearing to show a woman on labor delivering outside the gate of a reputable hospital while Health workers neglected her. It was devastating to many.
Furthermore, in recent past cases of babies disappearing from maternal units of renowned health centers in the country have raised concern about the effectiveness of reproductive healthcare particularly during COVID-19.
On the other hand, teenage pregnancies have been an obstacle, keeping thousands of adolescent girls out of school for years. Now as the students stay at home in a bid to curb the spread of the virus, more incidences have been reported.
While the social aspect of the inequality — which entails the difference in people’s physical well-being and access to livelihood opportunities such as wealth and education — affects many women overall, their plight has increased in rural areas due to lack of resources and poor infrastructure.
According to Kenya’s 2010 constitution (intended to improve the welfare of Kenya’s marginalized groups), women must have at least a third of seats in parliament and a third of appointed positions. However, the law has been difficult to apply.
The fact that the cases of girls’ and women’s rights violations keep rising, is an indication that even though they have representatives to speak for them, in most cases they are never heard.
Harare, Zimbabwe — Fiona Nyaungwa (24) still recalls marching towards the State House in Harare on the 18th of November in 2017 to put pressure on the then Zimbabwean ruler, the late Robert Mugabe to resign.
Nyaungwa, then a student at the University of Zimbabwe was supposed to attend lessons but she could not miss the historic event impelled by the military.
“My neighbor convinced me to witness this historical event of our time in the hope that we were being liberated from bondage,” she said.
But she is quick to confess her fear of Zimbabwe’s dreaded military.
“I was afraid the military was going to open fire on innocent civilians,” she told Ubuntu Times.
In the city center, she joined millions of Zimbabweans around the country who were calling for the resignation of Robert Mugabe — the man who had ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist since its independence from Britain in 1980.
Four days before, Nyaungwa had seen armored vehicles taking strategic positions in the city center from Inkomo Barracks about 35 kilometers northwest of Harare.
She did not know what was happening until the morning of the 15th of November 2017. ZTV, the country’s only State television broadcasting station and radio stations had been taken over by the military under the cover of the darkness.
While the drama unfolded, they had placed Mugabe under house arrest and Major General Sibusiso Moyo calmed the nation: “We wish to assure the nation that (President Mugabe) and his family are safe and sound and their security is guaranteed,” he said.
“We are only targeting criminals around him who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice.”
Mugabe together with his wife Grace and a faction of Zanu-PF G40 members including outspoken former Minister of Higher Education Jonathan Moyo, Patrick Zhuwao – Mugabe’s nephew and Saviour Kasukuwere were immediately labeled criminals – accused of corruption in Zimbabwe. Their persecution started.
The coup led to the ousting of Mugabe and paved the way for the ascendency to power of axed Vice President Emmerson Mnangangwa – the man who for many years was Mugabe’s confidante.
The coup that ousted late President Robert Mugabe led to the ascendency of axed Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa to power. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe / Ubuntu Times
Young people like Nyaungwa saw Mnangagwa as a savior who would build a new nation where democracy, rule of law, and respect of human rights thrived. He carried Zimbabwe’s hopes of burying years of living under fear, years of political turmoil, and rebirth of a nation that was once praised for its economic boom. They welcomed the ouster of Mugabe.
“Mugabe’s regime was oppressive. There was no freedom of speech and expression. I needed change. My hopes were to see a democratic Zimbabwe. Under Mugabe there was nepotism and corruption,” Nyaungwa said.
Three years after the military-assisted takeover and a disputed election in 2018 Zimbabweans’ hopes have faded away as it becomes apparent to many that the coup was just a change of power and not a rotten system.
After outlawing the use of multi-currency in mid-2019 and introducing its local currency the Zimbabwean dollar, the latter has been losing value against major currencies.
As of November this year, Zimbabwe’s inflation rate was nearly 385 percent, according to Steve Hanke, an economist at Johns Hopkins University.
The country faces a myriad of problems.
There is a shortage of medicine in public hospitals which has left the majority of Zimbabwe’s population struggling to access health care.
The Mnangagwa-led administration, after dumping its “Open for Business” Public Relations stunt, has adopted the removal of sanctions mantra as the solution to Zimbabwe’s economic crisis.
The government thrives on propaganda and blame-shifting. The Mnangagwa regime has even dedicated the 25th of October annually as a day to campaign against sanctions.
The United States and its allies imposed “targeted” sanctions on Harare in 2002 following a chaotic Land Reform Programme that saw blacks taking back their land from about 4500 white farmers during the Mugabe era.
But, Washington through its embassy in Harare has insisted that Mnangagwa should reform and respect human rights.
Admire Mare, a senior lecturer at Namibia University of Science and Technology said Zimbabwe’s economic malaise is a combination of both external and internal sanctions.
“Internal sanctions are rooted in deep-seated corruption, bad governance, unending electioneering, winner takes it all politics and polarization,” he told Ubuntu Times.
He said the current situation highlights that the regime has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing about the modus operandi of “Mugabeism”.
“The intensity of rule by law and abuse of the criminal justice system is unprecedented. It casts doubt on the sincerity of the regime to reform the political and electoral system,” Mare said.
The government has been using force on citizens since 2018 thereby closing the democratic space.
In August 2018 the military shot dead six civilians in the streets of Harare who were demonstrating against the electoral body which was delaying to announce the country’s first elections after Mugabe.
In January 2019, the military was deployed to quell demonstrators, who were protesting nationwide against Mnangagwa’s decision to hike fuel prices by 150 percent, resulting in the death of 17 people and leaving hundreds injured.
This year, the government using its security forces committed gross human rights under the guise of enforcing measures imposed in March to slow the spread of the global pandemic, Coronavirus.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa is using force to silence critics. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe / Ubuntu Times
From March to September 2020 there were over 1,200 human rights violations cases ranging from unlawful arrests, assaults, threats and intimidations, harassment of citizens and journalists, and extrajudicial killings across the country, according to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association, a human rights advocacy movement.
Dr. Wellington Gadzikwa, a journalism lecturer and academic at a local university, said the presence of the military in civilian issues which are normally handled by the police has increased and reports of the members of the army violating human rights have increased more than during the Mugabe era.
“I think most people expected Mnangagwa to be radically different from Mugabe but the frustration with lack of change has led many to perceive that the new leader is worse off than the former,” he said.
Njabulo Ncube, the Zimbabwe National Editors Forum coordinator told Ubuntu Times that media reforms have been a fraud in the country.
“While (Mnangagwa regime) purports to be rolling out media reforms, it is sneaking in draconian laws that criminalizes the journalism profession,” he said.
“Mugabe was subtle in stifling media freedoms but Mnangagwa is brazen.”
Nyaungwa is regretting joining the march that forced Mugabe to resign in March 2017.
“The march brought corruption and the suppression of the freedom of expression,” she said.
Nnamdi Okorie said in late October, after the widespread protests against police brutality in Nigeria resulted in days of tumult in Oyigbo, a crowded suburb of the oil hub southern city of Port Harcourt, soldiers moved from house to house and searched for members of the separatist pro-Biafra group, IPOB.
Local authorities had blamed members of the state-banned Indigenous People of Biafra for the rampage that saw police stations and army patrol vehicles torched and six soldiers and four police officers killed in the town.
When soldiers arrived the Okories home, they wanted to take his 22-year-old son away, he said. But the young man, Obinna, refused to board the army’s Hilux pickup and tried to escape. He was shot dead and his body taken away by the soldiers, sending residents who witnessed the killing fleeing for safety.
“They should please give me my son’s body either dead or alive; I am committing all things to God who is the ultimate judge,” Okorie told Ubuntu Times, weeping.
For the days that followed, the River State government imposed a round-the-clock curfew and troops barricaded the area, leaving residents without access to water and food as security forces combed the area and randomly attacked locals, residents said.
“It was very tense. People could not come in or go out of the place for days. It was more like a war zone,” said Ike Azubuike, an oil worker who lives in the town.
Enforcing the curfew brought more casualties. Remigus Nkwocha said her husband who had gone on October 25 to a nearby market to purchase food items they could use through the curfew period, was hit by a stray bullet fired by soldiers implementing the lockdown. He died afterwards in the hospital.
Weeping in the midst of her children and sympathizers, Mrs. Nkwocha told Ubuntu Times her biggest worry was how to raise their four children. “I’m finished. I can’t bear it alone,” she said.
With access restored to the area after weeks of a punishing curfew which the government said was aimed at checking the activities of IPOB, a group that seeks an independent state of Biafra, the extent of the bloody raid has become clearer and residents have narrated their ordeal at the hands of security agents.
All the residents selected at random and interviewed separately said soldiers searched for members of IPOB and shot indiscriminately and killed people in an apparent reprisal for the killing of soldiers. At least 20 people would have died in the raid, they said.
The army said its troops “acted professionally” and denied attacking residents. The spokesperson for 6 Division of the Nigerian Army in Port Harcourt, Major Charles Ekeocha, said the army only entered houses that were possible hideouts for hoodlums, according to the Guardian newspaper.
Facing criticisms, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state denied ordering soldiers to kill residents in the community, but insisted he will “not fold my arms and watch criminals destroy my state.”
Protests and Rampage
The Oyigbo incident has become the latest bloody incident involving troops in the aftermath of the campaign against police brutality in Nigeria. The #EndSARS protests lasted weeks seeking the dissolution of the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad. The protests found appeal with the country’s large population of unemployed youths and university students forced to stay at home due to lecturers’ strike.
Burnt trucks residents say were military pickups razed by hoodlums. Credit: Ubuntu Times
As the protests became a rallying point for many, authorities claimed groups with sectional interests tried to exploit the campaigns for underhand motives. The demonstrations culminated on October 20 when soldiers opened fire on protesters at the Lekki Tollgate in the commercial capital, Lagos, killing at least 12, according to Amnesty International.
The turmoil that followed the shooting left the country in shock. Thugs set fire to public and private properties in Lagos and other cities and attacked security personnel. In Oyigbo, the government said IPOB, which has tried to revive the defunct 1960s-era Biafra Republic, went on a rampage and razed police offices and killed officers.
The Police Area Command Oyigbo set on fire by hoodlums before attacks by soldiers. Credit: Ubuntu Times
An intervention by the army was thwarted as a patrol team sent from a nearby military base was overrun. Six soldiers and four police officers died.
“Since its proscription, the group has carried out intermittent processions in parts of Rivers State, especially in Oyigbo and some notorious suburbs in Port Harcourt Local Government Areas,” Gov Wike said in a broadcast on October 30 referring to IPOB.
“This evil, wicked and audacious action resulted in the unnecessary loss of scores of lives, including soldiers and police officers, and the destruction of both public and private properties, including police stations, court buildings and business premises.”
In interviews, residents said hoodlums also raided a courthouse and vandalized shops. Looting subsided after police and soldiers were dispatched to the area and a 24-hour curfew imposed. The attack soon degenerated to a confrontation between the thugs and soldiers, leading to the killing of soldiers, according to witnesses.
Killing the Innocent
That was the trigger of the siege. Residents said the army deployed more troops, who without systematically going after the attackers who by this time had fled the area, descended on unarmed residents.
Locals said at least 200 soldiers were deployed to cordon the bubbling district. They arrived in armored vehicles and went house to house and picked young men and loaded them into their trucks and took them to their base in Obehie in neighboring Abia State. Those who resisted were shot, according to witnesses.
Most residents refused to give their names or allow to be quoted over safety concerns. One elderly man told Ubuntu Times how a group of young men chased by soldiers around the Kom-Kom area ran into the Imo River swamp having reached the end of the road. He said soldiers fired into the water, killing the fleeing men.
At Afam Road roundabout, Ubuntu Times saw a burnt Volvo wagon car which residents said was used as an ambulance to convey a corpse to the mortuary when it ran into soldiers. They said after the driver explained his mission to the soldiers, he was chased off and the vehicle set ablaze.
Residents said soldiers killed several young people and their bodies taken away. Most of those detained and taken to the military based were yet to be released when an Ubuntu Times reporter visited the area.
Monica Chikwem, a resident of the area, narrated how her pastor’s son, a mechanical engineering graduate who recently got a job, was killed by a stray bullet. She said his body was left at home for two days since there was no way to move his body to the mortuary due to the soldiers’ blockade of all entry and exit points. The body was eventually smuggled to the mortuary through a bush path.
Chikwem said for 10 days, they lived in constant fear as bullets fired by soldiers fell occasionally on their roof. With total curfew in place, they had nowhere to buy food and other consumables and survived on eating premature crops nearby.
Another resident, John Nworgu, narrated how bullets pierced through his son’s leg who was trying to go through a back road to buy food for the family. Nworgu’s son survived.
During a recent visit to Oyigbo after the siege was lifted, one of the most talked about deaths was that of Queen Nwazuo, a 26-year-old polytechnic student, who was struck in the neck while at a hair salon. Nwazuo died before she could get medical assistance.
A poster showing a fatal injury on Queen Nwazuo, one of the persons struck by a stray bullet fired by soldiers. Credit: @OgbonnayaMbaka on Twitter
An Ubuntu Times reporter said almost all the homes he entered and people approached for interviews had tales of woes about the siege and accused the army of highhandedness.
On November 3, the Guardian, one of the country’s most respected and popular newspapers, reported how its reporter visited a house in Oyigbo and saw four soldiers knocking hysterically on a gate to a building. The soldiers screamed: “If you don’t come out and open the gate, we will burn the building and kill you and nothing will happen,” according to the paper.
When one of the residents finally opened the gate, the troops ordered her to call out everyone in the compound and as residents gathered, one soldier yelled: “The army is very angry with this community because your people killed our colleagues, we are here to search for certain persons and you should obey everything we say, anyone that argues or disobeys, we will kill the person.” However, after a search of the compound, the paper said officers left, saying: “Our target person is not here”.
Ethnic Concerns
Residents interviewed by Ubuntu Times said they suspected the military operation had an ethnic undertone, claiming that soldiers had asked some men they arrested if they were Igbo. The claim, not independently verified, appeared to draw strength from comments by the governor and historical sentiments.
A place of worship, synagogue, razed and destroyed by soldiers in Oyigbo. Credit: Ubuntu Times
In his broadcast, Wike said “Rivers State belongs to the indigenous people of Rivers State” and warned that “as a stranger element with strange political ideology therefore, IPOB has no legal or moral right to invade Rivers State or any part therefore at its behest; to disturb public peace, and subject lives and property to violence or threat of destruction under any guise.” He added: “We appeal to leaders of the various ethnic groups residents in the State to ensure that their members respect the sensibilities of our people and refrain from provocations and acts of hooliganism that could breach peace and security in the State.”
The group, IPOB, is predominantly Igbo, and the Rivers government said the group has used Oyigbo, which has a large Igbo population, as an outpost. The first attempt to create Biafra from Nigeria in the 1960s resulted in a civil war that killed over a million people. Since then, the Nigerian state has brutally crushed groups that align with that cause, often killing many.
Over years too, non-Igbo groups in the region have rejected the agitation for Biafra, and some Igbo cluster tribal groups have even denied having the same tribal roots with the Igbo, despite apparent linguistic ties. Some Igbo activists say the town raided by the soldiers, originally called Obigbo (meaning the heart of Igbo) was renamed Oyigbo in the early 1980s to spite the group.
In the chaos that unfolded in Oyigbo, some of the buildings reportedly razed by troops were synagogues assumed to be the worship place of IPOB members. The IPOB group has identified as Jewish and its members worship in synagogues, noticeably varied from the predominant practice of Christianity in the area. One synagogue was razed by troops near the timber market and another at Okpulor was demolished on November 9. But those interviewed said the synagogues were open for all persons especially the Sabbatarians, beyond IPOB.
Authorities Deny
Amidst criticisms following the attack, Gov Wike denied ordering soldiers to kill Igbo in the town. Speaking on television on November 2, the governor said the accusation was “politically-motivated.”
“It’s not true that I ordered the military to kill Igbo in Oyigbo. So, what about the Igbo living elsewhere in the state? Are they also being killed?” He added: “I will not fold my arms and watch criminals destroy my state, if those few criminals are Igbos then they should know that I will not allow them.”
Wike, however, said security agencies during their search of some residents in Oyigbo, saw shrines with IPOB flags and a picture of the group’s leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
Usually busy streets of Oyigbo remain scanty weeks after a deadly assault by soldiers killed many in the town. Credit: Ubuntu Times
The army also denied targeting a particular group. It also denied killing residents, even when the evidence shows the contrary. The spokesperson for Six Division of the Nigerian Army in Port Harcourt, Major Charles Ekeocha, said the army only entered houses that were possible hideouts of “hoodlums”.
“We lost six soldiers in that area, their weapons were carted away, it was planned and executed,” he was quoted by Guardian as saying. “The exercise going on there now is searching and identifying houses used by the so-called IPOB members. We are searching those houses to see whether we can get all those rifles they took away from our soldiers, that is what we are doing, we are professional about it. I don’t know about firing of weapons.”
Usually busy streets of Oyigbo remain scanty weeks after a deadly assault by soldiers killed many in the town. Credit: Ubuntu Times
On November 18, the king of Oyigbo, Mike Nwaji, urged the governor and the military authorities to caution soldiers against the indiscriminate arrests of residents in the area, according to the Lagos-based newspaper, Punch.
“Even if the person is a member of IPOB, I overheard the governor said that the activities of IPOB in Rivers State has been proscribed. I didn’t hear the governor say search them from house to house, but the governor said their activities, meetings, gatherings.
“So, any person going round and telling soldiers to come and see IPOB (should stop); the main people who committed the offense had all run away.”
Mberengwa — As a teacher, she has had very few associates. Back home, visiting relatives whisper behind her back apparently disgusted by her condition of albinism. Now, 43-year old Lindani Zhou based in Mberengwa, a Zimbabwean rural district in the country’s Midlands Province, has had to stomach growing discrimination against her each day of her life.
She (Zhou) is a high school History teacher at one of the district schools in the province.
Her woes with discrimination owing to her condition are even worse at school, where Zhou said ‘my only friend is my job.’
“I find solace in my job. In class, I have learnt to live with the contemptuous glares from most of my students and I just ignore, with some even giggling when they think I won’t be noticing,” Zhou told Ubuntu Times.
Zhou has even claimed in the villages closer to the school where she teaches, villagers believe she is a mystery figure.
Coupled with acts of giving and charity, people with albinism and their colleagues lead awareness on the condition during International Albinism Awareness day in 2017. Credit: Alive Albinism Initiative
“People here actually think I’m unlike other human beings, claiming I can disappear and reappear; imagine such primitive thinking in this 21st century, and because of those false beliefs they associate with albinism, very few have the courage to even greet me,” said Zhou.
For many other Zimbabweans living with albinism like Agness Gurume, the Coronavirus pandemic has even spelled out worse woes for her lately.
In an episode that captured the attention of the entire national media here, just last month, she (Gurume) was barred by security guards from entering Pick n Pay Supermarket in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest town after she had requested to wash her hands with soap instead of sanitizers which she had said affect her skin.
Not only security guards have turned to discriminating against people with albinism like Gurume.
People living with albinism in June 2017 as conduct a campaign against the discrimination of people with their condition during the International Albinism Awareness Day three years ago. Credit: Alive Albinism Initiative
In fact, four decades after Zimbabwe gained independence from British colonial rule, even little children born in this age ridicule people living with albinism like Gurume and Zhou.
“Little children openly giggle when they see me and they gather around me as if I have become some tourist object of attraction,” Zhou said.
Indigenous businessmen like 57-year old Gift Mhara in Harare who runs some shops in downtown Harare, openly shun working with albinos.
People living with albinism in the Zimbabwean capital Harare are in August 2019 captured shopping for sun cream to protect their skins from the heat. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
To him (Mhara), people with albinism are a cost.
“If you employ a person with albinism you must be prepared to get excuses of absenteeism from work because they fall sick anytime and they need to constantly visit medical specialists to attend to them, meaning their production time at work is minimal,” Mhara told Ubuntu Times.
Based in Harare, 31-year old Gamuchirai Uzande has also battled with discrimination as she lives with albinism.
Uzande said, “there is discrimination in all sectors of life, health, education, employment, socially, you name it.”
“Because of cultural beliefs, many people’s mindsets are corrupted; hence for a person with albinism to be employed in a formal sector is a challenge. Some employers are not even ashamed to show it on the day of the interview instead. If by any chance you get employed in a formal sector, chances of stigma between employees is very high,” Uzande told Ubuntu Times.
Faced with escalating discrimination of people with albinism in Zimbabwe, pro-albinism organizations like Alive Albinism Initiative, have spoken with vehemence against the rising trend.
“I always say people often get scared of what they don’t understand or what they don’t know. That’s the same reason why persons with albinism still face discrimination in Zimbabwe and in Africa. Some people are of the belief that albinism is a result of witchcraft or that it is some form of a punishment from God,” Ms. Gwenlisa Mushonga, who is the director for Alive Albinism Initiative in Zimbabwe, told Ubuntu Times.
Officials from various pro-albinism organizations pose for a group photo after a pro-albinism campaign during 2017’s International Albinism Awareness Day. Credit: Alive Albinism Initiative
Founder of Alive Albinism Initiative, Mushonga herself lives with albinism and has over the years become a disability activist with a focus on the rights and empowerment of persons with albinism.
According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 33,000 people with albinism in Zimbabwe.
Of these, based on statistics from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, only about two percent are gainfully employed, meaning approximately 660 people with albinism across this Southern African nation have jobs.
ZCTU is the primary trade union federation in this country.
With the escalating segregation of people with albinism in Zimbabwe, Mushonga apparently is pessimistic about the employment of people with the condition.
“Employers do not like employing people with albinism as they are declared that they might chase away their customers. We have a couple of persons often called for interviews, but once they show up that’s the end of it; they will not get the job simply because they look different,” said Mushonga.
Yet as Zimbabweans with albinism like Zhou and Gurume endure discrimination because of their conditions, many like Mushonga have pinned the blame on people’s backwardness.
Director of Alive Albinism Initiative, Ms. Gwenlisa Mushonga who lives with albinism presides over the proceedings in 2017 during International Albinism Awareness Day. Credit: Alive Albinism Initiative
“There is high level of discrimination of persons who have this condition in Zimbabwe. This is caused by the fact that Africa is mostly populated by black people and for black parents to give birth to a white child causes confusion, mistrust, and in the search of a cause, superstitious beliefs,” said Mushonga.
In fact, Mushonga said ‘people are scared of what they do not understand and instead of searching for answers and correct information, they just assume that they know it all.’
But even as they face discrimination, many Zimbabwean albinos like Tapiwa Musoni who work as a radio presenter have swum against the odds, beating segregation and becoming one of the country’s top radio personalities.
According to the United Nations, the physical appearance of persons with albinism is often the object of erroneous beliefs and myths influenced by superstition, resulting in their marginalization and subsequently discrimination.
Zimbabwean sociologist Mike Musawu based in the capital Harare said, ‘generally, people here are stuck in the olden belief that albinos are a curse from God or in fact punishment from ancestors.’
Yet human rights defenders like Elvis Mugari foresee the need for the Zimbabwean government to economically empower citizens living with albinism in order for them to become self-reliant.
A person living with albinism in the Zimbabwean capital Harare is captured having her blood pressure checked by a nurse. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
“Instead of watching albinos being discriminated against, government should act swiftly and make sure they have things to do to support themselves economically,” Mugari told Ubuntu Times.
So, for many Zimbabweans living with albinism like Uzande, a lot still needs to be done to fend off discrimination.
“I would say there is still much work to be done in order to raise awareness on albinism,” Uzande said.
Marange, Zimbabwe — It is a windy day in Marange, Chanakira village. Small clouds scuddle the blue sky giving it a blurred look. About 110 kilometers southwest of Mutare, Norah Mwastuku (48) a subsistence farmer sits at the verandah and contemplates when the first rains will arrive.
She anxiously looks at her fields, decorated with mulched holes.
Mwastuku is one of the farmers who have embraced the Pfumvudza program — a concept where crops are planted on zero tillage in a bid to conserve water and inputs on a small piece of land.
She is enthusiastic about the program and is looking forward to the new season.
“I have already dug holes in a 39 meters by 16 meters piece of land. This coming season I am planning to grow maize,” the mother of four told Ubuntu Times.
This area does not receive much rain and farmers like Mwastuku rely on boreholes to water their fields. The soils are tired too.
While the government is currently popularizing the Pfumvudza program, Mwastuku is used to it. In the season 2019/2020, she grew maize and sorghum at the same size of land as part of Pfumvudza.
“I had a good harvest. This is what we are surviving on as a family,” she said. The farming concept is increasingly becoming popular among farmers in areas that receive less rainfall.
Lilian Murangariri (50), a small-holder farmer from Headlands, about 140 kilometers from the capital Harare says Pfumvudza has less labor.
“Last year I grew orange maize and white maize in a half-hectare piece of land. I was amazed with the harvest. As a farmer you do not have to stress about using cows for tillage as this is zero tillage,” she told Ubuntu Times.
The mother of three says Pfumvudza is economic and can be practiced by farmers who do not have enough farming machinery.
“The holes and mulch conserve water. I can still harvest my crops even if there is poor rain. I also use less inputs such as fertilizer,” said Murangariri.
Mwastuku and Murangariri are some of the over 9,000 people who have embraced Pfumvudza with the support from the Zimbabwe Livelihoods and Food Security Programme (LFSP).
Pfumvudza concept maximizes on a small piece of land with less agricultural inputs to produce a good harvest. Credit: FAO
The LFSP, which is funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), is managed by United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and implemented by Welthungerhilfe, Practical Action and World Vision.
It is aimed at reducing poverty, targeting 250,000 rural farming households through improved food and nutrition security and incomes in 10 districts in Zimbabwe.
LFSP trained over 50,000 farmers from their clusters in Manicaland, Midlands, and Mashonaland Provinces in 2019.
For the past half a decade Zimbabwe has been having incessant droughts and floods which, according to experts, are caused by climate change.
Nearly 8 million people, about half of Zimbabwe’s population, are food insecure, according to the United Nations’ World Food Programme.
The southern African nation, which was once the breadbasket of the continent, will import an estimated 1.1 million tonnes of grain in the 2020/2021 marketing year to meet demand, according to the FAO.
This Pfumvudza concept which was spearheaded by FAO last season in Zimbabwe has been adopted by the President Emmerson Mnangagwa led government in the 2020/2021 season targeting nearly 2 million households, about 10 million people.
The government is supporting these farmers with inputs.
Prudence Mucharwa, a small-holder farmer in Chihota near Marondera, about 70 kilometers from the capital Harare, said she is new to the concept.
“I joined Pfumvudza a bit late. I met an Agritex officer who explained it to me. The Grain Marketing Board will loan me inputs and I will pay back with maize or soya meal,” she said.
Mulching which is part of the Pfumvudza concept helps in water conservation ideal in drought-hit areas in rural Zimbabwe. Credit: FAO
Lands ministry permanent secretary John Bhasera explains more about the program.
“Pfumvudza is simply conservation agriculture. This is basically conservation which has been nationalized. It has minimum soil disturbance as well as mulching creating a blanket of cover so that you can conserve moisture. Crop rotation as well, we have three farming sectors—one for [a certain type of] cereal, another for [a different] cereal and the last for other crops,” he said.
Zimbabwe has been having farming schemes for the past decades but still, farmers are producing grain not enough to feed the nation.
There is a need for new tactics.
“We now have a new extension approach which is called Train, Track and Monitor (TTM). We have sourced motorcycles for our agriculture extension workers across the country so that they are able to practice the TTM approach. We started with training. We trained the Agritex officers for nearly a month. Now the extension officers are training farmers,” Bhasera said
Pfumvudza concept is a zero tillage program that is considered cheap and time-saving by farmers. Credit: FAO
Olga Nhari, Women in Agriculture Union chairperson speaks glowingly about the program.
“Of the three plots one produces yield sufficient for family and the other two plots for national storage,” she said.
Nhari said Pfumvudza helps rural women, especially, to fight against hunger and to improve livelihoods.
Zimbabwe Farmers Union executive director Paul Zakariya said there was a need to reverse the current state of affairs, where Zimbabwe has remained a net importer of staple cereals.
“It is not desirable that a country that has excellent agricultural lands and enjoys excellent climatic conditions, should import all its food,” he said.
In the past, farming schemes have been marred by corruption in the distribution of inputs as well as loan allocations. Some experts fear that the culture might continue under the Pfumvudza program.
“To say it is an opportunity to loot funds needs intelligence on whether the program will have a budget allocation and the actual implementation of the project in terms of funds or inputs allocation,” Harare based economist Victor Bhoroma told Ubuntu Times.
“However, almost all the country’s agricultural subsidy programs have flopped because of politicization of inputs distribution, corruption, inefficient funding or repayment models and lack of private capital participation which is tied to complicated land tenure policies,”
He said most of these agriculture programs are more political than economic of which in politics, the end justifies the means, hence, the government can pursue an economically costly program because it serves political interests.
Land preparation for Pfumvudza concept is often done soon after harvest while some in winter and others in summer. Credit: FAO
Another economist Vince Musewe said Zimbabwe has invested in previous farming schemes but the country still imports grain.
“We have invested billions (of dollars) in Command Agriculture and we still have to import. We, however, need a new mindset that farming is a business and not a hobby where farmers expect to get free inputs,” said Musewe adding that a strong private sector drive in agriculture is important.
Zakariya said there is a need to put in place measures to curb abuse of inputs under such schemes.
“Without effective and efficient systems, the world over, abuse can be rampant,” he said.
From Pfumvudza, the government is expecting about 1.8 million tonnes of grain, which is almost 90 percent of the national food requirements.
During the 2020/21 season, the LFSP aims to incorporate agroecology aspects as subsistence farmers like Mwastuku realize the fruits of their sweat.
It is hoped that agroecology will better climate-proof smallholder agriculture production and will ensure nutrition for 50,000 households.
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — The breath-taking moment showing a family taking refuge on a rooftop as floodwater rapidly rushing into a submerging home at a low-lying Msasani neighborhood in Dar es Salaam—destroying furniture, carrying away cooking utensils, tells a grim story.
As heavy rains drizzled in Tanzania’s largest city last week, it triggered floods that engulfed homes, destroyed assets and infrastructures.
“I have lost everything,” said Jumbe Marijani, a resident of Msasani.
A legion of Dar es Salaam residents walk to work due to lack of transport. Credit: Kizito Makoye / Ubuntu Times
According to him, the entire neighborhood was entangled by the floods, making it hard to salvage personal belongings.
The 51-year-old father of six, who lives at the Kinondoni is among many residents who have been rendered homeless due to flooding.
“I have never seen such rains, it was horribly heavy,” said Marijani, whose family is squatting in a make-shift shack while waiting for the water to recede.
“I have incurred huge loss it will take time to recover,” said Marijani.
Africa’s Fastest Growing City
As one of Africa’s fastest-growing cities with nearly 70 percent of its six million inhabitants living in informal settlements, Dar es Salaam is highly vulnerable to flooding which often destroys infrastructures while causing water-borne diarrhea diseases.
Heavy rains twice a year, often cause floods that force thousands of the city’s residents from their homes and cause untold damage to the infrastructures.
A flooded Msimbazi river in Dar es Salaam. Credit: Kizito Makoye / Ubuntu Times
In the Central Business District (CBD) and the Kariakoo business hub, the dilapidated sewage network often becomes overwhelmed during the rainy season—forcing effluents to overflow, exposing people to health hazards.
As authorities grapple with the impacts of climate change, local residents are bearing the heaviest burden due to logistical and infrastructural challenges.
Wastewater Dumping
For Ladislaus Mirindo, a gush of wastewater perpetually flowing from a broken sewer presents a serious health challenge to his family.
“I am quite worried for my children. They don’t have enough space to play, they oftentimes step on this dirty water,” he said.
The father of five, who lives in the Magomeni area, routinely dump the seeping sludge from his toilet in the nearby Msimbazi river.
MotorCyclists negotiate their way through a flooded road. Credit: Kizito Makoye / Ubuntu Times
“We do it at night to avoid being caught,” said 46-year-old Mirindo.
Most people in this squalid slum lack access to better sanitation, officials said.
“It cannot afford to hire a cesspit tanker. It costs around Tanzanian shillings 80,000(US$36) just for a single trip,” said Mirindo who works as a mason.
Rapid Urban Sprawl
As more than half of the world’s population is estimated to be living in cities, according to the United Nation projections, the share is likely to increase to 66 percent by 2050, with about 90 percent of the increase taking place in urban areas in Africa and Asia.
While rapid urbanization creates wealth and reduces poverty, analysts say it creates chaos in cities like Dar es Salaam which is vulnerable to flooding.
A flooded Jangwani neighborhood near the city center. Credit: Kizito Makoye / Ubuntu Times
The smoke-belching city, which generates about 40 percent of Tanzania’s GDP and is poised to become a megacity by 2040 is exposed to many climate change risks notably flooding, sea-level rise, coastal erosion, all of which threaten infrastructure assets worth $5.3 billion, according to the United Nations.
As the number of people living in slums rises, Dar es Salaam epitomizes the growing challenge of dealing with urbanization, natural disasters, and poverty, according to urban planning experts at ICLEI, a network of more than a thousand cities working on sustainable development and resilience issues.
Vulnerability To Disasters
As authorities are grappling to resolve the city’s biggest environmental challenge: flooding, Dar’s low-lying geographical location increases its vulnerability to weather-related disasters.
According to Shahidi wa Maji, a local charity working to promote sustainable water resources, about a quarter-million people in the sprawling Msimbazi valley face serious health risks linked to the river’s “toxic industrial effluent, human sewage, chemicals and abattoir waste.
Strategic Plans
To cope with rapid urban sprawl, city authorities have redrawn a master plan for Dar es Salaam, with the aim to create a Metropolitan Development Authority that would be responsible for planning and infrastructure development including transportation and utilities.
Abubakar Kunenge, the Regional Commissioner for Dar es Salaam said government is working to identify flood-prone areas and draw up preparedness plans and strategic actions, such as installing early warning systems, to improve the people’s ability to respond to disasters and help them recover quickly.
Poor people spent sleepless nights due to floods. Credit: Kizito Makoye / Ubuntu Times
“Our city has lately undergone a huge spatial growth, which cannot cope with the available facilities,” he told Ubuntu Times.
According to him, plans are afoot to mainstream climate change adaptation into existing urban development policies such as building stronger storm-water drainage systems in areas hard-hit by flood as well as relocating afflicted communities from flood risk areas.
Climate Proofing Interventions
However, Silvia Macchi, an associate professor of urban planning at Sapienza University in Italy who has worked on climate change adaptation in Dar es Salaam said enforcing land use policies in cities like this where informal settlements dominate is an uphill struggle.
“Rapid population growth and poor urban planning are the most significant challenges that Dar es Salaam faces.” She said adding “climate-proofing interventions should be carefully assessed against the risk of increasing unbalanced living conditions between different areas”
As part of its efforts to cushion vulnerable communities from disasters, the government relocated 654 families whose homes submerged in water during the 2011 floods.
Experts say the majority of city dwellers who live in flood-prone areas have no choice because they’re poor, even if they know their lives and property are at risk.
A Bulldozer removing mud on the main Morogoro road to allow motorists to pass. Credit: Kizito Makoye / Ubuntu Times
Most slum dwellers consider the rainy season as a temporary thing, they are willing to live with the threat of floods, soon forgetting the misery they’ve been through.
Until today, however much of Tanzania’s urban areas have been what the developmental economist Bohela Lunogelo terms “dysfunctional” characterized by poor infrastructures, lack of formal jobs, and haphazardly built slums.
Weak Regulations
Lack of planning, weak regulations, and the difficulty of obtaining title deeds for land lead cities to grow out rather than up, making commuting longer and costly.
In Dar es Salaam, about three-quarters of inhabitants live in informal settlements like Tandale, a vast, labyrinthine neighborhood of flimsily built concrete houses, where children play hide-and-seek near open sewers and flooding nearly every rainy season leads to outbreaks of diarrhea and cholera.
“My son nearly died from cholera last year, I don’t want to remember the ordeal I was through,” said Mirindo.
When Kenya recorded a first COVID-19 case in March, the government announced the closure of learning institutions in the country and eventually picked a few of them to be isolation centers for those who were traveling into the country as well as those who had been found to be positive.
Fridah Kibiti, a Nairobi-based nurse was deployed by her employer to the COVID-19 isolation and quarantine center at the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) five months ago, and she didn’t think much of it.
In August, Kibiti was tested for the virus after she developed flu and started sneezing, and was found to be positive. She had contracted COVID-19.
“I came for the night shift on a Wednesday and upon being given supper, I felt that food was tasteless,” she says.
Kibiti, a health worker at the KMTC isolation and quarantine center who caught the virus in the line of duty speaks during an interview. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
Overwhelmed already by the care she was expected to give to her patients, Kibiti now had another challenge to add to her situation: that of fighting to recover from COVID-19. She was in need of psychosocial support, together with her colleagues who had been in the frontline in the fight against the disease at the center.
At the KMTC which is affiliated to Kenya’s leading public hospital, the Kenyatta National Hospital in the capital, Nairobi, Kibiti, together with her colleagues is engaging in weekly Zumba dances to ease their minds and make themselves feel better. Apart from the dance, the health workers also get psychosocial support from Amref Health Africa through funding from the EU.
According to the World Health Organization of the United Nations (WHO), COVID-19 has exposed health workers and their families to unprecedented levels of risk. Although not representative, data from many countries across WHO regions indicate that COVID-19 infections among health workers are far greater than those in the general population. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General stresses the importance of keeping these health workers safe.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded all of us of the vital role health workers play to relieve suffering and safe lives,” said Dr. Ghebreyesus. “No country, hospital, or clinic can keep its patients safe unless it keeps its health workers safe. WHO’s Health Worker Safety Charter is a step towards ensuring that health workers have safe working conditions, the training, the pay, and the respect they deserve.”
The Charter, released last month for World Patient Safety Day, called on governments and those running health services at local levels to take five actions to better protect health workers. These included steps to protect health workers from violence; to improve their mental health; to protect them from physical and biological hazards; to advance national programs for health worker safety, and to connect health worker safety policies to existing patient safety policies.
Doctor Caro Ngunu the head of the Division for Communicable Diseases who has been responsible for case management and prevention says that the Zumba and dance activity assists the health worker to debrief.
Health workers enjoy a dance during one of the sessions in Nairobi. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
“COVID-19 is associated with a lot of stigma and the number of hours that we are working coupled also with the kind of environment within isolation and quarantine sites can be quite stressful and so it takes care of the mental wellbeing of the healthcare workers and that is why we regularly conduct it. It also brings people together, enhances teamwork,” says Dr. Ngunu.
The Psychosocial First Aid (PFA) sessions were established to provide psychosocial support to staff who are working at the isolation centers and clients being admitted at the isolation centers to relieve them from stress and depression.
This is after it was found out that the heavy workload and long hours of work that the health workers are tasked with during the pandemic, coupled with separation from their family members and loved ones has led to mental disorders i.e. anxiety, depression, stress, poor productivity or low morale at work among the health workers.
The weekly Psychosocial Support Sessions (PSS) and Zumba dance came in handy to relieve the pressure off from work and share challenges and experiences during COVID-19 Response.
The Deputy Director for Preventive and Promotional services at the Nairobi Metropolitan Services Dr. Thomas Ogaro says that the mental therapy through these activities is of great importance for the health workers.
“It was important for the health workers to come together, share information, and get psychological help so that they can come back to their normal duties. This is very important and I would advise other counties to do the same because this will make their mental state very stable,” Ogaro says.
Dr. Thomas Ogaro the deputy director for preventive and promotional services at the Metropolitan Services speaks during an interview. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
“The Zumba here is what we have been getting every Wednesday and the team has helped me. The exercise there is making me now even feel stronger because I can breathe better and also psychologically, I have started getting the strength, as opposed to what I have been telling my friends that I am a convict. Now I’m not a convict anymore!” Kibiti concludes.
Zimunya, Zimbabwe — The October sun is blazing hot in Zimunya, about 56 kilometers southwest of Mutare. Johnson Muranda (11) is resting on his pickaxe inside a mining pit.
Muranda has been here before sunrise searching for gold.
He has a uniquely awkward beginning to his day compared to his agemates.
Most boys of his age spend their pastime at home doing extra-lessons to compensate for time lost as a result of the COVID-19 imposed lockdown.
Since March this year when the government imposed a nationwide lockdown, Muranda has been visiting the area along Odzi River, daily, in search of the precious metal – gold.
The story of Muranda is a tip of the iceberg of the threatening effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on school-going children.
Zimbabwean children had been out of school for nearly seven months until the government opened schools to some exam classes in early October.
The rest of the classes are expected to open later this year.
As family incomes dwindled during lockdown, children have had to carry the mantle of fending for their needs even if it meant delving into dangerous ventures such as illegal mining. This has seen a number of Zimbabweans losing their lives in unprotected mines.
“I have been coming here since April with my friends. I sell gold to buyers from my home area. I realize about $20 per day,” said Muranda whose name has been changed to protect his identity.
Muranda, a Grade 5 student lost his father in 2015 and is now staying with his mother and two other siblings.
He is slowly graduating into a “young parent.”
“I started mining in May and used the money to buy food for my family. My mom is not formally employed and her sources of income were impacted by Coronavirus,” he said.
Muranda is not alone in this dangerous venture. Many more children from his school have answered to the lure of illegal gold mining as they seek ways to make ends meet.
Chemicals such as cyanide and mercury used to separate ore and gold put the lives of child minors at risk. Credit: CNRG
Another child miner Sarudzai Muchemwa (17) works about five hours a day along Odzi River.
She too has a heart and responsibility of an older person.
“I use the money to buy food as well as clothes for me and my family,” said Muchemwa whose name has been changed to protect her identity.
Apart from looking after the family needs, Muchemwa, who is in Form 3, is saving the money to pay school fees when her class opens late October.
“We are opening on the 26th of October. My parents are peasant farmers and they struggle to raise money for my fees. So, I have decided to help them,” she said.
Zimbabwe has a long history of child labor.
Child rights defenders have recorded an increase in the number of child miners in Zimbabwe during lockdown. Credit: Zela
In 2019, of the 50,000 children surveyed in the southern African nation, 71% were working in agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors and 5.4% were in the mining and quarrying sectors, according to the Labour Force and Child Labour Survey released by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency.
Adolphus Chinomwe, International Labour Organisation senior program officer based in Harare told Ubuntu Times that loss of incomes could be forcing children into illegal mining.
“The period from March up to now was postseason for agriculture and from May to June households, especially those in rural areas normally supplement with artisanal mining,” he said.
He added that the lockdown period has been long to the extent that children become “susceptible to child labour-both economic and non-economic.”
According to the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (Zela) in its report titled “Impact of Covid-19 response mechanisms on children in selected gold and diamond communities in Zimbabwe”, children have resorted to drastic mechanisms that compromise their welfare and puts their rights at risk of being violated.
Zela said children were no longer attending classes and the pandemic also drove some to engage in economic activities including illegal mining while stating that sexual exploitation is rampant in mining areas around the country.
“Since the COVID-19 induced lockdown and the closure of schools, the number of children involved in alluvial diamond and artisanal gold mining in the areas under review has increased,” said Zela.
“For diamond, the activities include milling of alluvial diamond, skirting of diamond, cooking for the syndicates and digging of diamond ore. For gold, the alluvial mining is mainly happening along river beds.”
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) defines a child or minor as a human being underage of 18.
But according to the International Labour Organisation the fundamental convention sets the general minimum age for admission to employment or work at 15 years, even at 13 for light work and the minimum age for hazardous work at 18 while 16 years is considered as well though under certain strict conditions.
Even though the Labour Act in Zimbabwe allows people under the age of 18 to be employed as part of educational training it makes it illegal for children under the age of 18 to perform any work which can jeopardize their health, safety or morals.
Without proper monitoring, observance of these laws is minimal. Children venturing into mining are exposed to dangers and are left to learn the ropes of the trade on their own.
“Fortunately, we do not use any chemicals. We first create holes on top of a 200-liter water container. We then put a carpet on top of it. Gold usually does not pass through the carpet but only soil will. This is how we separate the gold,” said Muranda.
He said he has never fallen into any open pits left by other miners.
Illegal miners often leave a trail of environmental destruction in forms of gullies and open pits putting the lives of other miners at risk. Credit: CNRG
Desperate to get money during lockdown some young girls had to engage in sexual activities with illegal miners operating in Manicaland.
“In Odzi we met young girls who are having sex with artisanal miners in exchange for money. Miners take advantage of them. They sleep with them without protection and pay them huge sums of money,” Hazel Zemura, a coordinator for Women Against All Forms of Discrimination told Ubuntu Times.
Organizations that advocate for the rights of children are concerned about the involvement of young people in illegal mining activities.
Zela said the government needs to speed up the formalization of the artisanal and small-scale mining sector to discourage the increasing involvement of children in the sector.
Mines deputy minister Polite Kambamura professed ignorance on the involvement of children in mining activities.
“Our Labour laws in the mining industry do not allow employment of anyone under the age of 18 years. If ever there are such employers they must account for such actions,” he said.
Kambamura challenged mining companies to formalize their operations.
“We encourage all miners to register and formalize their operations so as to avoid unethical work practices.”
But while solutions to child laborers and observance of law by miners continue to be sought, pupils like Muranda and many other young girls who are forced into illegal mining activities might be irreparably damaged.
They are beginning to see mining as a pastime venture with lucrative proceeds albeit its associated dangers.
“This is my only source of income. I will be back in the mining fields whenever we break at school,” he said.
Sarima, Marsabit County —In Sarima, a dry, desolate land, traditionally seen as too inhospitable to inhabit in the corner of Kenya’s north sits the country’s largest private investment. Upon completion, it was projected to become Africa’s biggest wind farm project.
For over one year, long trucks were seen carrying strange-looking cargo as they made their way into what was a barren landscape just ten years ago.
The pastoralist inhabitants of Marsabit County say at least two convoys would go along the route every other day. Their destination is a field of 365 powerful wind turbines strategically placed along with one of the windiest corridors in Kenya.
Set in the remote north of Kenya, 700 km from the capital Nairobi, the Lake Turkana Wind power (LTWP) is expected to generate some 300mw of clean energy.
Power is transmitted over 428km and six counties away to Suswa in Kenya’s Rift Valley in a transmission line built by a government agency, the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company ( KETRACO).
Africa Development Bank calls it ‘one of the best private investments in Kenya yet. The project is co-owned by among others Vestas and several other Scandinavian investors.
KETRACO had contracted Isolux Corsan, a Spanish company to build a transmission line but a few kilometers into the project, it declared bankruptcy, stalling things temporarily.
To keep the project running, the Kenyan government awarded a Chinese company the responsibility of completing the transmission line.
KP & P Africa BV, a company of Dutch and Kenyan investors and the initiator of the project also owns LTWP Limited.
Community land acquisition raises questions
However, there are some questions on how the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project came to own the land considering that ten years ago when nobody wanted to come here, this was ancestral land for pastoral communities.
President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya unveils the Lake Turkana Wind Farm project plague Marsabit County. LTWP is Africa’s largest wind farm project. Credit: Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP)
Sixty-year-old Simon Ekitoye has lived in Sarima all his life. He was among the first beneficiaries of what villagers claim was a lot of promises of jobs that the development would bring to Sarima.
“They employed me for two and a half years here to supervise the evacuation of villagers and to demarcate land lots for their respective owners,” Ekitoye told Ubuntu Times in an interview.
Ekitoye and a few others helped in mobilizing residents to move the village off the path of the road developed so that developers could access the site, this happening alongside compensation for their homes.
Sarima village was relocated in 2014, moving 1km away from its original location to pave way for an access road to the project’s site.
The people of Sarima village are part of the indigenous community that calls the Sarima hills and plains their homes.
Original residents like Ekitoye claimed that they were each paid $100 to rebuild their homes. This community, having seen little development since before Kenya’s independence, was keen on advancing itself.
“They promised to build schools, hospitals, provide us employment and plenty of water. In the end, they only dug us one borehole,” says Ekitoye.
Lack of formal education means no permanent employment for locals. Patrick Ole Kaunga, a human rights activist, says LTWP is a highly technical project that does not rely on unskilled manpower to run.
Ole Kaunga says LWTP representatives first approached the Municipal Council of Marsabit in 2007, seeking 40,000 acres of land for the project. Then they asked for a further 110,000 acres which they claim was for ‘future development’.
“The case that the community has confronted since 2014 has been how 150,000 acres of community land was alienated.,” Amina Hashi, a community land lawyer, said in an interview.
According to Ole Kaunga, the board of a divisional land was never set up to consult with the community. Instead, the Marsabit County Council town planning committee was the body that approved the leasing of 150,000 acres of land to LTWP.
But on his part, Charles Keter, the Cabinet Secretary for Energy disputes claims that the community was never consulted before the communal land take-over for the establishment of the Ksh. 70 billion wind power project.
For Hashi, her client’s concern is simple: how did the investor acquire the land?’ A question she says has never been answered in court.
“This was never given the prominence we thought it deserved it being an environment and land court whose specific mandate is to address the land question,” says Hashima.
An influx of people leads to environmental hazards
Before the establishment of LTWP, Sarima was a much smaller village but has grown from under 500 to over 1500 residents as people move in to look for jobs and businesses.
There has been a change in Sarima though. According to Ole Kaunga, when one looks around, there is a lot of business.
“Every small hut is a pub or a shop. It tells you money is circulating. On the other hand, the level of alcoholism has increased. There are even prostitutes. It is not the Sarima we used to know,” laments Ole Kaunga.
Huge wind turbines during setting up of the wind power farm in Marsabit by the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP). Credit: LTWP
Josphine Ngumi runs a bar at the far end of this tightly packed village. She shares the same concerns as Ekiteiyo as well as the same hopes.
“There are no hospitals. They said they would build some, but they have not. They built a school but there are no teachers. The children return home without having been taught,” Ngumi told Ubuntu Times.
Once complete, the 365 wind turbines would catapult Kenya into a league of clean energy producers, a rare status for an African nation.
“We were not exposed to alcohol but when these people moved here their employees introduced alcohol and soft drinks. They even made their own alcohol,” says Ekiteiyo.
Ekiteiyo’s worry would be for his source of livelihood, the livestock saying garbage piles and plastic threaten to kill animals.
This story was written as part of the Sustainable Energy for All fellowship, by Climate Tracker and Hivos.
Across the African continent, an unprecedented wave of youth-led uprisings is shaking the pillars of political regimes that have held power for decades. In...
The trending successful military coups in West Africa today indicate the continuation of political processes and leadership by another method. Their executions have been...
Needless to say, the 2023 elections happened amid overwhelming disillusionment with the system and popular discontent with the major establishment political parties—the ruling All...
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is arguably the African Union’s (AU) biggest project since the launch of the continent’s Agenda 2063 in...
There are intense political and intellectual debates unfolding in Africa. Since February 24 last year, when war broke out in Europe following Russia’s special...
A packed FNB stadium with over one hundred thousand supporters demonstrated the mass appeal of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) amongst South African voters...
The Organization of African First Ladies for Development (OAFLAD) launched the #WeAreEqual Campaign on Wednesday, August 23, 2023, at a banquet ceremony held in...
An incident involving a thirteen-year-old girl child at the Crowthorne Christian Academy in South Africa led to the schools' closure and the re-sparking of...
To most academics, intellectuals, and pragmatists advocating for a genuine Pan-African renaissance six decades after the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU,...
The Western liberal consensus has long been intervening and interfering in Africa. The first form of intervention was through the slave trade from the...
