It is difficult to fault Chido Onumah’s contention in his new book. It’s no longer news that in Nigeria there is deep and widespread frustration with the conduct of federalism which is easily linked to a federal architecture that is responsible for the multi-dimensional crises of poor governance, ethno-political conflict and socio-economic underdevelopment that the country has been contending with for about five decades now.

The author refreshingly re-engages with the public discourse, rumours, gossips and local idioms of corruption in her native Liberia in a way that strips it of its taken-for-grantedness in popular discourse, and subjects it to a much more rigorous analysis. The book expands the focus of corruption to interrogate its embeddedness in social life and routine forms.

The problem with Nigeria is that the basic logic and structure of its governance is neo-feudal and aristocratic and its salvation requires a radical reinvention and institutionalization as a modern democratic state based on an enriched and lived concept of citizenship.

Kenyan elections have become increasingly delinked from the quest to meet the needs and aspirations of the people. They are almost entirely an elite circus providing the self-absorbed, politically impotent urban middle classes with something to Tweet about - or to pontificate on from the comfort of the bar stool - and the peasants perhaps a few coins or a branded T-shirt and free entertainment every five years.

Insofar the Nigerian state continues to trample on the rights of citizens, abandons its constitutional responsibility of securing lives and property, ensures unequal distribution of social and economic wealth and guarantees the greatest happiness for the smallest number, we are all Biafrans.

New elements of Africa Rising hucksterism emerged at this year’s World Economic Forum in Kigali, including a child-like fascination with “Fourth Industrial Revolution cyber-physical systems” that will supposedly allow Africa to leapfrog the world, indeed to “lead the way”, because the continent is “the world’s fastest growing digital consumer market.” Reality check: fewer than one in three Africans have home electricity, and just one in five use the internet.

State brutality is integral to the electoral cycle in Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda. There are campaign beatings, ballot beatings and post-election beatings. Ugandans this week witnessed pre-swearing-in beatings. They can expect swearing-in beatings, after which there is every chance there will be post-swearing in beatings. Then, the election cycle over, the country shall revert to ordinary beatings.

Swaziland’s big-spending absolute monarch King Mswati III is spending millions of dollars on a new personal jet and other luxuries, while many of his poor citizens rely on food aid to survive.

Isn’t it the height of hypocrisy for a British politician to label Nigeria as fantastically corrupt? Britain built its economy on the wealth looted from colonies such as Nigeria. Today, British politicians collude with their thieving Nigerian counterparts to spirit away money that is then invested in London and other Western cities. Cameron’s neo-colonial moralism fools no one.

Uganda is still restless following the election of February 18 that was controversially won by President Yoweri Museveni against the backdrop of massive irregularities. Museveni, in power for 30 years already, will be sworn in for another 5-year term on May 12. Beginning today, the opposition has announced popular protests. Uganda’s future remains uncertain.

Gacheke Gachihi of Bunge la Mwananchi (People’s Parliament) social movement says his country faces a “very serious problem of shrinking democratic space”. Kenya has witnessed the criminalisation of human rights activism, funding cuts to civil society movements and a further entrenchment of systemic corruption – “and this is getting normalised”. The situation has deteriorated since the election of Uhuru Kenyatta in 2013.

Current leaders and the citizens can learn a lot from books authored by previous presidents. Zambia would benefit tremendously from hearing from President Kenneth Kaunda, the founding president who was in power for 27 years. How and why did he make the many momentous and not-so-momentous decisions during his time in office? He owes Zambians explanations.

In the US election – as in African ones – there are large numbers of voters totally devoted to the establishment candidates. It is as though the downtrodden, unwilling to take responsibility for their own futures, settle for the hope that a greater amount of crumbs will trickle down to them from the master’s table.

Nigerian journalist and author, Chido Onumah, a frequent contributor to Pambazuka News, just turned 50. To celebrate the milestone, he reflects on his life, work and the contradictions of the Nigerian nation.

It is normal for resistance movements to adopt rough survival strategies and techniques while fighting an oppressive regime. Unfortunately, such confrontational mentality becomes entrenched in an authoritarian political culture that is based on the claim that liberators have an entitlement to rule within a new elite project.

‘Now that the court has found that the President failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution as the supreme law, how should I relate to my President? If we are to continue to be guided by growing public opinion and the need to do the right thing, would he not seriously consider stepping down?’

South Africa’s once revered ANC ruling party now behaves as if it is entitled to the republic. The motto on the country’s parliamentary coat of arms may as well be changed from ‘We, the People’ to ‘We, the ANC.’ Firebrand opposition leader Julius Malema may have a point when he says the liberation party is turning the country into just another banana republic.

The leak once again reveals how states collude with private interests to protect the criminality of the powerful. Or how could journalists uncover the Panama Papers while states which carry on surveillance on millions of people, listen to billions of phone calls and read billions of e-mails were apparently unaware of the underhand dealings?

It is troubling that an electoral body that is unanimously declared grossly incompetent for noncompliance of electoral laws by the highest court in the land can still be deemed by the same court to have conducted valid presidential and parliamentary elections. The findings and the conclusions are a contradiction in terms.

If the South African political economy continues to be ‘privatised’ by large business, it will weaken the state through corruption and cronyism and undermine good governance and the rule of law. It will systematically deter new private investment, both foreign and domestic, and create obstacles to small and medium-sized enterprises, the backbone of any competitive economy.