ZAM Magazine

22/08/2025

Nigerians suffer as military expenditure rises

Nigeria’s 2025 national budget heavily favours the defence and security sector, which consumes nearly ten per cent of total expenditure. By contrast, health receives slightly less than five per cent, while the social investment budget, at under one per cent, lags even further behind. Yet despite more than a decade of steadily increasing security spending, the country’s persistent threats from terrorism, banditry, and other forms of criminality show little sign of abating.

According to numerous reports, including one by the civic engagement NGO Budgit Foundation violent criminal and terrorist threats to the population have risen sharply over the same period in which budgets allocated to combating them have ballooned. The question, therefore, seems warranted: is this spending still insufficient, misdirected, or inefficiently used?

Read more by clicking the link in the bio.

26/06/2025

Kenya Protests and Pain

“It started like any other Tuesday. But by the end of June 25th, 2024, the streets of Nairobi were burning. The youth had breached Parliament. And the government had opened fire.” (Africa Uncensored)

Now, one year later in Nairobi’s streets, police violently addressed protestors who were honoring the victims of last year's protests.

Follow to get more detailed updates to the current protests on Kenya and all that led up to them.

Also click the link in the bio to read Jaya Khamala’s article: Protests and Pain: Kenya reflects

25/06/2025

Sell Outs | New Transnational investigation

The exploitative stance taken by many multinationals in African countries has often been highlighted. Multiple reports expose how they appropriate natural wealth on the cheap, pollute communities and exploit workers. But the facilitation of this all by powerful African political elites has remained in the shadows.

In Zambia, an entire political class is involved. In Mozambique, it still helps to know a general. The DRC has bred functionaries who guide investors to the richest prospecting. In The Gambia, the connected few build on protected wetlands, risking the capital’s survival. In Zimbabwe, natural wealth lies in the hands of the president and his loyalists.

The Sell Outs introductory story and the chapters on Zimbabwe and Zambia are now online. The country episodes shed light on the Sell Outs in Mozambique, the DRC, and the Gambia will be published in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Read more by clicking the link in the bio.

17/06/2025

Congratulations to a wonderful orchestra! This Friday, June 20, Fra Fra Sound celebrates its 45th anniversary in No Limit, Amsterdam.
In February, Fra Fra Sound together with South African saxophone player Mthunzi MVubu, staged an impressive re-enactment of Hugh Masekela iconic song Stimela. Listen and watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDGoGHXCG4M

For information about the anniversary concert check out: https://www.frafrasound.com/

Fra Fra Sound featuring Mthunzi Mvubu with STIMELAThis song was recorded over 50 years ago by South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela. In this indictment o...

16/06/2025

We are excited to announce that we have enabled paid subscriptions for the Kleptocracy Report on Substack. Thank you to all who have already pledged a paid subscription — your membership will be upgraded shortly.

Our journalism and this newsletter will always be available for free, but paid subscriptions can support our work, which is increasingly difficult in the current political climate. Kleptocrats are targeting journalists and activists, and funding freezes are affecting journalism across the continent. We are no exception.

ZAM runs an editorial platform and a grants project that helps the NAIRE network and others publish in freedom. We need funds to maintain a safe and well-equipped newsroom that can provide editorial, legal, mental, and physical support to journalists working in difficult circumstances.

Please consider subscribing or upgrading your subscription to support this critical work. ZAM is a non-profit organisation and all the money earned from paid subscriptions will directly support our journalism programme.

You can also donate directly via the ZAM website, which offers more flexible pricing tiers and the option for once-off donations. Thank you all for your support.

Learn more by clicking the link in the bio.

11/06/2025

The colonial bogeyman - by Benson Mulindwa

"African despots will tell you, "Put up with my torture, or the colonialists will return to torture you."

On May 23, 2025, former Ugandan journalist—and now political commentator and government acolyte—Andrew Mwenda posted a lengthy rant on X, accusing European ambassadors in Uganda of engaging in “Colonialism 101.” His outburst was prompted by a statement made two days earlier, in which European Union ambassadors expressed concern about the use of torture in Uganda..."

Read the full story by clicking the link in the bio.

30/05/2025

In Kleptocracy Report #6 we feature two colleagues who can rightly be called heroic. After years of risking his life investigating an illegal logging mafia in Mozambique, Estacio Valoi finally saw the plundering managers of the park being fired. Ugandan colleague Agather Atuhaire survived abduction and torture in Tanzania and came out stronger. Then, the op-ed by Delali Adogla-Bessa about how the government in Ghana is making the same old mistakes, prolonging the ‘jobs for boys’ culture of incompetence, is also worth a read.

Read the full Kleptocracy Report #6 with the linktree in our bio.

26/05/2025

Last week, Dutch-trained immigration officials in the East African country of Tanzania handed over a journalist and an activist from elsewhere in the region to a local torture squad. Tanzania's immigration structures have recently been built up by the Netherlands as part of a programme to stop migrants from coming to Europe. Tanzania's repressive state now used its capacity to abduct, detain and torture ZAM network partner Agather Atuhaire and Boniface Mwangi . ZAM has called the Netherlands to stop assisting dictatorial regimes.

Read more by clicking the link in the bio.

26/05/2025

The call follows the abduction and torture in Tanzania of Ugandan NAIRE member Agather Atuhaire and Kenyan good governance activist Boniface Mwangi

24/05/2025

We've been blown away by the words of support ams encouragement so far!

This is a call to reimagine the future and every comment reminds us why this project matters.

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22/05/2025

ZAM calls our followers to address Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan on torturing journalists!

Kenyan good governance activist Boniface Mwangi and NAIRE member Agather Atuhaire have spent days in an undisclosed location in Tanzania after having been arrested by the military in that country. They were part of a group of East African activists who traveled to Tanzania to support opposition leader Tundu Lissu in a political trial that is being conducted against him by the regime of Samia Suluhu, nicknamed Idi Amin Mama. While several in the activists' group were deported back to Kenya upon arrival in the country, Mwangi and Atuhaire were detained. Mwangi surfaced some hours ago at a location near the Tanzanian border in Kenya, badly tortured and unable to walk by himself. People who came to his rescue in Kenya understand that he has been tortured and that Agather Atuhaire is still undergoing torture.

While the Kenyan government has protested against Tanzania's detention of its citizen Boniface Mwangil, a fact that likely contributed to his release, Uganda -the country of erstwhile dictator Idi Amin and now ruled by autocrat President Museveni has undertaken no such steps.

Agather Atuhaire, who is both a lawyer and a journalist, features in the Uganda episode of ZAM's transnational investigation Legal Rebels.

22/05/2025

We’re 42% funded!

Thanks to your support, Glitching the Future is gaining momentum.

Glitching the Future is where art meets activism—where we reimagine digital spaces through
creativity and design.

You can support the movement by buying artwork and merch made by the very artists
building this vision.

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