Origins of the scam

Our most recent recording features the celebrated Nigerian poet, psychiatrist, and music critic Dami Ajayi. The major thread of discussion centers on the evolution of Afrobeats—its origins, global rise, and current uncertainties. Ajayi argues that what is now called “Afrobeats” emerged through a mix of local innovation, diaspora influence, and global market forces, rather than a clean lineage from Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat. He highlights key turning points such as the late 2000s shift in Nigerian listening habits, the 2012 breakout generation of artists, and the role of streaming and international labels. While acknowledging the genre’s global success, he expresses concern about creative stagnation, commercialization, and weak value capture for Nigerian stakeholders, suggesting that the industry may be entering a plateau phase shaped as much by global capital as by local artistic direction. We also briefly reflect on Ajayi’s multidisciplinary career and intellectual journey, situating his work within broader Nigerian cultural production, touching on literature, criticism, and the role of the public intellectual.

In June 2025, Africa Is a Country held its inaugural Festival of Ideas in Nairobi—a week of screenings, workshops, panels, and long, searching conversations about the future of political and cultural life on the continent. As part of the trip, our editorial team sat down with Joe Kobuthi of The Elephant, one of Kenya’s leading platforms for critical commentary and analysis. Kobuthi has long been a trenchant observer of the Kenyan public sphere, and in this wide-ranging roundtable, he reflects on the country’s shifting political landscape: from the promises of the 2010 constitution and the disillusionment of Jubilee-era politics to the emergence of a new Gen Z–led revolt demanding a wholesale renegotiation of Kenya’s social contract. As fellow travelers in the struggle to build a more critical, independent, and solidaristic media, we approached this conversation with Kobuthi not simply as observers but as participants. The crises facing Kenya—shrinking civic space, intensified repression, the return of theological-authoritarian rhetoric—are not unique. They resonate across the continent and beyond, including in our own work. What are our responsibilities, as editors and writers, in such a moment? What new forms of public imagination are needed? How do we hold space for resistance while sustaining institutions of critique? This wide-ranging discussion explores those questions. From the ghosts of Kenya’s post-independence promises to the radical promise of Gen Z revolt, from the ideological decay wrought by structural adjustment to the shifting terrain of faith and power, Kobuthi offers a sobering and searching diagnosis of where things stand—and what might come next.

In September 2025, Nepal experienced one of the most significant waves of political unrest in its recent history. Led largely by Gen Z protesters, the movement brought down the governing coalition and forced a national reckoning with the failures of a political class that had long promised transformation but delivered little. Coming nearly two decades after the end of the Maoist civil war and the abolition of the monarchy, the uprising was not just about corruption or unemployment—it was about a deeper sense of betrayal. What had happened to the revolution? In this episode, editor William Shoki speaks to Feyzi Ismail, a political scientist and longtime observer of Nepalese politics, about what the uprising revealed—and what might come next. Together, they trace the longue durée of struggle in Nepal, from the armed insurgency and the resulting fragile peace, to the rise and demobilization of the Maoists, to today’s fractured political landscape. What does the Gen Z rebellion tell us about the future of left politics in Nepal? What kind of economic or geopolitical program could emerge from this moment? And is it possible to imagine a new political formation rising from the ashes of disillusionment?

On June 25, 2024, Kenya entered a new political era. Sparked by opposition to the Finance Bill—a package of regressive taxes pushed by President William Ruto’s government—the protests that began in Nairobi quickly spread nationwide, escalating into a mass rebellion against austerity, elite impunity, and the hollowing out of democratic life. Dozens were killed, hundreds detained or disappeared. What followed was not simply a policy defeat for the state, but a profound crisis of legitimacy. For weeks, the streets became a site of generational reckoning. Disillusioned with formal politics and disconnected from traditional civil society, a new political subjectivity emerged—youth-led, digitally coordinated, ideologically inchoate but morally resolute. Even after the Finance Bill was withdrawn, the protests continued. By June 2025, they had reignited in response to the death of Albert Omondi Ojwang in police custody, now squarely targeting state violence and the wider political order. The demands had shifted: no longer just focused on reform, but on complete rupture. Still, if the movement has posed powerful questions, there remains the matter of answers: What comes next? How do we sustain this moment? Who is building a politics for the long term? In this episode of the Africa Is a Country podcast, editor William Shoki is joined by Sungu Oyoo, a longtime activist, writer, and community organizer based in Nairobi—and a 2027 presidential candidate in Kenya’s presidential elections. Sungu is the national spokesperson of Kongamano La Mapinduzi (“Congress of the Revolution”), a socialist formation that emerged out of years of student and community organizing. He is also a founding member of the Kenya Left Alliance, a broad coalition of progressive organizations that is trying to turn the country’s popular discontent into a durable, anti-capitalist political force. In this conversation, they discuss Sungu’s personal path to politics, the failure of Kenya’s elite-led independence project, the broken promises of the 2010 constitution, and why the post-2022 period has been marked by such sharp disillusionment. They also talk through the class composition of the recent protests, the limits of “Gen Z” as a political category, and what it means to build a left electoral project without falling into the traps of clientelism or cynicism.

Discussions about ongoing attempts to move beyond the US dollar as the hegemonic currency of world trade often focus on the official policies of nation-states. Frequently referenced in such debates, for instance, are attempts by central banks to issue digital currencies, the recently mooted BRICS currency, and various measures taken by countries in the Global South to hold larger shares of their foreign reserves in currencies other than the dollar. But what is often missing from these conversations are the perspectives and practical considerations of citizens who interact with multiple currencies by necessity or by choice —whether through trade, remittances, or other forms of cross-border exchange. To what extent is de-dollarization already a practical outcome of increasing Africa-China trade? Are Igbo importers of Chinese-made goods at the vanguard of a multi-currency fluency which nation-states will ultimately have to adopt? The Nigerian Scam explores these issues on the most recent Africa Is a Country podcast through a conversation with Dr. Jing Jing Liu, focused on her recently published study “Decentering the Dollar in Africa–China Trade: How Nigerian Entrepreneurs Navigate Currency Swaps and Digital Currencies in an Era of USD Hegemony and RMB Internationalization.”