Africa Business

More than 200 elephants and hundreds of zebras and gnus have died in Kenya’s worst drought in four decades, the country’s tourism minister said on Friday.

The crisis has affected nearly half of Kenya’s regions and at least four million out of its 50 million people.

“The drought has caused mortality of wildlife, mostly herbivore species,” Tourism Minister Peninah Malonza told a press conference in Nairobi on Friday, adding that 14 species had been identified as badly hit.

“The mortalities have arisen because of depletion of food resources as well as water shortages.”

Between February and October, officials recorded the death of 205 elephants, 512 gnus, 381 zebras, 12 giraffes and 51 buffalo, she said. 

“Elephants in (the) Amboseli and Laikipia-Samburu regions are worst affected by the drought, as the ecosystems (there) have recorded more than 70 elephant deaths,” Malonza said.

The authorities are dropping off hay for the animals, she said.

Last year the country had 36,000 elephants, according to tourism ministry estimates.

Four consecutive rainy seasons have failed in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia and millions across the Horn of Africa have been driven into extreme hunger. More than 1.5 million cattle have died in Kenya alone.

Cameroon’s 89-year-old president, Paul Biya, on Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of his rise to power amid splashy ceremonies where the word on everyone’s mind — succession — will almost certainly be absent.

The Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC), which Biya founded in 1985, says it will hold “a big party” up and down the country to mark the anniversary.

The festivities will celebrate “political stability and peace — the biggest successes of these last four decades in Cameroon,” said Herve Emmanuel Nkom, a member of the party’s central committee.

At the RDPC’s headquarters in Messa district, a couple of dozen party members were busy selling caps, scarves, shirts and multi-coloured garments emblazoned with Biya’s face.

“Lots of people come by and look — we get a lot of orders,” said Sylvie Beyala, 42, a party member for 20 years, next to a photo of a beaming Biya and the slogan “Unity, Progress, Democracy.”

The crowning event on Sunday will be a “regional mega-rally” in front of city hall in Yaounde, the capital, but no word has emerged as to whether Biya himself will attend.

The anniversary bash aims to divert attention away from “the crucial question,” said Stephane Akoa, a professor and researcher in political science.

“It’s not whether Cameroon is doing well or could be doing better, but how the president is,” he said.

Biya rose to the top job on November 6 1982 after seven years as prime minister.

He is only the second president in Cameroon’s history since the central African nation gained independence from France. He is also the continent’s longest-serving leader after Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who seized power in 1979.

– Wily leader –

Commentators ascribe Biya’s extraordinary political longevity to a mixture of astuteness and ruthlessness — he has a constellation of loyalists in key positions and crushes or sidelines opponents and rivals.

But his public outings, except for a few choreographed TV appearances, have become rarer and rarer in recent years, stoking speculation about his health.

Any official talk of succession is taboo, and none of the most visible figures around Biya has publicly uttered a word about entertaining any wish to succeed him.

“Ministers have fallen into disgrace just for thinking about a theoretical departure of the president,” said Aimee Raoul Sumo Tayo, a defence and security specialist on Cameroon.

“Mr. Biya has put the saying ‘divide and rule’ into practice… forces which could have challenged him for power have been unable to get organised and, even less so, unify,” said Akoa.

Even so, conversations about a successor are rife.

Those most commonly named are Biya’s son, Franck Biya, and Finance Minister Louis-Paul Motaze. The younger Biya already has a discreet following among supporters called “Franckists.”

Another name in the mix is that of Biya’s right-hand man, the presidency’s chief of staff, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

Reputed to have the backing of Biya’s influential wife, Chantal Biya, Ngoh Ngoh has been the longest-serving chief of staff in the presidency’s tenure.

He wields extensive de-facto authority through executive powers that have been delegated by Biya and, like his boss, also has his supporters in senior jobs, said Akoa.

– All-eclipsing debate –

“No (potential) candidate enjoys unanimity,” said Akoa, adding that the succession debate “eclipses all other concerns, such as strategies for health, education and infrastructure.”

The jockeying for power has been intensified by Cameroon’s weak mechanisms for handing on presidential power in an emergency, said Sumo Tayo.

If the president becomes unable to continue in office, presidential authority is handed down in the interim to the speaker of the Senate — currently 88-year-old Marcel Nial Njifenji, whose health is at least as much a concern as that of Biya.

The scenario stokes “the probability that certain parts of the army may intervene,” said Sumo Tayo. 

Military leaders appointed by Biya may fear their privileges will be at threat once he exits the scene, which increases the risk of turbulence, he suggested.

When Paul Biya first took the helm of Cameroon, Ronald Reagan was in his second year of presidency, Madonna had not yet made the charts and the Soviet Union was still nearly a decade away from break-up.

Biya, who at 89 will notch up 40 years in power on Sunday, became one of the world’s longest-serving leaders thanks to iron-fisted rule and support from loyalists in key positions.

After seven years as the central African country’s prime minister, he entered the presidential palace on November 6, 1982, becoming only the second head of state since independence from France in 1960.

His four-decade-long grip is a tribute to tightrope-walker skills in a country facing social, political and security problems and struggling with economic disparity.

His nicknames among the public are “Popol”, an avuncular form of Paul, and “The Sphinx” — a testament to his canniness.

“All you have to do is lose your head for a second, and you’re done with,” Biya told a journalist in 1986.

In October 2018, he won a seventh consecutive term after elections marred by allegations of fraud, low turnout and separatist violence in Cameroon’s anglophone regions. He was declared victor with 71.28 percent of the vote.

After the fall of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe in 2017, Biya became Africa’s oldest president and its longest-serving after Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who seized power in 1979.

In recent years he has cracked down on all opposition, political and armed, earning him rare criticism from the United Nations and Western capitals.

His public appearances are limited to pre-recorded, painstakingly delivered televised speeches.

– The Biya ‘system’ –

Biya’s appointment of loyalists to key posts — speaker of the National Assembly, head of the army and the head of the state-run oil and gas company among them — has helped underpin his long rule.

“We are all the creatures or the creations of President Paul Biya,” his minister for higher education, Jacques Fame Ndongo, said in 2011. “We are just his servants, or even better, his slaves.”

Titus Edzoa, a former confidant of the president who was secretary general of Biya’s presidency between 1994 and 1996 and held ministerial posts on several occasions, has said: “If you try to go against Biya, you’ll be crushed.”

He said Biya used “violence and terror, according to his mood and rumours, to subjugate his associates and subdue the whole of the population”.

Edzoa resigned as a health minister in 1997 to stand in elections. After that, he was arrested, accused of theft and spent 17 years behind bars.

Maurice Kamto, who lost to Biya in the 2018 elections, was arrested the following year after he said he had been a victim of an “electoral hold-up.” He was held for nine months and only freed after international pressure.

In the restive English-speaking west of this francophone-majority country, Biya for years rejected demands for federalism. 

The anglophone campaign radicalised, leading to the declaration of an independent state in October 2017 — a move that triggered a crackdown by Biya. Fighting has claimed around 6,000 lives and forced more than a million to flee their homes, according to estimates.

– Isolated from public –

Born in 1933, the third in a family of nine children, Biya once undertook training to become a Catholic priest before enrolling at the elite Sciences Po university in Paris. France is an ally and major foreign investor.

“He’s a fervent Catholic. He has good relations with the Vatican. But he also consults spiritualists quite often,” said an informed source in Yaounde.

Two years after the death of his first wife, Jeanne-Irene, Biya in 1994 married Chantal, a former waitress and model almost 40 years younger than him, and who is famous for her exuberant hairstyles and high heels.

He survived a coup attempt in 1984 that left a psychological mark, a security official in Yaounde said.

“Before, he would step out in Yaounde, he was close to people. But think — he was stuck for hours in a bunker and there were bullet marks all around when he emerged,” the source said.

Thereafter, unscripted public appearances became a rarity and when Biya’s motorcade passed through the streets of the capital, crowds were kept at a distance.

His repeated long absences from Cameroon, mostly in Switzerland or in his home village in his country’s south, became bitterly criticised.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a consortium of investigative journalists, in 2018 found that Biya spent “at least four-and-a-half years of his (first) 35 years in power on private visits” abroad, at an estimated cost of $65 million.

Cameroon President Paul Biya, who on Sunday marks 40 years in power, is Africa’s second longest-serving leader after Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

But they are far from alone among leaders on the continent who have clocked up decades in office.

Here’s a snapshot of Africa’s ageing rulers:

– Biya: Four decades –

Cameroon has lived through 40 years of largely unchallenged and hardline rule under Biya. 

The 89-year-old runs the country through a very small circle of aides, whom he appoints and banishes as he sees fit. 

Openly talking about succession is taboo even for his closest supporters, and Biya has overseen a ruthless crackdown on dissent since his highly contested re-election in 2018.

– Obiang: Longest-serving –

Obiang, who came to power in an August 3, 1979 coup, is Africa’s longest-serving leader, with 43 years at the helm. Next month, at the age of 80, he will run for a sixth term lasting seven years.

– Nguesso: 38 years –

In Congo-Brazzaville, Denis Sassou Nguesso, 78, has been in power for 38 years, albeit not uninterruptedly.

He was president from 1979 to 1992, then returned to office in 1997 after a civil war. He was re-elected in 2016 after the passing of a new constitution, then won a fourth mandate on March 21 this year.

– Museveni: A sixth term –

In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, 78, has led his country for 36 years, since January 1986. He was re-elected in January 2021 for a sixth term after a contested campaign. 

A Supreme Court ruling to abolish an age ceiling of 75 allowed him to stand once again and continue serving.

– King Mswati III: In power at 18 –

Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Africa’s last remaining absolute monarchy, has been ruled by King Mswati III for 36 years. 

He ascended to the throne in April 1986 aged just 18.

– Eritrea: 30th anniversary looms –

Isaias Afwerki, 76, has ruled the Horn of Africa nation with an iron fist since independence in May 1993.

– African longevity –

Other African leaders in recent history also notched up huge spells in office.

The record-breaker is Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, who ruled for 44 years before being overthrown in 1974.

Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi held sway for almost 42 years. He was killed in 2011 as protests against his rule mushroomed into armed conflict.

Gabon’s Omar Bongo Ondimba had been at the helm for 41 years when he died in June 2009.

Angolan leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos stepped down in September 2017 after 38 years in charge. Never democratically elected, the former Marxist rebel died in July 2022 aged 79.

Former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, who died in September 2019 almost two years after being forced to step down, held office for more than 37 years.

In Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in a coup in June 1989, remained in charge for 30 years until the military overthrew him in 2019.

In Chad, Idriss Deby Itno ruled for 30 years from December 1990 until his death in April 2021. He was succeeded by his son, General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno.

Pilots at Kenya Airways plan to go on strike from Saturday to seek better working conditions in defiance of a court order, adding to the woes of the troubled national carrier.

The airline, part owned by the government and Air France-KLM, is one of the biggest in Africa, connecting multiple countries to Europe and Asia, but it is facing turbulent times, including years of losses.

The Kenya Airlines Pilots Association (KALPA) said a series of meetings with airline management had failed to resolve grievances.

No Kenya Airways flight flown by KALPA pilots will depart Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport from 6:00 am (0300 GMT) on Saturday, said union secretary general Murithi Nyaga, without specifying how long the strike would last.

“Kenya Airways management’s actions have left us with no other option,” Nyaga said, adding that a 14-day notice on the industrial action had ended without a solution.

“We had hoped that the management of the airline would soften its stance and engage in negotiation on the issues raised.”

The pilots, who have had a particularly fraught relationship with management, are pressing for the reinstatement of contributions to a provident fund.

They also want back payment of all salaries stopped during the Covid-19 pandemic.

– ‘Delay and disrupt’ –

Kenya Airways on Wednesday warned the strike would jeopardise its recovery and said the pilots’ grievances did not warrant such action.

“Industrial action is unnecessary,” board chairman Michael Joseph said. “It will delay and disrupt the financial and operational recovery and cause reputational damage to Kenya Airways.”

On Monday, the airline won a court injunction stopping the strike, but the pilots’ union has nevertheless vowed to down tools.

An official at KALPA, which has 400 members, told AFP the pilots “were acting within the provisions of the law” and that they were yet to be served with a court injunction. 

Earlier this week, Kenya Airways estimated losses at $2.5 million per day if the strike goes ahead.

The airline was founded in 1977 following the demise of East African Airways and flies over four million passengers to 42 destinations annually.

But its slogan “The Pride of Africa” rings hollow as it operates thanks to state bailouts following years of losses.

Like other carriers around the world, Kenya Airways saw its revenue nosedive after the pandemic grounded planes worldwide because of stringent travel restrictions, devastating the aerospace and tourism industries.

Despite the gloom, its cargo operations grew slightly in 2020 as it switched to delivering Covid vaccines and maximised its expertise in flying fresh roses to Europe.

– ‘Joke of the continent’ –

In August, the airline reported a $81.5 million half-year loss citing high fuel costs, albeit a marked improvement on the $94.6 million loss in the same period last year.

This is despite the Kenyan government injecting some $520 million to keep the airline afloat.

On Wednesday, the airline’s management said it was on a path to recovery, flying at least 250,000 passengers each month, and aiming to cut its overall operating costs by 10 percent before the end of next year.

Kenya’s tourism arrivals, a major foreign exchange earner, have jumped more than 90 percent to 924,000, the government said in September, projecting that the number could hit 1.4 million by December.

Analysts say a misguided expansion strategy launched in 2011 is the root of the firm’s problems, a move that called for the purchase of new Boeing planes with the objective of doubling the size of its network.

A plan to nationalise the carrier, which would see it exempt from paying taxes on engines, maintenance and fuel, remains unimplemented.

On Tuesday, Kenya’s leading newspaper the Daily Nation called for a forensic audit of the state bailouts, saying the carrier had become “the joke of the continent.”

“It’s like pouring public funds down the drain,” the paper wrote in an editorial.

The breakthrough deal signed by Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan rebels has been hailed as a crucial step to ending two years of war, but much remains unclear, observers say, raising questions about whether it will lead to a durable peace.

Other than the silencing of the guns, the accord notably calls for the provision of humanitarian aid to war-stricken regions, the re-establishment of federal authority over Tigray and the disarming of Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fighters.

But the “Agreement for lasting peace through a permanent cessation of hostilities”, which has been published online by the government, relies largely on the good faith of the parties to resolve intractable disputes, leaves aside several crucial issues and remains vague on others, analysts said.

According to Patrick Ferras, geopolitical researcher and president of Strategies Africaines, the deal is effectively “a letter to Santa Claus because it is difficult to achieve”.

“We have the impression that everything has been processed but it was done in a hurry,” he told AFP.

The negotiations in Pretoria were mediated by the African Union and barely covered nine days. 

The final document also made no mention of Eritrea — whose forces have backed Ethiopian soldiers during their operations in Tigray — or of the various regional militias involved in the war. 

The failure to consider these key players and their role while hammering out the deal has created a situation rife with risk, observers say.

– ‘Too many unknowns’ –

For instance, the contested Western Tigray region, which has been occupied by Ethiopia’s Amhara militias since the war erupted, is one of the issues looming over the peace process, and the deal does little to address it.

The TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades until Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s election in 2018, has always refused to negotiate on the matter, a position echoed by the Amhara who also claim the region.

Even more worrying, the agreement suffers from “an Eritrea-sized hole”, said Ben Hunter, Africa analyst at risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft. 

Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki “did not sign the agreement and still harbours expansionist ambitions,” Hunter told AFP.

“He is likely to try provoking the TPLF into breaking the ceasefire,” Hunter added, with the two sides sharing an enmity that goes back decades.

Eritrea’s presence in Tigray — its forces have been accused of horrific atrocities against civilians — also casts doubt over the likelihood of the TPLF disarming its fighters, as it has pledged to do.

The Tigrayan authorities “will not depose arms in exchange (for) vague promises,” said Benjamin Petrini, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, pointing to the climate of deep distrust between the parties.

“What are the security guarantees offered to the TPLF to disarm?” he asked, underlining the presence of “too many unknowns” in the agreement.

– ‘Poisoned chalice’ –

The biggest unanswered question concerns the future of the TPLF, a party whose influence over Ethiopian politics was unquestionable for many years, but which now faces an uncertain road ahead.

The crucial issue is whether the “TPLF (will) maintain its role of ruling party” in Tigray, said Petrini.

Barely 24 hours after the deal was signed, Abiy told a crowd of supporters in southern Ethiopia that his government had secured “100 percent” of its demands in the negotiations.

Researcher Ferras agreed, saying, “on paper Abiy got everything he wanted”, leaving the TPLF with very little to show for two years of war and a humanitarian crisis that has left Tigray battling severe food and medicine shortages.

The war broke out on 4 November 2020, capping months of tensions between Abiy’s government and the TPLF, then the ruling party of Tigray.

Shortly after the peace deal was announced, the Tigrayan delegation’s chief Getachew Reda admitted his side had “made concessions because we have to build trust”.

But its willingness to accede to the government’s demands may not find favour with Tigray’s six million residents, who have “paid a high price for two years” as the war dragged on, said Ferras.

The region is teetering on the brink of disaster, with limited access to basic services such as power, communications and banking, and rebuilding it will prove a monumental task, he warned.

“In the eyes of the population, the TPLF may have lost all credibility,” he said.

With so many issues hanging in the balance, the lack of substance in the deal has raised eyebrows even as many have welcomed the public commitment to a peace process by both the TPLF and the Abiy government.

“The African Union will for now be breathing a sigh of relief following sharp criticism of its previous mediation efforts,” said Hunter.

But it is too soon to celebrate, he said.

“Overseeing this deal may yet turn out to be a poisoned chalice”. 

Pope Francis warned Friday the world is on the edge of a “delicate precipice” buffeted by “winds of war”, during a trip aimed at bridging the gap between faiths.

The 85-year-old Argentine decried the “opposing blocs” of East and West, a veiled reference to the standoff over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His comments came during a speech to religious leaders at the Bahrain Forum for Dialogue in the tiny Gulf state.

“We continue to find ourselves on the brink of a delicate precipice and we do not want to fall,” he told an audience including Bahrain’s king and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar mosque, a centre of Sunni learning.

Francis was to later meet with Tayeb.

“A few potentates are caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests, reviving obsolete rhetoric, redesigning spheres of influence and opposing blocs,” he added. 

“We appear to be witnessing a dramatic and childlike scenario: in the garden of humanity, instead of cultivating our surroundings, we are playing instead with fire, missiles and bombs.”

The pope’s visit comes with the Ukraine war in its ninth month, and as tensions grow on the Korean peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait.

Ahead of the pope’s speech, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who met Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in September, told journalists that there had been “a few small signs” of progress in negotiations with Moscow. 

“All peace initiatives are good. What’s important is that we carry them out together and that they’re not exploited for other goals,” he said.

– Alleged abuses –

The pope, who is using a wheelchair and a walking stick due to chronic knee problems, was to later meet members of the Muslim Council of Elders.

The pontiff’s second visit to the Gulf, birthplace of Islam, comes three years after he signed a Muslim-Christian manifesto for peace in the United Arab Emirates.

Leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, Francis has placed inter-faith dialogue at the heart of his papacy, visiting other Muslim-majority countries including Egypt, Turkey and Iraq.

He began his first visit to Bahrain on Thursday by hitting out at the death penalty and urging respect for human rights and better conditions for workers.

Rights groups had previously urged the pontiff to speak out about alleged abuses and step in to help death-row prisoners in the Sunni-led monarchy, which is home to a significant Shiite population.

In the opening speech of his visit, at the Sakhir Royal Palace, he said it was vital that “fundamental human rights are not violated but promoted”.

“I think in the first place of the right to life, of the need to guarantee that right always, including for those being punished, whose lives should not be taken,” he said.

Bahrain has executed six people since 2017, when it carried out its first execution in seven years. Some of the condemned were convicted following a 2011 uprising put down with military support from neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

A government spokesman rejected allegations of rights violations, saying Bahrain “does not tolerate discrimination” or prosecute anyone for their religious or political beliefs.

Speaking less than three weeks from the World Cup in neighbouring Qatar, which has faced fierce scrutiny over its treatment of migrant labourers, the pope also demanded “safe and dignified” working conditions for all.

“Much labour is in fact dehumanising,” he said. “This does not only entail a grave risk of social instability, but constitutes a threat to human dignity.”

Pilots at troubled national flag carrier Kenya Airways plan to go on strike from Saturday to seek better working conditions despite a court order suspending the industrial action, their union said Friday.

The airline, partly owned by the government as well as Dutch carrier KLM, is one of the continent’s biggest, connecting multiple nations within Africa to Europe and Asia, but it is facing turbulent times.

The Kenya Airlines Pilots Association (KALPA) said a series of meetings with the airline management had failed to resolve the pilots’ grievances.

No Kenya Airways flight will depart Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport from 6:00 am (0300 GMT) on Saturday, said the union’s secretary general, Captain Murithi Nyaga. 

“Kenya Airways management’s actions have left us with no other option,” Nyaga said, adding that a 14-day notice on the action had ended without a solution.

“We had hoped that the management of the airline would soften its stance and engage in negotiation on the issues raised.”

The pilots, who have had a particularly fraught relationship with management, are pressing for the reinstatement of contributions to a provident fund. 

They also want back payment of all salaries stopped during the Covid pandemic.

Kenya Airways on Wednesday warned the strike would jeopardise its recovery and said none of the grievances by the pilots merited a strike.

“Industrial action is unnecessary at this point, as it will delay and disrupt the financial and operational recovery and cause reputational damage to Kenya Airways,” board chairman Michael Joseph said in a statement.

On Monday, the airline won a court injunction stopping the strike but the pilots’ union have nevertheless vowed to down tools.

An official at KALPA told AFP the pilots “were acting within the provisions of the law”, referring to the expiry of the strike notice.

Kenya Airways was founded in 1977 following the demise of East African Airways and flies over four million passengers to 42 destinations annually.

But its “Pride of Africa” slogan rings hollow as it is operating thanks to state bailouts following years of losses.

She is hailed today as a figurehead of Senegal’s fight for independence from France — but trying to seize the elusive substance of her life is almost like trying to capture a ghost.

Aline Sitoe Diatta is lauded in the West African nation as the embodiment of the anti-colonial struggle, which culminated with independence in 1960, 16 years after her death. 

Among the honours bestowed on her are the name of the ferry between the capital Dakar and her native region of Casamance, as well as sports stadiums, schools and a university residence for women in Dakar.

Schoolchildren in Casamance, a southern region ensconced between The Gambia to the north and Guinea-Bissau, are immersed in her story.

They learn that Diatta, dubbed the “Queen of Kabrousse” after the village where she was born in 1920, was suspected by the French of fomenting an anti-colonial revolt.

At the age of 24, the French deported her to Timbuktu, more than 2,300 kilometres (1,429 miles) away, in what is now the deserts of Mali. She died there in 1944 of scurvy.

Yet no physical trace of Diatta remains in Senegal — not her house, her body, not even an object.

“The colonists took everything. But we have kept her memory and the faith she passed on to us,” said Mathurin Senghor Diatta, one of her nephews.

– History ‘rewritten’ –

Even Diatta’s image is uncertain.

In 2020, French author Karine Silla wrote a fictional work on Diatta, with the front cover displaying a photograph of a pipe-smoking young woman proudly posing for the camera with her breasts bared and arms crossed.

But in her village and in universities, no one can say for sure whether the picture is really of her.

And her true part in the anti-colonial struggle seems to have been filtered and altered through the prism of history.

Kabrousse’s village leader, Matar Sambaisseu Diatta, said Diatta was a spiritualist, and the popular version of her story plays down her ethnic and animist roots.

“She never opposed colonial interference,” he said. 

“At the time, lots of people came to see her for (spiritual) consultation, and the colonisers believed she was a danger to them. Her story was later rewritten.”

This view is supported Jean Diedhiou, a researcher in anthropology at the University of Ziguinchor, the capital of Casamance.

Diatta, he said, is the victim of “commemorative inversion… a rewriting of history for political ends”.

“Diatta was a priestess, of which there were others in Casamance,” where there is a deep tradition of village religions, he said.

She never called for an uprising, but did encourage civil disobedience against the requisition of rice, which at the time was required by the ruling French, he said.

“Where she is today stems from the fact that she was arrested and exiled, and the status that the colonisers gave her. It’s what I call the post-colonisation paradox — things that the colonisers did are transformed into legacy.”

– 1970s push –

Diatta’s place in Senegal’s collective memory dates back to the early decades of the fledgling republic.

In the 1970s, she featured in radio broadcasts by Augustin Diamacoune Senghor, a Catholic priest and campaigner for Casamance’s independence.

She was then taken up and brought to a wider public by left-wing groups looking for heroes who symbolised the fight against colonisation.

“For people who were young and became politically aware in the 1970s, Aline Sitoe Diatta was a reference point,” said journalist Fatoumata Sow, a founder member of the feminist movement Yewwu-Yewwi.

“We set up a prize in her name to reward people who fought for the emancipation of women,” she said. 

“She personified the values of resistance, equality between the sexes and the social advancement of women.”

Diatta’s ethnicity was also useful for cementing national unity, said Alioune Tine, a civil society leader.

She was a member of the Diola ethnic group in Casamance — a former Portuguese colony that has a distinctive culture from the rest of Senegal and hosts one of the world’s longest-running separatist revolts.

– ‘Role model’ –

In the nearby resort of Cap Skirring, French vacationer Kani Ba, whose family originated from Senegal, said she had come to see “where (Diatta) came from, to feel her energy”.

“In France, women are put forward as role models, but it is rare to see women of African heritage. It’s crucial to have heroines of African background, because it helps us to progress,” said Ba, who is aged in her 40s.

“Life is simpler when you accept your own identity.”

Back in the village of Kabrousse, dark clouds penetrated by rays of sunshine have brewed, and a gentle breeze rustles through the trees. Dogs bark and children squabble. 

In a few hours, local animists will gather to pray for the rain that will make the rice grow — a “fetish”, or magic ritual, that they say was taught by Diatta herself.

Most Tunisian schools are cash-strapped and run down, but an innovative project has allowed one to become self-sustaining by generating its own solar power and growing its own food.

Today the man behind the initiative hopes the success of the rural Makthar boarding school can serve as a model to improve the crumbling public school sector in the small North African nation.

Entrepreneur Lotfi Hamadi, 46, founder of the “Wallah (Swear to God) We Can” non-profit group, grew up in France but moved to Tunisia after the 2011 revolution that overthrew dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Based in Tunis, the hospitality consultant set his sights on the school, located in a remote and poor region 170 kilometres (100 miles) southwest of the capital and close to his parents’ hometown of Kesra.

“I wanted to take what works in the business world and turn schools into social enterprises,” said Hamadi, whose parents were economic migrants to France who could not read or write.

“We’re not trying to fill the gap left by the education system but to compensate them a bit, teach them to learn, give them the curiosity to open up to the world,” he said about the school’s 565 students, most of whom are boarders.

Hamadi started a decade ago by gathering donations to buy 50 solar water heaters — allowing regular hot showers for the students for the first time — and 140 photovoltaic panels that produce four times the power consumed on site.

By selling one-third of the surplus back to the national power company, the school could pay back debts to utilities and fund site improvements and extra-curricular activities.

The remaining extra power is distributed for free to three other nearby schools.

Last year, Hamadi’s group launched Kidchen, a farmers’ cooperative that grows vegetables on around eight hectares (20 acres) of nearby land.

While some produce goes to the school canteen, 90 percent has been sold since this summer, with the profits helping to pay for school activities.

Kidchen is staffed by six school parents, formerly unemployed, and an agricultural engineer, who receive stable incomes and a share of the equity and dividends.

“That pushes us to work harder and produce more,” said chief gardener Chayeb Chayeb, a 44-year-old father of three. 

“It’s a project for ourselves.” 

– ‘Discover opportunities’ –

Hamadi said better schooling is urgently needed in the country gripped by years of political instability and economic woes since the revolution.

The situation now is a far cry from the era of Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s first president after independence from France in 1956, who strongly promoted primary education.

Initially the Arab Spring uprising inspired hopes of greater social and economic rights, but today “75 percent of pupils leave primary school without being able to write two sentences”, Hamadi said.

“The education system has been suffering since the revolution… because every government has caved in to pressure from the unions,” he said.

As a result, over 95 percent of the ministry’s budget goes to paying staff salaries, leaving little for maintenance, schoolbooks and teacher training. 

Some 100,000 pupils drop out of the Tunisian school system every year, and many parents, worried about low academic standards in state schools, opt for expensive private tuition.

Chayeb, the chief farmer, said the Makthar model had helped his family and given his children better school meals and activities ranging from business skills and foreign languages to robotics and drama.

“Before, I was a seasonal worker on five- or six-month contracts, always somewhere different,” he said. “Now I work near where I live.”

Former student Chaima Rhouma, 21 and studying law with a view to becoming a diplomat, said the project had completely revitalised the school, replacing a garbage-strewn yard with a sports field and garden. 

Literature, theatre and cinema clubs had filled her with “good vibes”, she said. “I’ve become more curious, I’m always looking for new things. Here you can study by having fun.”

The school has gained a reputation in the region and is in high demand, with 80 children now on the waiting list, said its director Taher Meterfi.

Hamadi is meanwhile forging ahead with his next project — a largely organic 40-hectare farm project to supply the city’s 23 schools with energy and food for some 3,500 students.

At a time when Tunisia’s crisis is driving many young people to emigrate, he hopes to help children “come to terms with their country and discover the opportunities it has to offer them”.