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The Real Rebels in Africa: How Multinational Companies Fuel Conflict in DRC and Beyond!

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By Youngerson Matete  On September 11, 2025, I found myself on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana, visiting what used to be a thriving salt mining community. What I encountered there was not only shocking but also a powerful metaphor for the broader exploitation of Africa by multinational corporations disguised as investors to locals. The land was confiscated violently by “foreign investors” who turned it into a mine, extracting wealth with reckless abandon. Although the locals managed to reclaim their land after years of fighting against foreign companies who had hired militias resulting in the death of many young people and women, with Margaret Kuwornu, a pregnant woman who was shot dead by the company security losing her life and unborn baby. She has become the symbol of both resistance and martyrdom in the community with her statue standing as a shrine in the village square.  What the locals have inherited now is hardly usable. A devastated environment that bears no crop or liv...
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Democracy at the Brink: Can Socialism Save What Capitalism Broke?

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 By Youngerson Matete  Francis Fukuyama, in his 1989 essays, the End of History and Last Man asserted that democracy was humanity's end point in the modern world. This is being contested as democracy is now under siege. Globally, the liberal democratic order faces an assault not merely from overt authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, populist strongmen, or military juntas but from an economic system that has historically claimed to be its partner. The idea that capitalism and democracy could coexist in mutual benefit is now faltering. In its current neoliberal and financialized form capitalism is increasingly becoming incompatible with genuine democratic governance. As global inequality widens, institutions are captured by both economic and political elites. Political participation has been commodified, democracy faces a structural challenge far deeper than at any time in the past century. In the past, democracy has weathered several storms. The interwar years of the 20th c...
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The Rise of Kudakwashe Tagwirei: Business, Power, and the Contested Succession in Zimbabwe’s Post-Mnangagwa Era.

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  By Youngerson Matete Introduction Zimbabwe's political landscape has been defined by the protracted struggle for succession for decades. First during the former President Robert Mugabe’s era. The conversation of succession on his successor-President Emmerson Mnangagwa has now intensified. The constitution of Zimbabwe on section 91(2) clearly states that a person can only hold office for 2 terms and each term lasting between 3 to 5 years as defined by Section 143 of the Constitution.  Zimbabwe's political terrain is entering another phase of elite contestation, as President Emmerson Mnangagwa's second and final constitutional term edges closer to its expiration in 2028.  The question of who succeeds Emmerson Mnangagwa as Zimbabwe’s leader is the nation’s most gripping political conundrum within and outside the ruling party ZANU-PF. Amidst factional warfare within the ruling party, and succession chessboard, businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei has emerged as a pivotal, albei...
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