Latest News

2015 Tutu Fellow, Dr Uzo Iweala, has written a piece for Foreign Affairs magazine titled Nigeria's Second Independence - Why the Giant of Africa Needs to Start Over.  The piece is published in the July/August 2022 edition.  Uzo is the Chief Executive Officer of The Africa Center, a non-profit based in New York. 

In the piece, Uzo begins by saying that from the moment of it's independence in 1960, observers have questioned the country's viability as a multiethnic, multireligious state.  When the devastating Nigerian civil war broke out in 1967, that skepticism appeared warranted.  Since then, he says, the country's leadership has sought to preserve the unified state - even by force.  But what the country needs more than ever, is to reimagine its structures of power and governance.

2016 Tutu Fellow Succès Masra PhD has offered condolences to the Deby family in a gracious message via social media on the death of Chad’s President, Idriss Deby, who was killed by rebels in the north of the country in April.  Succès thanked the former president for the thirty years he had had as leader of the country. 

Succès is a prominent opposition politician who had to seek shelter within the US embassy perimeter in N'Djamena only the month prior to Deby's death because of a security crackdown on his supporters. Protests erupted when Deby announced he was running for a sixth term, along with changes to the qualifying age of presidential candidates in a measure to disqualify the opposition. Deby was controversially re-elected to a sixth presidential term, only to be killed just hours later in circumstances in the north of the country.  His government played an important role in countering Islamic terrorism in the region and was supported by former colonial ruler, France, to that end. 

2014 Tutu Fellow Linda Kasonde's non-profit, Chapter One Foundation, has partnered with Diamond TV to broadcast a series of election debates ahead of the national elections that will take place in August this year in Zambia.  The series began in January and ended in March 2021. 

It featured leading officials from the most prominent political parties in Zambia to discuss various issues. The TV series form part of Chapter One's civic education and human rights mission and set out to provide a space in which political candidates could share their public policy proposals and political opinions with potential voters. Additionally, the debate series provided a platform for potential voters to engage with candidates, comparing and contrasting their policies, and allowing for informative discourse that will hopefully result in voters making informed decisions during the August 2021 national elections.

2013 Tutu Fellow January Makamba has written a moving tribute for the late Tanzanian President, Mzee Mkapa, who died in July 2020. The tribute is a heartfelt and poetic portrait of a graceful leader, and the leadership he inspired in January and many others. Poignantly, he writes that, “Mkapa taught me that prominence is good when it comes to you, not when you seek it.”

January Makamba is a political leader, a former cabinet minister, and a Member of Parliament for the Bumbuli constituency. 

The Governor of Kaduna State in Nigeria, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has appointed 2011 Tutu Fellow Muhammad Sani Dattijo as his new Chief of Staff. Previously, he served as the Commissioner of Planning and Budget and was also the Director of Strategy for the Governor’s 2019 re-election campaign. In 2015, he joined the Kaduna State Excecutive Council as its youngest member. 

As budget czar, he was acknowledged as a champion of reform and was instrumental in moving Kaduna state to commence the implementation of  the Open Governance Partnership and presenting and delivering budgets ahead of time to the state legislature.

2016 Tutu Fellow Succès Masra, who until recently was the Principal Economist for the African Development Bank, has resigned his position to launch a political movement called The Transformers, with the aim of rebuilding his home country, Chad. 

The movement was launched on 29 April.  He has called on Chadians, both insiders and outsiders, to join him to create a new republic that is united, demanding of its leadership, and just.

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently ruled that gays in the U.S. have the same legal rights in marriage as heterosexuals; in Nigeria, homosexuality is legally prohibited.  With Nigeria's new President Muhammadu Buhari and U.S. President Barack Obama to meet this month (July 2015), newspapers in Nigeria are speculating whether gay rights will be on the summit agenda. Tutu Fellow Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani has penned a piece for CNN's African Voices on resistance in Nigeria and other African countries to equal rights for all as it pertains to gays.  It is titled: Why are Nigerians terrified of same-sex marriage in America?