Episode 33 - Saida Ali: Women, Power & the Future of Africa

In conversation with Saida Ali, we explore the role of women in shaping Africa's future and the importance of leadership, community, and collective action across the continent. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities facing African societies today, what authentic leadership looks like, and why empowering communities remains essential for long-term progress.

Transcript

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Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 0:04

African women in dialogue. How long have you been involved? Uh taking into consideration that you are in Johannesburg for that particular event in 2026. What does uh this initiative mean to you and how long have you been involved in it or with it?

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Wow. Um I have been involved since 2019. And I want to say my involvement was not just as a participant who came in November 2019. I, you know, I received a message uh in Nairobi one time. I can't remember which month, that uh a friend of mine was working in an organization where some members of uh the African Women in Dialogue Secretariat were visiting Nairobi, and they visited this organization, Femnet. And somehow my name came up. And uh later I met Linda, and it was so exciting to meet uh Linda Vilakhasi and a lady who were in Nairobi at that time, and we sort of hit it off in how we started talking about the situation of African women and why movement building is actually needed on our continent and how important it is to have a space or a convening where African women dialogue. At that point, I didn't know what the initiative was, but we were having a conversation over coffee. And they said to me, this is because your name came up when we were talking to some people in FemNet about something that we've been working on. Because remember, the 2018 uh forum had already happened that was pretty much SADEC forecast, but uh the dream now was to expand to have a bigger representation across the continent. And so at the end of it all, they asked, oh, would you like to be involved in, you know, as a volunteer to help mobilize in the East African region? And my answer was an absolute yes, right? So since that time in 2019, um, you know, I have been involved in not just mobilizing. The 2019 was tough, really, because I'm located in Nairobi, Kenya, and was tasked with mobilizing women from about 10 or 11 East African, so broader East African region, um, getting the 16 women uh to be part of the dialogue. And so for me, what I make of this is um this has been an incredible opportunity for African women in several ways. But I want to mention one or two. One, we keep saying as African women, we've gone to global spaces, we've gone to other spaces with uh global south women, and it's never a space we have created. The idea of having the African women in dialogue in the way it's organized, for me, looks like us stopping to say, please make space for African women at the table to, oh, we made our own table, and we've come with our own seats, and we are expanding the table as we go along, because we believe there's always going to be enough space for us as African women, so that then none of African women are going to be saying, is there space at the table for me? Right? So we stop there questioning uh whether or not we have the power, the agency, the ability to convene ourselves. Uh the second thing is the importance of African women defining their own agenda. That for me is absolutely, you know, amazing. Not because it sounds uh cliche to say it, but it's in how it's organized. Resources that are African, you know, it's African resource, right? Um, it is also about being able to say, this is what we want to discuss when we come to this table that we have created. And so for me, that's what I make of uh the African women in dialogue. What's what it means is beyond, uh, you know, it's unparalleled. It's beyond any words that I can use to uh to describe it or to to define it. But I can center the question of power as well in the way that we've defined our own agenda, in the way that the resources are from the continent, in the way that we have determined what that space is.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 5:19

Yeah. And the the certainly the initial point about a continent-wide women's movement. Yes, uh, maybe along those lines, I would request your own assessment of the conditions of the African women today that make this a necessity for women to unite and engage in a movement continent-wide to address uh their destiny, to find their own voice as you described, but also to make life for themselves. What defines the condition of the African woman today?

SPEAKER_02 6:20

The condition of the African woman is is is defined by multiple things. Some of those things are happening at the household level. And what I love uh about Afroid is being able to say it doesn't matter who you are, where you are at, you are a farmer, you are a teacher, you're you know, a minister, and all, you can we break the barriers. You can come into this space from a movement-building point of view. You can come into this space as an African woman and the space for you, right? No barriers, no hierarchies. So, in terms of that condition, I'm looking at from the household, and I'll come back to it, then the external, which is is is at different levels. I want to begin with the external that is very much uh very external, external, the global forces that continue, that continue to extract from our continent in ways that actually push African women either out to the periphery of where decisions are being made, uh, that also make them uh the receivers of what the inequalities look like. So there is a reproduction of inequalities or production of inequalities that is very much tied to the global inequalities of Africa versus the rest of the world, right? And therein lies the conversation around the kind of governance then we have that either recognizes or doesn't recognize how uh certain things invisibilize African women, right? But we're here to say uh that African woman who didn't have a voice to voice what that is, uh that African woman was taught not to be educated, not to travel to spaces to speak for themselves, no longer really exists. Because I started by talking about from the household, even if she is a farmer, you bring her to the Afroid space, she is speaking, she is voicing what it is. She is voicing conditions related to what it is that we are losing our organic seeds, for example, right? What it means that certain things were addressed through the indigenous knowledge that we hold, right? So what has been missing has been that table which we have answered by saying, you know what, we must, you know, as AfWid, we we must create that table that brings every woman to be able to say, you know what, we still have girls who are not being taken to school because of all of those external factors, some of which are very, I want to say cultural embedded, but I also want to say that the way culture is used is almost a fallacy, you know, because uh the use of that blanket African culture, or it is against African culture for a woman to question the behavior of a man or to question when girls are not going to school or when there is a preference for the boy child at the family level, therefore uh when resources are scarce, send the boys to school and not the girls. Some of that is still happening in some communities in different parts of the continent. And I don't want to generalize, but I know it is happening. Um practices such as female genital mutilation, they are still happening. Uh, the issue of femicide, the deliberate targeting and killing of women for nothing else but the reason that they are female is rampant in this continent. We've had um activists and sometimes not even activists, like the last women's match against femicide we had in Kenya about two years ago, uh, if I have that right, was not about you've been mobilized by an NGO, therefore go to the streets. No. It was young women, young feminists in Kenya said, enough is enough. We have to name the names of women that we know have been killed by their partners or ex-partners, and there's no accountability, there's no arrests that have been made, and so on. And they organized, and then it all just went very viral and also very organic in that every woman who got it, it was like every woman has gotten a memo, and we all went to the streets. We also had men in the streets with us, and it was happening in all the 47 counties of the country. So we we still have situations of discrimination and violence that are happening uh to women. And I want to expand that conversation of women to include women that are also gender non-conforming, uh, women that are, you know, like gender-diverse female presenting persons that are targeted, you know, because of their sexuality or because of their gender, you know, um identity and expressions, we still have those. And it gets very nasty in the kinds of violations that we've seen happen. So we have two parallels in terms of the conditions of the African women, if I can say that. One is a parallel that refuses to be silenced, is very loud, is going to keep fighting, um, and and has in fact reached certain uh kinds of achievements, whether we are talking education, we are talking business, we are talking uh political leadership, all of that. And that's why I was saying the woman, the African woman who no longer speaks or who was expected not to speak, not to question, um doesn't exist when you think about it. But then the other parallel is um we still have situations that are oppressive. We still have situations where girls are denied schooling, where um the violations such as female genital mutilation I've talked about, you know, are happening. We have very bad cases of violence against women, you know, that are happening, including the femicide. And so there and there is denial of other things such as the economic related ones that you can't sometimes put a finger on, but it's happening, you know. So there I see it as a you know, like two things running. But in terms of those of us who continue uh to voice this, we keep putting dents. You know, if you think it, think about it as a parallel where you're able to still come around and knock it and put a dent. Uh, so there is a bit of that happening. But but for me, I I think it's it's very critical to still emphasize that from an inequalities point of view, when we look at the global arena, the external factors, some of which are transported from outside of our continent, and they cause a lot of problems for us, such as people saying such and such a thing is an African, such and such a thing is uh not traditional. We ought to go back to our traditional values. And when you you have people who talk about the need to go back to traditional values, it's very problematic because they are assuming that the traditional, I put it quote unquote, African values were anti or anti-women, or they are anti-human rights, or they are anti-progressive, you know, uh, ideas of family living, or the idea of families for us as Africans and the relationships they are in, I find are more progressive than what was defined and has been defined in colonial terms, and because of the spread of the kinds of religions that came with colonization. Yeah.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 15:17

Maybe uh to just drive it a little bit further for the consideration of the African girl child.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Yes.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 15:28

You mentioned earlier in a in an instance when a family has uh few resources, boy child will be preferred for education, for instance, because uh the girl child will not carry the family name or uh in those sort of family traditional, and they are just not African. Yeah. Uh this you find all over the world, preference of the boy child. Um but I I I think maybe you you speak as well about uh the the the private space and how certain uh uh forms of violence against women, against the girl child, uh the idea that is mobilized uh to uh uh create a wall that resists accountability in the private space. Uh you spoke about the mobilization of culture and so on and so forth, but uh there's also the reality that big institutions, big uh uh criminal justice system, economic institutions, business and so on and so forth also uh resist uh to enter that space and demand justice uh for the girl child. But just speak to us about first uh that journey of the black uh um or African girl child vis-a-vis education, vis-a-vis healthcare, but also maybe uh in uh uh in light also of what's happening in the Sudan, how conditions of war are particularly uh a war on the woman and a war on the girl child.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um yeah, I mean it's a lot. It's a lot this way. It's a lot in how how intense when when we bring situations of conflict and and war, how intense it can get and how disruptive life is, basically for everyone. But you you're right in in also just locating that situation of the woman and the girl and what it is. Because when I think about the Sudan right now, uh we are looking at um homesteads and everything really, schools, businesses, property, everything has been flattened. Yeah. What I've seen and what I've heard from uh sisters from the Sudan is that yes, uh, of course, there is the um, I think they are called emergency response rooms, or or just they're like a setting of a camp, right? Um, where you will find people are living. But then in terms of education, that that's really disrupted and gone for both boys and girls, right? For young people, you know, young men, young women. Uh what makes it slightly different for women and girls is the kinds of things that happen on their bodies. So the war moves from the physical bombing and destruction to uh using the bodies of women as the battlegrounds, right? And I'm talking about rape in the way it has continued to happen uh in in the Sudan and in a lot of other uh situations of conflict. And in some ways, what uh what that has been made to mean is that it's it's inevitable, right? But we know that's that's not true. It is possible to have conflict. Uh you know, I'm not advocating for conflict, but I'm saying it is possible to have situations of tension, of conflict, of whatever, without using uh women's bodies as the um the battleground, you know, without locating it back to, you know, women's bodies. And I also know when it has happened, part of what uh happens is that people want to settle their scores, right? Because then some men will say, oh, you know, the worst thing that can happen to us is to see uh that our women, that we are unable to protect our women. So it comes back to the sense of security, protection, and the association uh to men being the providers of that, right? And then having other men think that the way we're going to uh hit at those men is by showing them that they have failed in protection of their women, right? And uh so basically they're using women's bodies to set a scores uh while causing really tremendous traumatizing harm onto women and girls. So those are just some of the things that then make it different. And then what makes the situation worse is when uh, because then you can look at what the needs are for both women and men in situations like that. You know, women and girls will not stop menstruating just because it's a situation of war. Yes. That's not gonna happen. If someone was pregnant, you know, they're not going to put a stop button on the on the baby, you know, in them to stop growing. So they will get to a point when they will need the services that address those situations of their reproductive needs. So it becomes quite dire when you think about the situation of women. If everything, if you've lost everything and you have boys, girls, men and women, and everyone is running in their trousers that they have, and and the women are also doing the same, you know, just think about that situation of they have there, they've got to have the administration, they don't have other clothes, and so on. it it just creates a situation that can lead to even disease you know because I've I've seen in one of the documentaries uh from the Sudan the issue of water so you have water uh you know there is no water um in some camps and even when there is water it you know it is they don't it's not flowing throughout and sometimes pipes will burst and so on you have no power in terms of electricity and so on so already you're in the dark you know you have no access to clean water and so on so it creates a very it's almost uh let me use the word depressive uh kind of uh situation yeah just then take a bit uh of the analysis to brother society um you want to build this movement where women across the continent across uh Africa's uh different cultures languages uh uh geographies but also uh conflict versus stability you know um what is the path then that you are setting yourselves uh to revive or to constitute a united women continental front that will deal with these matters you are speaking about yeah in a much more practical but also uh in a much more firm way yeah than we have seen because clearly the African Union and the different regional bodies have not done well uh to respond to the conditions suffered uh by women. Yeah yeah so um the the movement building aspect and what we recognize as people who are involved in AfWID is that one we're not starting from ground zero a lot of the women that are coming to the to the dialogue um or each time AfWID has convened is that they're already involved in other things. They are also involved in different movements. So it already there there exists a number of different movements in the continent and beyond because we also have um women African women in the diaspora organizing in different ways um so what just going back to the issue of the table that I raised earlier what then Afric does and what you know even when you look at what it is about a huge part of it is around strengthening the African women's movement all movements and and thinking of ourselves as a movement already that has no barriers in terms of who can come in for as long as you uh you align to the values that have been set. So there is value. So in terms of pillars of what a movement should have or should be is that having guiding principles and having values is really important, right? Because it already means this is um this is how you engage this is what to expect when you come into this space and I'll tell you one of them is like the idea of being non-hierarchical that that is completely different because we go to different spaces uh where movements have been convened and that you can immediately see the hierarchy who who is on the high you know high table who who gets to speak about what and so on. Whereas the uh the Afrid space really uh flattens that for everyone and you can be sitting next to a a current minister or a former minister or a former deputy president and you're having conversations because you arrived as African women all of you right and and that is someone was saying to some extent that is connected to a spiritual kind of you know leadership that is grounded on spirituality because it's one that sees humanity or sees each other for who we are first, right? There is also a conversation around the warmth that people are saying there's a warmth and a welcoming in the Afrid space that you can only tie to our Africanness, the essence of being an African woman or the essence of being African and what does that look like what for me that looks like it's the kindness it's the trust it's just the the being able to uh to to show empathy to each other without beginning to think about is this is this person supposed to be here am I supposed to be here and so on. So we see each other for being African women first right um so I've said the the kindness the trust but also love so a lot of people in the movements that we have other movements we have interacted in have made observations and I believe there's even things that have been written about um you know I know that even um other black uh you know feminists that are not African have also talked about this aspect of love that love is mostly and sometimes a missing ingredient in a lot of our movements when we've had this review conversation some of what is emerging uh by day two you know today is that love that component of love that has been or was already set as a way of being in the space you know and it's in the care that we see uh how we we relate with each other how the volunteer setup is such that you don't see anyone being disrespectful because they think you know what so and so they're just being a volunteer here. So that kind of thing is what people are trying to define what is that and at the end of it all we've come down with or it it really feels like it's a very African essence the essence of an African woman in how um you know and I don't want it to be overanalyzed by by other people to say oh does that mean that we are saying that African women are natural blah blah blah therefore can no that's not what we're saying. We're saying because I I know one of the things that um a friend of mine was reminding us was even when you think about why we were colonized, what happened to our you know ancestors and our forefathers is not that they were foolish is not that they they you know it's it's not any it's not that they couldn't fight they could fight if they wanted you know they also had weapons they could fight they could mobilize even if it was crude weapons but why were we colonized is because they were kind is because of kindness. So we're connecting back to our kindness and seeing that as the essence of how we welcome each other how we welcome others and and what I mean by we were colonized because of the kindness is because we're saying our ancestors just went like yeah yeah you're welcome you know give them water show them a place to sleep and before they knew it you know these visitors were taking over our lands right so for us we're looking at the positives aligned to that essence of being kind to each other and seeing you for who you are as a human being when you come into this space. If you come and you show that you're not then again the values the pillars that have been put in place will be the ones to be used to self-audit and say this is not the expected behavior in what we're trying to build. But you just quickly touched on the issue of how then the movement can be strengthened or can work to improve um the things that we've seen I don't want to over explain this I want to tell you some of the things that we know have emerged out of women coming to AfWID we've had women uh some women from West Africa who attended AFWID they went back and they started you know a cooperative right and they uh basically looked at what each person can bring you know whether they're they're farming or whatever and it has become something that is flourishing that could be you know uh documented as a way for people to see not just the impact but to understand that this is not about telling women when you go back go and do this and this and this but it's creating space where women feel you know what I've got the power to change the situation not just of mine but also of other women that are that are facing a similar condition. Then we're also talking about the impact of having people so for example one of the of the women from uh from Kenya that attended is a fashion designer you know came you know they're young um they're gender non-conforming their fashion brand is about um having um gender neutral fashion levels right and they came participated in last year's the 2025 AfWID they went back and while they were here they connected with one of the the women them the woman who started a I don't know whether you've heard about the umoja village in in in in Kenya among the Samburu it's a village where men are not allowed is a village of women only and um what this fashion designer uh did was they connected while they were here so while women are here they are connecting they're not just you know attending meetings and talking they are connecting and they're they're strategizing on what they could do and this um you know this fashion designer traveled to Umoja village you know interacted with the women there interacted with the children and uh as we speak you know went back took the measurements for school uniforms for all the kids in that village and went and bought the the fabrics for school uniform and made school uniform for the for the children and now is fundraising, you know, expanding the fundraising and here I mean it's an in-kind kind of thing it's not about give me money so I can buy shoes for the kids is what can you do? Can you uh these are the size the shoe sizes for all of these children um can you contribute you know in whichever way you can but I I'm I'm just sharing this so that then we can also begin to see that this is not just a talk shop. People come because we need a space for dialogue but at the same time connections happen networking happens the sharing of situations that need to change happens the strategizing that takes that kind of thinking back home and creates something also happens.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 34:41

Yeah let's go to the elections in uh east africa yes in the last uh 12 months or so uh and maybe we could begin with your analysis and reading and critique of Tanzania what did you make of that protest ridden abduction uh imprisonment of opposition leaders uh and massacres that the government doesn't want to openly be held accountable for as to how many people died yeah at the hands of security forces in Tanzania. Yeah what do you make of I mean CCM is a liberation organization. It's an organization that whose mission was precisely to secure yes the political freedoms for Africans yes yes you are from the region and uh I wonder if you could give us your reading of those elections and what they mean.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

There seems to have been a very strong connection uh between the activists in Tanzania and those in Kenya in Kenya yeah yeah wow you know um locating CCM and and just that all narrative or maybe just the the thinking around what liberation what the all liberation struggle and processes you know the the the freedoms that those who initially you know the immediate post-independence uh leaders that we had in the continent what the vision was I I think somewhere along the line we lost it and I say we as an African nation if I may you know call us that um we we lost it in how perhaps now we've um we've started looking at and I'm using we to just collectivize because I think that there is a conversation to have about how we hold our leaders to account. But at the same time it becomes a a bit of a struggle because you're holding leaders to account that have hold the power that they have and they can they can send the the state machinery to arrests you know and hold people arbitrary and they can you know torture people and people can disappear we've seen it in in Kenya we've seen it in Uganda as well but you know so this is why I'm saying in terms of Tanzania we're all having a situation where people are losing the plot from what it meant to be fighting for liberation of your people to what it means today, what people have interpreted political leadership to mean it is seen as a way to accumulate power and to have access to resources. And this is how come there is corruption you know that even those same leaders are not able to to address or to stop and uh scandals that they themselves are involved in. And so my reading of uh of what has happened in Tanzania has those different levels. So there's that level of we've completely lost the plot when it comes to what freedom means for ourselves for our people and then two there are different components around how what leadership what now it is because it's the same it's the same interpretation I would make of Kenya that people see this as a way to alleviate yourself to accumulate resources to accumulate power and protect have the power to protect what you've accumulated and the other level that I I look at this is we're talking about a situation where now I don't want to pretend that the conversation about a woman in leadership the president of Tanzania exactly the president of Tanzania being a woman the kinds of discussions that has opened up at one level we have Tanzanians even here at Afwid that you know we we've had conversations with colleagues from Tanzania and the fear in their country you know to speak about human rights to question to hold accountable is real right so we have leaders so coming back to losing the plot on what freedom means for our people we have leaders whose um and I'm struggling to call them leaders because when you think about authentic leadership or transformative leadership then it ceases to be leadership. It is something else it's dictatorship it's whatever else we can call it but you know for purposes of this conversation um the the the leaders then um cease to see freedom as important in terms of how as a way of being for the people for the citizens right to to making it about controlling control of resources control of power control of who makes what decision and this is why when you look at even uh Tanzania we we are faced with a situation where there is also family relations that have been given certain positions it's the same template you know in Uganda right that certain powerful positions you know whether we're talking about the army general or whatever being in you know being controlled by a family member means that you know you're controlling the army as if it's a it's a family resource. It's not right um then you have coming back to the the conversation about patriarchy and leadership and what now people are trying to make people are trying to make sense of oh my gosh it is a woman uh we thought that women would lead differently and we're saying uh uh stop we can't have that conversation because uh one one of the narratives is that um there are a lot of men that have caused problems on our continent and we don't go like oh that man is this you know is is letting men down right when you think about it but the truth is on ground women are having that conversation men are having that conversation and in our country Kenya we've had people start to use this against us to say look uh Sulu is just showing us why we must not have you people in leadership and this is when now we counter it by saying you can't say that you can't shift the goalposts when it comes to uh the standards you want to hold a woman to account there has to be benchmarks there has to be integrity that applies across board to all of our presidents right because we we're talking here about the presidents that we have and we also need to make a distinction between having a woman that comes into power versus a woman that declares themselves to be a feminist their leadership and their leadership styles would completely be because feminism is not natural it is a consciousness set of ideas that one must buy into or not. Yeah and it's it then becomes a lifestyle for a lot a lot of us we say it's a lifestyle you can't say oh well in this space I'm going to be a feminist and now as I go into this space I'm not thinking of being a feminist. You can't right and so this is where we draw the distinction and say let's stop doing a blanket generation realization of uh you know what women uh should you know um should feel some sort of way because a woman is letting them down, is letting the people down. I know there's that. And it's also important to have that because it reminds us the expectations we have of what it means to be one of the few female presidents. That there is a number of us, I want to be very sincere in saying there is a number of us that feel absolutely let down. Right? Why? Because we have that feminist mentality and we forgot that not every female leader has that consciousness.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

As that awareness or has that as their agenda. Because when you uh you frame everything from that feminist lifestyle then you basically have everything your agenda the way you lead the way you allow you know or you let freedoms thrive and people thrive in their freedoms is really dictated by the principles and the values around feminism you stand for. And this is not the case. Yeah.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 45:20

The strategy of abductions um which as you describe is common in the region. Yes you have incarcerations we know the leader of the opposition is charged with the following uh injunctions and then they are attending a court and all of that. But then there's seems to be activists that just disappear from the face of the earth and the story is there is a secret service linked to the institutions of the state security who goes out there and abduct activists. Maybe for our audiences if you could explain just describe to us that situation how many people are missing um in Kenya following the protests around the the bill uh and related uh economic conditions and economic issues um and how this is also seen in Uganda how it's seen as well in uh Tanzania but just speak to us about this strategy of the state yeah uh which seem they seem to be replicating now um uh um uh across different countries of abducting activists.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Yeah yeah so what we've seen or what we saw in Kenya so between 2024 or when the protest started is that you'd have and I think some of the media uh you know media stations and people's the power of the phone right captured people initially so in in in Kenya and especially in Nairobi initially people didn't know who these people were but the way the internet is and people going going out and saying we've seen we've seen these persons they come they are masked um you know so do you basically can't identify who they are and uh people captured on camera uh some people either shooting so like uh the snipers because then at some point we did have you know people who uh would appear and they were using live bullets and you know you couldn't identify who they are um in some instances one or two were actually identified and they were never held to account because then they were not covered but in terms of the abductions some of what we saw um and we heard about were people would come masked and they would uh you know they would come with cars sometimes that did not have number plates and then you know grab someone put them in the car and drive drive away and people started uh capturing this so each time something would happen because we're basically talking about a car driving up to people and grabbing someone and throwing them in the car and people started resisting some of this there was one instance that um people you know like surrounded and they were like you know where are you taking this person? You're not going to take them and so on. So of course the state denied knowledge of any of that or involvement but we know it's not true. They are involved like think about the the government machinery we have like the state machinery when it comes to whether it's the army whether it's the police the kinds of things that they are capable of doing if they want to stop anyone that is not aligned to them, that is coming to abduct the citizens, they can do that. But they were not doing that and they were also denying it. So this is something that is as you've described it is very much connected to like the official state machinery but then you have these people plain clothes not in uniform so you can't say oh you know it was a police officer they were in uniform or we saw the number because sometimes we're encouraged to look at the the number that identifies you know them on their budgets and be able to say this is the number therefore I know they are police officer. And then when you think about um Uganda as well um you know there's is not that uh secretive you know it is it is the army and they they they're uniformed and it's very clear what they are doing because when you think about what happened before to Bessinger is that they they surrounded his home and therefore was in in in house under placed under house arrest and so on. What now has happened with uh Bobby wine is similar so they're still surrounding his home but is not there he managed to escape right and um there is no telling what will happen when they find him because we know and this is why I'm saying the strategy for Uganda is very open like open impunity don't care we're saying it we're doing it because then you have the president's son who happens to be you know um the the army general going online and having a series of tweets you know on X about how many people you know we've killed I don't know there was busting about you know 30 or 20 have been killed and more are going to be killed and we're looking for Bobby Brown and we'll get his head and whatever it is he was saying. And these uh tweets were only brought down after media picked up after some activists picked up and started talking about it but the media uh the you know uh internet never forgets so there is a footprint there right so their strategy is you know obviously who it is that is behind it isn't doing it. In Kenya and Tanzania it is a strategy around deny deny deny you know nothing you didn't do it it's not true the numbers are not correct you're lying about the number of um people that have uh have died you're lying about you know the number so it's it's always the state denying that you know there are no killings uh you know one of the worst situations we had in Kenya was when a stray bullet killed uh a little boy who was um at the balcony of their of their home watching what was going on and and even by the time the president was going to comment about it was talking it's almost like reading from a script that is led by deny say you know be able to come up with things about we are looking into this you can't be looking into something that you you've first not accepted that a death has has occurred you know and so it's uh the there seems to be a similar strategy for uh for Tanzania and and Kenya and uh unfortunately for Tanzania that aspect about uh disappearances and people know what has happened in terms of uh the killings but uh one of the the people I spoke to was saying uh to me people are even saying it would be better if they found or they were given the bodies to bury that they know and they are aware that it's not just a disappearance people seem to have been killed but then it is not clear where the bodies um have been taken whereas someone else saying oh yeah we had about a mass grave and so on you know we we're really having tactics that I used to read about from uh some of the Latin American countries where you would have dictators have those mass uh uh you know uh graves in which people would eventually go and start to exume yeah to try and find you know whether their people were buried there. But there is a similar script in terms of how things are happening in these three countries yeah what do you think it will result to often people use the word a spring uh the Arab Spring being an example but what is the what is it that you think politically is occurring in East Africa will this result into the change in the behavior of governments change of regimes a change of conduct of electoral disagreement or all these strategies of incarceration abduction mass murder uh torture as well as internet shutdown do you think all these will suppress the opposition and the mass demonstrations seeking uh to expose uh the current status quo if it has not suppressed it by now it's not going to um and and for me I think there's there's a number of us that are looking at the younger generation and how how fearless already they have been and I know for Uganda and Tanzania activists have tried to learn and to do things that they've seen Kenyans do. But we also I'm reminded of one of the this speech again going back to the script the speech by Suluhu just before the elections or just you know really at the verge of the elections or maybe it was a day or a few hours before elections and a similar speech that Museveni gave some time back warning their citizens. So for again going back to the difference in strategy for the two, having Museveni very outrightly say to Ugandans what you're seeing happen in the streets of Kenya, try it here and we will come and squash you like cockroaches in the streets. You know like no shame in threatening and intimidating citizens like that. Whereas for for Suluhu what what she was saying is oh don't be so again this was indirect attack on Kenyan activists do not um do not be uh deceived to destroy your own country you know we are peaceful you know the elections are going to be peaceful and so on don't be caught up in doing things you've seen other people do to destroy your country right so in some ways it's intimidation but you know she's trying to to make it look like it's not intimidation but we know it is right telling people not to protest and so on. And the question for me is is has always been if you know you have decided that you will arrest and and uh you know uh put away the the opposition leaders so what are you still scared of? You're the only one that is going forth to be voted for you know what what is it you're trying to do when you shut down the internet like we saw in Uganda uh what is it that you don't want the world to see right and the denial of the kinds of um you know violence that followed those that did the protests because in Tanzania we we did it was very impressive that you know because and I'm saying impressive because um because of repression for the longest time it has looked as if Tanzania um you know or Tanzanian activists or citizens are not going to get out to protest but they did they did they did and if and the other thing is if for uh samir she had the kind of support that she had uh when she went to to places and we saw multitudes of people come and they're like yeah we are happy we're going to you know we are backing her up and so on how come then you still had people from those places that came out to protest and for me the answer goes back to the corruption that I I was talking about earlier is that in vote buying um and the kind of manipulation we've seen in the region as well people using resources and sometimes even resources that are government resources because they're already in power and they're going around campaigning and they buy or they have people in some instances in Kenya we've seen people being transported from one area to another because they are psychophans you know they've been bribed and so on. And because people are poor sometimes uh young people don't have uh jobs they will go they're going because this is some sort of a job when you think about it for this day I've been given some money to be in that space right but it doesn't take away from the fact that people are unhappy with the process with certain processes and their outcomes. And so they will authentically still come out to protest. Right? Yeah so we're seeing all this you know there are contradictions around look people even now with with Uganda when you go and and watch some of the clips around what happened post or before elections and post-elections there are people celebrating and going like yeah you know we support our president and all but at the same time in the same country we have in the same areas people who are saying we are unhappy we're tired with what's going on and we really just want to see change. But each time someone tries to come up their hit back to go back down. And so for me again I want to say that's not going to stop. Even if it's going to be a few people it'll just keep happening what we saw with the young people in Kenya is that they in fact articulated and say you're going to have to kill all of us but we will not stop coming to the streets until something happens. And a few things did happen like the finance bill as it was at that point was pulled out it was in past and then we had the cabinet reshuffle which we can also say was a facade you know because then people were it was a reshuffle that was not transformative. But at that point I see it as it happened to silence the young people and so that then there can be some return to normalcy, some sort of normalcy. But it didn't stop them. And that's why a year later young people in Kenya still went to the streets uh to protest about the disappearances the killings and the fact that people uh are still don't have answers about you know some of the people that have not been found yeah Saida Ali it was a lovely uh hopefully we'll catch you again yeah when we come down to Nairobi oh great okay thank you very much for your time thank you thank you so much is it uh asante yesante and then I say caribou asim you're welcome to still yeah thank you okay by it thank you guys thank you