Stories

Being a story machine is spectacular training. Reporting requires curiosity, tenacity and strong social sonar. Writing requires originality in voice and structure. It’s a craft impossible to replace.

Read my newsletter archive, or sign up here.

Dayo smiling in a crowd of young campaign supporters in Ellen Johnson Sirleaf T-shirts in Monrovia — On assignment in Monrovia

Book

The Bright Continent Mariner Books / Duckworth · 2014
Reported nonfiction on informal innovation across 17 African countries. Stocked in bookshops, taught on university courses, and covered in the international press.

Bylines

Technology4

Africa’s Tech Edge The Atlantic · 2014
A reported essay on why fintech, and mobile payments especially, raced ahead outside the US.
Pop-Up Schools Could Radically Improve Global Education Wired · 2013
Long-form reporting on Bridge Academies, a controversial but effective low-cost private school network in low-resource settings.
Googling Africa Foreign Policy · 2010
Inside Google’s push into Africa, and why local developers said it didn’t quite get the continent.
An African iPhone? There’s No App for That. Foreign Policy · 2010
From a Lagos phone market, Africa’s mobile leapfrog, and why Apple was missing out.

Culture and Essays6

Enter the Dragon Democracy · 2014
A review of Howard French’s China’s Second Continent, on Chinese investment and migration across Africa, and who it really serves.
Forget ‘Developing.’ Fat Nations Must Go Lean. The New York Times · 2014
An argument for retiring “developed” and “developing”: rich, wasteful nations have a lot to learn from lean ones.
Nairobi Nights Utne Reader · 2013
How an anonymous blog about selling sex in Nairobi lit up Kenya’s newly wired youth.
Tearing Down Jerusalem’s Walls The Daily Beast · 2010
From Jerusalem, a review of the prizewinning documentary Budrus, and the glass walls between Israelis and Palestinians.
Our Bodies, Our World Democracy · 2009
A review of Michelle Goldberg’s The Means of Reproduction, on reproductive rights as a global fight.
Green Shoots in New Orleans The Nation · 2009
Portrait and reportage on food security and urban farming in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Foreign Affairs8

American Sh*thole Foreign Policy · 2018
A response to President Trump’s slur: Africa’s worst-governed countries suffer from leaders much like him.
Who’s Afraid of the International Criminal Court? The New Republic · 2013
Kenya elected two leaders indicted for crimes against humanity. Why the court barely registered with voters.
Death of a Strongman The New York Times · 2012
Ethiopia after the death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and the legacy of his long rule.
Will Kenya Vote for Impunity? The New York Times · 2012
Two presidential contenders were due to stand trial at the International Criminal Court. What that meant for Kenya’s election.
Kenyans Are Paying the Price for War Against al-Shabab in Somalia The New York Times · 2012
The cost at home of Kenya’s military campaign across the border.
The Infrastructure Promise Next City / German Marshall Fund · 2012
The human and political realities of a deepwater port, railway and refinery project in Kenya’s Lamu archipelago.
Change They Can Almost Believe In Slate · 2011
From Lagos, how young Nigerians used technology to hold a do-it-yourself democracy to account at the polls.
Gatekeepers The American Prospect · 2010
Is giving away money the best way to change the world? The Gates Foundation’s outsized power over global health.

Profiles4

Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Somalia’s New Man The New York Times · 2012
Somalia’s newly elected president, an academic and political outsider, and what his win could mean.
Kamala Harris, the “Female Obama” The Daily Beast · 2010
An early profile of the San Francisco prosecutor, then running to break California’s last glass ceiling.
Meet Obama’s Karl Rove The Daily Beast · 2010
White House political director Patrick Gaspard, and the job of holding the line before a punishing midterm.
Eric Holder’s War The American Prospect · 2010
The attorney general’s quiet role in untangling the legal puzzles of the war on terror.

Washington Politics7

Peter Orszag’s Last Words The Daily Beast · 2010
An exit interview with Obama’s budget director on why a bigger stimulus was politically impossible, and what came next for the Bush tax cuts.
‘What Change Looks Like’: Health Care Bill Passes House The Root · 2010
The night the House passed health care reform by 219 votes to 212, and how President Obama marked it.
What I Saw at the Conservative Devolution The Root · 2010
A dispatch from CPAC, as an out-of-power American right regrouped around tea party energy.
Michelle Obama’s Healthy Food Campaign The Root · 2010
The first lady’s campaign against childhood obesity, and why the stakes are highest for Black and Latino children.
Charm Offensive The American Prospect · 2009
How the Obama White House courted the liberal groups that helped elect it, starting with health reform advocates.
The Paper Chase The American Prospect · 2008
More than 20 progressive groups wrote transition plans for President-elect Obama. Would he read them?
Far Wright The New Republic · 2008
Why Obama could not keep the Reverend Jeremiah Wright out of the spotlight, despite trying from day one of his campaign.

Film

I’m a producer and executive producer on indie short films and TV series. I was lucky enough to adapt my book, The Bright Continent, into a short film titled Kanju, in collaboration with Harbers Studios. Enjoy!