In the west the continent’s giant is in a state of crisis. Gunmen in Nigeria have made kidnapping for ransom and political hostage-taking a lucrative hobby. At the time of writing a search and rescue operation has been launched to find 317 girls kidnapped from a school in the northwestern state of Zamfara. A week earlier a similar incident occurred in neighbouring Niger state. 42 people including 27 students were kidnapped from a boarding school. The latter group have since been freed but the fear and terror remains. The 2014 kidnap of 276 schoolgirls in the north-eastern town of Chibok by Islamist militants Boko Haram brought global attention to the scourge of raids on schools in Nigeria but the most recent attacks are suspected to be the work of criminal gangs.

In the east of the continent the unfortunate murder of Italian Amabassador Luca Attanasiao in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has shined a spotlight on the turmoil its citizens encounter as part of their daily routine. DRC is wracked by malnutrition, disease, crime, corruption and warfare. 

The course of last week’s events remains unclear, but it appears that the jeep in which the Italian ambassador was travelling from the city of Goma to visit a World Food Programme (WFP) school feeding project in Rutshuru, was first stopped by warning shots before being attacked. The assailants then reportedly attempted to kidnap the members of the convoy before killing the ambassador, an Italian policeman and their Congolese driver. According to the United Nations (UN) agency, several other passengers travelling with the delegation sustained injuries during the attack.

Virunga, which lies along the DRC’s borders with Rwanda and Uganda is home to dozens of armed groups. Eight park rangers were killed in an ambush last month. The UN’s refugee agency said more than 2,000 civilians have been killed in North and South Kivu and Ituri provinces in the past year.

Attanasio is the second European ambassador to have been killed while serving in the DRC. In January 1993, French Ambassador Philippe Bernard was killed during riots in Kinshasa sparked by troops opposing former President Mobutu Sese Seke.

These case studies are not unique to any given state or region on the continent. The dynamics and underlying factors may differ but the hallmarks of the instability are the same.

Individuals brave enough to fight against the status quo are often targets of hellbent security services. The voices of the voiceless are typically  safer and can carry more diplomatic weight when the individuals and their support base reside in the diaspora. The obvious issue with this distance is that the political punch dissolves when the rhetoric has to travel across borders. In the fight for freedom, the past 12 months has shown us that even social media demigods cannot defeat Africa’s political establishment. 

It would be misleading to look at these issues as an Africa cause and an Africa effect. Poverty is not natural and no child born in Africa should see this as their God-given destiny. The same can be said of conflicts. Nobody wakes up seeking violence. Nobody chooses to live under conditions of hostility and war that threaten their existence. These manifestations are linked to deep seated causes of historic international interference. 

If international interference was the cause, then Africa has to find the cure on its own. The economic fallout of the pandemic is already reversing the gains of the last two decades, all out war must be avoided at all costs.