Jamilah Conteh Speaks — Monday, October 26, 2026. From Freetown, Sierra Leone: the Africa and African Diaspora Conference opens in Ekurhuleni under the theme “The Return to Africa”; Benin grants nationality to 53 people of African descent; our Football Association stands with Juma Bah against racist abuse; the Confederation of Sahel States works on shared legal instruments; President Mahama says Africa cannot survive on borrowed stability; Naomi Coker wins in Tangier; and two Write About It posts on Chancellor Williams’s master plan and the fire on the mountain — ten minutes of SJOL News.
Today’s rundown
0:00 — News lead: the return to Africa. Per Business Day, the second Africa and African Diaspora Conference opens today, Monday 26 October, in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, and runs to Friday 30 October, with delegates from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia taking up reparations, decolonisation, human rights, gender and climate change; it is to be addressed by International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola, former president Thabo Mbeki and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and is expected to close with a declaration and action plans. Co-convenor Rev. Frank Chikane said: “Whenever we meet together, we always find each other.” Story Africa also reported the conference. Diaspora desk: Per Benin Web TV, 53 people of African descent, from Haiti, France and Martinique, received Beninese nationality certificates on Saturday 24 October; Martinican Jean-Luc Vigne described the recognition as a way to reconnect with his identity. The Government of Benin and APA also reported the ceremony. Home desk: Per Sierra Leone Monitor, the Sierra Leone Football Association condemned the racist abuse and death threats directed at Leone Stars defender Juma Bah, 20, including threats reportedly directed at his family; his club, FC Augsburg, said he had been subjected to “utterly vile racist abuse and death threats on Instagram” and that it will report the incident to the police. Sahel progress: Per Aconews, Niger’s President Abdourahamane Tiani received a delegation of the justice ministries of the Confederation of Sahel States (AES), led by Burkina Faso’s Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala, on Thursday 22 October in Niamey, and gave instructions to speed up common legal and judicial instruments for the Confederation (translated).
1:30 — Platform support. A home our family can return to every day: donate, subscribe, and invite one relative to come home with you, at Soul Journey of Life.
2:00 — Channel sparks (attributed, fair use — watch the originals).
- The Latest — “TURKEY JUST BROKE RANKS WITH NATO TO ARM IBRAHIM TRAORÉ!” (title as published; “broke ranks with NATO” is the channel’s framing, and no new weapons delivery was reported). Per the African Press Agency, Burkina Faso and Türkiye held their first political consultations in Ankara on 20 October and signalled their intention to finalise a formal defence and security agreement; Burkina Faso’s delegation urged Ankara to expand security partnerships across the Confederation of Sahel States, and the talks also covered health, agriculture, energy and vocational education, including Turkish support for specialised training in kidney transplantation.
- Make Afrika Great — “[PANIC ERUPT] MAHAMA WARNS THE WEST: Africa Cannot Survive on Borrowed Stability!” (title as published; the “warns the West” and “panic” framing is the channel’s). Per 3News, President John Dramani Mahama told the 12th Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia: “Peace in Africa cannot survive on borrowed stability or conditional aid,” and “The time has passed for external actors to underwrite our peace, security, and development agendas.” Per Kulu Media, he has chaired the forum’s board for nearly nine years.
- Eugene from Kenya — “Black people this is a TRAP | Trump is TRYNA set you Up & Pass Martial Laws on you | BE WARE” (title as published; the martial-law claim is unproven). Per the Los Angeles Times, a federal appeals court ruled 2–1 on Friday that President Trump’s 2025 federalisation of the California National Guard was unconstitutional; Judge Jennifer Sung wrote: “Resistance that is not violent, armed, organized, and against the government as a whole generally does not require a military response.”
4:00 — Culture, tech & spirit. Per OkayAfrica, South African producer Thakzin has released “Maphorisa,” a link-up with Mpho.Wav and Atmos Blaq that pulls in Moonchild Sanelly, Tete, Baby S.O.N and more, described as “almost a rallying cry against the prevailing, AI-assisted trend of artists wanting to claim all the credit”; it is the first single from his album Common Ground, out on Sondela Recordings on 13 November. Per the same column, Zimbabwe’s Yadis sings “Mhamha,” a song dedicated to her mother. Per Sierra Leone Monitor, Sierra Leone’s 17-year-old Naomi Coker, coached by her father Philip Coker, beat Madagascar’s Hanitra Raharimanana 3–1 in the women’s singles group stage of the ITTF Africa Senior Championships in Tangier, Morocco; per Sierraloaded, she entered on a wildcard invitation. Per Disrupt Africa, Kenya’s Spiro has launched its first 100 electric motorcycles in Ghana, with battery swaps in around two minutes; Spiro operates in seven countries with more than 156,000 electric motorcycles on the road. Per the Ivorian news agency AIP (see also BeNews), a technical course and training worksite opened on 12 October in Bouna to restore the town’s 18th-century Sudanese-style mosque, with more than forty participants including traditional masons from West Africa, running until 31 October (translated). Spirit note (opinion): a house of prayer raised from our own earth is a lesson in sovereignty.
5:30 — Marketplace & learning. Vendors and instructors who serve our people: sell cloth, food, books, beauty and art, and teach language, farming, history or craft. When the family comes home, let them find a market of our own. Visit The Shoppes on Soul Journey of Life.
6:00 — Write About It + SJOL take. Fresh this morning: Unity for Great Achievements: Chancellor Williams’s Master Plan, Then and Now (per the post, Dr. Chancellor Williams was born in Bennettsville, South Carolina, in 1893 to a father born into slavery, taught at Howard University from 1946 to 1966, and closed The Destruction of Black Civilization with a master plan of community enterprises owned by the people they serve, farmland, community credit unions and a central national bank; his guiding principle: “Not ‘unity just for unity,’ but unity for great achievements”; the post notes that some of his readings of ancient history remain disputed and shares them as his argument). Also on Write About It: Keep Your Eyes on the Fire (the Ethiopian folktale “The Fire on the Mountain,” labeled by the post as folklore, paired with engineer Lonnie Johnson, who per the post built a scrap-parts robot as a high school student in 1968, studied at Tuskegee, worked on NASA’s Galileo mission to Jupiter, got the idea for the Super Soaker in 1982, saw it reach shelves in 1990, and entered the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2022). Jamilah’s take (opinion): nobody wins alone — gather your six, and be somebody’s fire.
8:00 — Closing opinion. From Freetown: the return to Africa is paperwork, plane tickets and patience. Per Benin Web TV, nine people of African descent received Beninese nationality on 21 March, twenty-eight on 30 July, ten on 29 August and fifty-three on Saturday — a door opening one family at a time; other nations, take notes. To the delegates in Ekurhuleni: per Business Day, Frank Chikane said some delegates worried about coming to a country where “our brothers and sisters are being attacked” — that is our shame to fix, not yours to carry; make Friday’s declaration more than paper. To our leaders: President Mahama is right that borrowed stability is not peace; if someone else pays for our soldiers, schools and servers, it is someone else’s peace. To Black America: per the Write About It post, the African Union has declared 2026 to 2035 the Decade of Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations — hold them to it, and come home with skills, capital and children who know where home is. To Juma Bah: Salone stands with you. To the young: be like Naomi Coker — take the wildcard, then win the game. (Opinion.)
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Jamilah Conteh Speaks is SJOL News’ daily noon brief from Freetown, Sierra Leone. Every quote and factual claim is attributed on air; opinion segments are labeled. Full source list available on request.
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