Jamilah Conteh Speaks — Friday, October 23, 2026. From Freetown, Sierra Leone: at the COMESA summit in Harare, Africa’s leaders say the continent must finance its own development — “invest with us, process with us, build with us”; Freetown police test a tear-gas drone under safeguards; Burkina Faso launches Faso Wa-Fulu, a plan for electricity for all by 2030; a 14-year-old Burkinabè builds his own AI; Rapsody records with a South African choir; and two Write About It posts on returning treasures and the people who teach the machines — ten minutes of SJOL News.
Today’s rundown
0:00 — News lead: Harare says build with us. Per Kenya’s Presidential Communication Service, as carried by Capital FM and KBC, President William Ruto handed the chairmanship of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) to Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa at the bloc’s 25th summit in Harare on Thursday 22 October, and said: “We cannot ask the world to trust African institutions if we do not trust them ourselves. Africa holds more than $4 trillion in domestic financial assets. Yet much of these sit in foreign accounts, earning little while our own projects wait for capital.” His offer to partners: “Invest with us, process with us, build with us.” Per the same report, he said the planned $16 billion East Africa refinery in Kenya “will be almost wholly funded by African financial institutions,” and Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema said: “We are all saying the right things. We must now take the extra steps to realise this vision. And nobody will do it other than ourselves.” Per The Herald (via Zimbabwe Situation), President Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe will work with all 21 member states to fast-track value addition and beneficiation under the theme “One Market, One Future,” adding that “roads, rail, energy infrastructure and digital networks require affordable, predictable and longterm financing.” Per New Ziana, Secretary-General Chileshe Mpundu Kapwepwe urged domestic resource mobilisation so the 680 million-strong market becomes an engine of growth. Home desk: Per the Sierra Leone Monitor, the Sierra Leone Police tested a newly acquired tear-gas drone at several locations across Freetown on 22 October; ASP David A. Mbayo, head of the ICT department, said deployment must follow the law and that “the use of technology in policing must remain consistent with the principles of accountability, professionalism and respect for human rights,” and that indiscriminate exposure, particularly among vulnerable persons, must be prevented. AES progress: Per the Government of Burkina Faso (Council of Ministers, 22 October) and its energy note, a decree created the Presidential Initiative “Faso Wa-Fulu” (energy for all), aiming at general access to electricity by 2030, at a cost of more than 2,800 billion CFA francs over 10 years, built on four components: electrification brigades, community inclusion, energy access and energy sovereignty (translated). These are targets, not yet results.
1:30 — Platform support. We build this house with our own hands: donate, subscribe, and invite one friend who builds, at Soul Journey of Life.
2:00 — Channel sparks (attributed, fair use — watch the originals).
- Make Afrika Great — “Young AFRICA’S GENIUS Shocks TRAORE LIVE, HE BUILT HIS OWN AI for Burkina faso” (title as published; the claim that he met or “shocked” Captain Traoré live is the channel’s framing and could not be confirmed). On the record, per Burkina 24 (18 October), 14-year-old Chérif Kounta designed FasoNova, an AI built for Burkinabè and African realities and trained mainly on public resources; when a student submits an exercise it explains the method before giving the answer, and he says the name refers to a speech by Captain Ibrahim Traoré stressing that everything must move faster; it is not yet on the Google Play Store (translated; also Sputnik Afrique).
- Zack Mwekassa — “GERMAN MPS REFUSE TO PAY REPARATIONS TO NAMIBIA FOR GENOCIDE” (title as published; per the reports below, the motions were referred to committee rather than voted down). Per Anadolu Agency, the Bundestag held a 30-minute debate on motions from the Left Party and the Greens on the 1904–1908 genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama and referred both to the Foreign Affairs Committee; an estimated 100,000 people were killed. Per the Namibian Sun, neither motion was adopted as government policy, and Ovaherero Paramount Chief Mutjinde Katjiua, speaking in Berlin, rejected the €1.1 billion Joint Declaration, saying development assistance cannot replace reparations: “We stand firm: Nothing About Us, Without Us.”
- Neferkare Dessalines — “France Tells Trump to Be Quiet… The Riots Are NOT About Immigrants” (title as published). Per CNN, President Trump claimed without evidence that France was being “conquered, looted and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists and communists,” and President Emmanuel Macron replied: “We’ve had people claiming that we were invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists, which is completely false”; the unrest began in September as protests over education and the cost of living, and more than 2,000 people were arrested in one weekend. Per DW, authorities imposed curfews in some areas.
4:00 — Culture, tech & spirit. Per NPR (18 October), Rapsody contemplates what God looks like on her latest album, God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops. Per Glamour South Africa, her fifth studio album runs 16 tracks, was partly recorded in South Africa, and features the gospel group Karabo Ya Morena, whose choir appears on the title track alongside a reference to Miriam Makeba; in her words, “It’s soul, funk and hip-hop… It’s truth. It’s honest. It’s Black.” Opinion: that is African Americans for Africa in sound. Per TechReview Africa, Sierra Leone’s Minister of Communication, Technology and Innovation, Salima Bah, speaking virtually from Freetown at the Financial Times Africa Summit 2026, said government’s role should be “an enabler rather than the financier,” described plans for another submarine cable in which mobile operators would hold the majority stake and government a minority share, and said: “There is no way you are going to advance your digital infrastructure without bringing energy along.” Spirit note (opinion): an album that asks what God looks like and a nation that plans its own cable are both acts of faith in ourselves.
5:30 — Marketplace & learning. Vendors and instructors who serve our people with dignity: sell your cloth, oils, art and music, and teach coding, farming, history or language. Keep the value at home. Visit The Shoppes on Soul Journey of Life.
6:00 — Write About It + SJOL take. Fresh this morning: Coming Home: Africa’s Returning Treasures and the Work of Self-Determination (per Reuters as cited, the Djidji Ayôkwé drum, seized by French colonial authorities in 1916, was formally handed back on 20 February 2026 and landed in Abidjan on 13 March, the first of 148 objects Côte d’Ivoire has asked France to return; per Tribune Online as cited, Nigeria’s museums chief Olugbile Holloway says restitution must involve “transferring ownership, not merely temporarily returning objects”; per the post, UN General Assembly Resolution 80/250, adopted on 25 March 2026, declared the chattel enslavement of Africans the gravest crime against humanity — the post labels its own view as opinion). Also fresh: Hands That Teach the Machines (per DisabilityNewsGH as cited, Deaf learners from the Swedru Salvation Army School for the Deaf placed third in the Tech League at the Ghana Robotics Competition; per Modern Ghana as cited, Bosomtwe Boys STEM Senior High School was overall champion; per the post, EcoRide, a solar-powered mobile refrigerator for farm produce, won the top prize at an Obafemi Awolowo University engineering show in Ile-Ife; and the Central University of Technology, Free State’s robotic wheelchair Motsamai placed second at the Volting Cup in Pittsburgh). Jamilah’s take (opinion): what we make, we must own — from a drum to a robot.
8:00 — Closing opinion. From Freetown: Africa does not lack money, minds or music; what we lack is the habit of trusting our own. Per President Ruto’s office, Africa holds more than $4 trillion in domestic financial assets — that is his figure, and a figure is not a plan; per the same report, he warned that every programme must be matched by the resources to deliver it. Judge Harare by what gets built, not by what gets said. Meanwhile we build: a 14-year-old’s code in Burkina Faso, Deaf learners on a robotics podium in Ghana, a date for power for all, a cable plan in Sierra Leone. Europe: the drum came home and more must follow; finish the work with the Ovaherero and Nama, and pay the people, not only the projects. Black America: when your artists record with our choirs, that is a bridge — cross it, invest here, visit here, build here. Young people: start with a notebook and a question. Build with us. (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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