Linda's Blogspot

Farming the Sands: How Urban Farmers in Diamaguène Sicap Mbao Build Fertile Soil Introduction The sandy soils of Diamaguène Sicap Mbao look poorly suited for agriculture. Located within the Dakar metropolitan region of Senegal, the area is characterized by light, sandy soils that drain quickly and often struggle to retain nutrients. D espite these challenges, urban farmers have developed effective techniques that allow them to grow vegetables, herbs, and other crops in the heart of a rapidly expanding city. Their success demonstrates the importance of traditional knowledge, ecological stewardship, and innovation in adapting agriculture to challenging environments. Understanding Sandy Soils Much of the land surrounding Diamaguène Sicap Mbao consists of sandy soils that originated from coastal and dune systems. These soils possess both advantages and disadvantages for cultivation. Sandy soils are easy to work, allowing roots to penetrate deeply and making cultivation less labor-intensive...

Boko Haram and the Economy of Insurgency in the Lake Chad Region The rise of Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria has often been discussed in terms of terrorism, religion, and security. Yet beneath the violence lies another important dimension: the emergence of an insurgency economy. Over more than a decade of conflict, war itself became tied to systems of trade, survival, displacement, and informal markets stretching across the Lake Chad region of West Africa. Boko Haram emerged in the early 2000s in Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria, under the leadership of Mohammed Yusuf. Initially, the movement criticized corruption, inequality, state neglect, and Western influence. Many young people in northern Nigeria were frustrated by unemployment, poverty, and the visible gap between political elites and ordinary citizens. After violent clashes with Nigerian security forces in 2009 and the killing of Yusuf, the movement transformed into a full-scale insurgency. As the conflict intensified, entire ...

  The Ultimate Expression: Grand-Scale Engineering ​The ultimate divergence between these two ideas is best observed in how they address environmental crises. ​When a major ecosystem, such as Lake Chad, faces catastrophic degradation, the Abstract Carbon Market approach responds by financializing the surrounding vegetation. It sells carbon offsets to foreign buyers, leaving the local population impoverished while tracking ecological data on a blockchain or global ledger. ​Conversely, the Real Stewardship approach demands active, grand-scale human intervention. It advocates for massive engineering feats—such as the proposed Transaqua project, which aims to divert excess runoff from the Congo River basin to physically refill Lake Chad. For proponents of this model, true stewardship means utilizing human ingenuity to actively rehabilitate a dying ecosystem, simultaneously securing the food, water, and economic sovereignty of millions of people. ​True ecological balance is not a...

  Lecture Overview: Who Benefits from Africa’s Poverty? ​ Title: Who Benefits from Africa’s Poverty? How the Oligarchy has kept a Continent Underdeveloped Since the 1970s. Presented by: The Rising Tide Foundation Speaker: P.D. Lawton, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of African Agenda ​ Speaker Biography: P.D. Lawton ​ P.D. Lawton is a South African-based independent journalist, researcher, and the creator of African Agenda (africanagenda.net), an online publication dedicated to re-framing narratives around African geopolitics, history, and economic development. ​With over a decade of deep involvement in cultural and historical documentation, Lawton has dedicated her work to uncovering " knowledge gaps " left behind by Eurocentric historical frameworks. Her research aligns closely with the pan-African philosophies of late Senegalese polymath Cheikh Anta Diop, focusing on the continuity of classical African civilizations, ancient renaissance traditions , and Indigenou...

The New Imperialism: How 'Green Colonialism' Restricts African Sovereignty ​By: Linda Dabo ​The global conversation surrounding climate change and environmental conservation is frequently framed in purely altruistic terms—as a collective, borderless effort to save the planet. However, a growing body of critique from independent journalists and geopolitical analysts, including African Agenda Editor-in-Chief P.D. Lawton, suggests that a far more complex dynamic is at play. ​Lawton argues that contemporary international environmental policies imposed on the African continent often function as a modern form of "Green Colonialism" (or eco-colonialism). By examining these policies through a historical lens, she illustrates how the language of a 19th-century "civilizing mission" has shifted into 21st-century "environmental sustainability," while leaving the underlying structural power imbalances entirely intact. The result is a system that systematically ...

  The Blueprint of Sovereignty: Reclaiming Africa’s Pre-Colonial History and Indigenous Ecology ​ By: Linda Dabo ​The prevailing international narrative surrounding Africa is all too familiar: a continent framed almost exclusively through the lens of its contemporary crises—poverty, systemic conflict, and the enduring scars of colonial exploitation. However, independent journalist and African Agenda Editor-in-Chief P.D. Lawton argues that this framework is not just incomplete; it is a profound historical distortion that actively undermines the continent’s modern sovereignty. ​Through her research and lectures, most notably with the Rising Tide Foundation, Lawton explores a deep lineage of civilizational achievement, scientific innovation, and sophisticated ecological models that flourished long before European disruption. For Lawton, uncovering this history is not an exercise in nostalgia. Instead, it is the reclamation of an essential blueprint for Africa's future economic, po...