By Clinton Ochieng
What most African journalists go through in the line of duty as they struggle to hold their governments to account is really horrifying.
And what better way to capture the horrors that journalists go through than publish a book, Hounded: African Journalists in Exile?
It was compiled during the Covid-19 lockdown and is an enlightening account of 16 writers and editors who, at one time or another, have found themselves fleeing their homeland because of their liberated reporting.
Kenyan Pius Nyamora, Dapo Oorunyomi of Nigeria, Ethiopian online activist Soleyana Shimeles Gebremichael, Sainey Marenah of Gambia, Zimbabwean Wilf Mbanga, Mim Mefo Takambou of Cameroon, Keiso Mohloboli of Lesotho, Fred Muvunyi of Rwanda, and Chadian Makaila N’Guebla are some who have become victims of political intolerance and media repression.
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Others are Togolese Farida Nabourema, Ansbert Ngurumo of Tanzania, Kiwanuka Lawrence of Uganda, Eritrean Fathi Osman, Bob Rugurika of Burundi, and Michele Rakotoson from Madagascar.
The book, published by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and launched on Tuesday at the Trade Mark Hotel in Nairobi, is edited by Mr. Joseph Odindo, a former editorial director of the Nation Media Group (NMG) and more recently, The Standard Group.
Mr. Joseph Odindo said that since good journalism demands more than an ability to cultivate news sources and generate content, there lies one of the continent’s gravest tragedies, a growing army of talented men and women driven from their homelands for thinking critically and daring to speak out.
As such, the book is an adrenaline-charged first-person narration of a disturbing record of government intolerance in Africa and the willingness of political leaders to kill or imprison journalists whose work they disapprove of.