If you have ever imagined being a daring foreign correspondent flying into parts unknown, you may at first find vicarious adventure in Judi Rever’s book

As the dust settles on the Republic of South Africa’s 6th election, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) faces its deepest crisis since coming to power in 1994.

Incumbent President Cyril Ramaphosa, a former trade union leader and co-founder of the National Union of Mineworkers, was sworn into office again on 25 May with thousands of cheering ANC members in attendance along with representatives of allied parties from across the continent and the world.

The word, “revolution”, is currently enjoying a political and lexical rehabilitation with Nigerians, especially the youths. Though still seen as treasonable, “revolution” is no longer easily associated with evil or lack of patriotism.

Introduction

As we were preparing to observe the 39th anniversary of the dastardly killing of Walter Rodney of Guyana, Andaiye, a fighter in the struggle for social justice and full equality between toilers and oppressors and between women and men lost her long battle with cancer.

Now almost exactly a month after national elections were held, members of parliament have been safely sworn in and national celebrations over the holding of, yet another, peaceful democratic election have abated.

About the middle of 1985, the tendency to which I belonged in Nigeria’s Marxist Left met somewhere on the campus of the former University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife.

In 2001, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) admitted that “more than half of global trade today is conducted under preferential trade agreements, both regional or multilateral.”

“On a plain high in the mountains of Haiti one day a week thousands of people still gather. This is the marketplace of my childhood...The sights and the smells and the noise and the colour overwhelm you. Everyone comes.