What do we know about Mali's recent coup?

 

Malian Air Force deputy chief of staff Ismael Wague (centre) speaks during a press conference on August 19, 2020. ANNIE RISEMBERG/AFP via Getty Images

Bruce Whitehouse, Lehigh University

Soldiers have ousted Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta who has now resigned, alongside the country’s prime minister. Moina Spooner from The Conversation Africa asked Bruce Whitehouse, who has carried out studies on coups and violent extremism in Mali, to share his thoughts on what brought on this coup, and what needs to happen next to ensure stability in the country.

What laid the ground for the recent coup in Mali and who led it?

There are many long-term factors, but the immediate reason for the coup was Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta’s dismal performance as president. When first elected to the office in 2013, Keita had the ideal resume, having held nearly every top post in the Malian government (foreign minister, prime minister, speaker of the National Assembly). Yet he subsequently did not address the existential threats to Mali’s people and the state, from political violence to corruption.

His 2013 campaign promise to root out corruption and restore the country’s dilapidated sovereignty quickly proved hollow. Scandals over his acquisition of a new presidential jet and shady defence contracts gave the impression that his administration would be no more transparent or upright than those that came before.

Insecurity was already severe in Mali’s northern regions when Keïta took office, mainly due to jihadi militants and criminal gangs. In the subsequent seven years the situation steadily worsened as roadside bombings and raids on government targets (including military and police posts, prisons, and administrative buildings) spread to other parts of the country. Many troops have been killed by militants, and soldiers lacked the supplies and vehicles they needed to carry on the fight.

The violence resulted in a major humanitarian crisis. By the end of 2019, the UN estimated that 3.9 million people were in need of assistance and protection – an increase of 700 000 since the beginning of the year.

So ordinary Malians, and military personnel alike, were frustrated with Keïta’s government. As a consequence, since June there were persistent and massive street protests in Bamako, the capital, demanding Keïta’s resignation.

We don’t yet know much about the officers who led the coup. They call themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People and appear to be more highly ranked (colonels and possibly a general) than the officers who led previous coups in Mali. Colonel Assimi Goita has announced himself as the new leader.

This is not the first time Mali’s had a coup. The most recent one was in 2012 and, like this one, resulted in military control. How would you rate the transition to a civilian government after the 2012 coup?

In many ways, the 2020 coup resembles its 2012 predecessor. Both began as mutinies in Mali’s largest army base in Kati, on the outskirts of Bamako. The international response to both coups has been similar: statements of condemnation and promises of sanctions by the West African regional body, ECOWAS. And both seemed to garner quick popular support. A poll conducted after the 2012 coup showed that about two-thirds of Bamako residents backed the junta. The mass protests leading to this coup indicates that many Malians also support change.

One big difference is that the 2020 junta had President Keïta and his prime minister arrested on the first day and the president announced his resignation soon after on television. By contrast, the 2012 junta never managed to capture the president they ousted (Amadou Toumani Touré), leaving the coup’s outcome uncertain for several days.

Though the transition to civilian rule in 2012 appeared to happen relatively quickly - it took about a month for ECOWAS to negotiate a handover to an interim civilian government - it masked continued interference from the military who retained considerable power behind the scenes for many months. For instance, just a few weeks after the coup, the military orchestrated a mob attack that sent the interim president abroad for medical treatment.

This situation endured until 2013, when the French military intervention against jihadi militants began. From my own analysis, the presence of French troops discouraged the Malian military from meddling too openly with politics.

In August 2013, President Keita was voted in as president and, until now, seemed to have been able to keep the military in check, but military officers leading the coup appear to have been emboldened by the street protests of the past two months.

How should the transition to a civilian government this time around be handled to ensure political stability in the country?

The transition to a civilian government won’t be smooth.

There is significant public distrust in Bamako toward politicians. Under Mali’s 1992 constitution, the speaker of the National Assembly is supposed to become interim president and organise new elections after a president’s resignation, but President Keïta dissolved the body prior to resigning. This leaves no obvious successor.

The constitution also calls for new elections to be organised within a very short period - just 40 days - after the establishment of an interim government. Meeting this deadline proved impossible in 2012 for Mali, a poor country torn apart by conflict, and would be equally impossible in 2020.

This leaves the path forward uncertain and requiring negotiation between the junta, Malian civil society groups and political parties, foreign governments, and international bodies.

What are the likely regional implications, if any, of this coup?

West African governments don’t like to see a president, particularly an elected one, toppled from power by his own military. ECOWAS will continue issuing strong statements and talking about sanctions. This is also because heads of state throughout the region don’t want their own military officers getting any ideas about emulating what happened in Mali.

Yet we saw in 2012 that ECOWAS had neither the will nor perhaps even the capacity to isolate Mali economically. I don’t expect that has changed, but the stakes are different this time: the Sahel is a much more dangerous place in 2020 than it was eight years ago. I would expect France and the UN, which have thousands of troops in the country, to be the real drivers of an international response to this coup.

Bruce Whitehouse, Associate Professor, Lehigh University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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How to Address Youth Violence in The Niger-Delta

Young people’s lives in Niger Delta have not improved despite the setting up of development agencies Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images

Modesta Tochi Alozie, University of Sheffield

Twenty years ago, local resistance arose in the Niger Delta because of the way oil revenue was being shared and how oil pollution was undermining local livelihoods.

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Why Terrorism Continues in Nigeria

Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Sheriff Folarin, Covenant University

For ten years, the Nigerian authorities have engaged the terror group Boko Haram in the northeast without making much headway. After what appeared to be some success in 2015 and 2016, there was a resurgence of Boko Haram violence in 2017.

This worsened with the emergence of Islamic State in West Africa and, in more recent times, banditry and kidnap gangs all over the northern Nigeria region.

Having studied this crisis over the years as a political scientist, my view is that it is rooted in ethnic, religious and partisan politics and corruption. National security springs from mutual respect, peaceful co-existence and equality of social groups. But as argued in a paper I co-authored, the affiliation of Nigerian leaders to identity groups poses a challenge to national security.

We conclude that the government must show the will to fight the terrorists and eschew nepotism and ethnic or religious sentiments in the war. It must also deal decisively with corruption.

Additionally, we underscore that neither Boko Haram or Islamic State in West Africa is Nigerian or Muslim. No responsible or patriotic leader should see it as such. Nigeria should be unified in the struggle and united against terrorism. This is how to beat it into a permanent retreat.

Ebbs and flows

Religious fundamentalism has long been a feature of social existence and relations in northern Nigeria. But religion-inspired terrorism emerged from 2009 after the murder by security forces in Maiduguri of the Boko Haram leader, Muhammed Yusuf, and hundreds of his followers. What started as targeting some members of the political elite in Borno by Boko Haram soon turned into organised bombings of public places.

Despite involvement of the military, foreign partners and counter-terrorism measures from 2011 to 2015, the government seemed unable to get a grip of the situation. Boko Haram grew stronger, expanded its operations and declared an Islamic Caliphate.

By 2015, over 10,000 people had been killed and about 3 million internally displaced. Hundreds of thousands had to flee into neighbouring countries.

The emergence of a former military ruler as president in 2015 created the expectation that the terror group could be brought under control. Instead, the Islamic State’s West African Province also emerged – a breakaway faction of Boko Haram. Violence escalated and spread.

There were some successes in rolling back the expansion of Boko Haram. Between mid-2015 and late 2016, the federal government moved the terror and counter-terror “situation room” to Maiduguri, the heart of the crisis. The military halted the expansion of the “Caliphate” and took back the 14 local governments seized by the terror group. Flights and normal business returned to most parts of the northeast. Attacks stopped and the military could claim that Boko Haram had been technically defeated.

But then, just when it seemed the menace of Boko Haram had been ended by sheer military force, the federal government suggested dialogue and ransoms. Aggression and violence returned in Northern Nigeria and still hasn’t been completely controlled.

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Read more: How Boko Haram has evolved over the past ten years

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One school of thought argues that the will and dynamic approach in the fight against Boko Haram were short-lived, which wasted the success achieved in two years. When the government sought dialogue and negotiation and paid ransoms, it re-energised the terror group.

Another view is that the current administration was weakened when it began considering amnesty for repentant members of the group and swapping their prisoners for release of innocent Nigerian and foreign captives.

Yet another view is that the group’s breakup into factions fueled internal competition, with the groups’ targets on the receiving end.

For me, two theories explain the protracted crisis. They also amplify the other perspectives.

Factors at play

First is that there are people in government who lack the will to fight because of religious and ethnic affiliations or connections. Some in government consider Boko Haram members as northerners or Muslims who should therefore be dealt with cautiously.

Some military leaders have been accused of nepotism and of giving away vital details to compromise the onslaught against the terror gangs. The Borno State governor recently accused the military of sabotage in an attack on his convoy.

The second explanation is corruption. Since 2014, some senior soldiers and their civilian counterparts directing the war have come to see the war budget as an endless means to draw money for personal enrichment. There are examples of counter-terrorism or so-called counter-insurgency funds stolen by the national security adviser and dozens of others as well as some isolated cases of stolen war money by some security or service chiefs. While some opted for plea bargains, others are still undergoing trial.

The recent rise in banditry and demonstrations against it show that the people can no longer accept the circumstances. Boko Haram, Islamic State, bandits and kidnap gangs are threats to Nigeria’s peace, stability, security and economic prosperity. Everyone wants a stop to it. What do we do?

How to break the vicious circle

Government has the responsibility to provide genuine leadership in the war. The statement credited recently to the army chief that the crisis can only be stopped by Nigerians, thus passing the buck to civilians, is irresponsible. It’s only the armed forces that have the arsenals and training to fight Boko Haram and other such groups.

Corruption must be fought and conquered. The Borno governor once accused soldiers of extorting money from motorists where Boko Haram has a strong presence. Such practices – as well as instances of compromised military intelligence – are a big problem the military high command must stop by itself.

Dialogue, negotiation, ransom payments, amnesty and integration of repentant insurgents into the army and society are not the solution. They will only serve as the internal seeds of destruction of the army and its efforts against terrorism.

And, in my view, any attempt to integrate “repentant” terrorists in the army will expose the military and security architecture to intelligence and operational compromises.

Sheriff Folarin, Professor of International Relations, Covenant University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Has Nigeria's poor health system been exposed by COVID-19 outbreak yet?

 

High school students wear face masks as they wash their hands on August 3, the first day of partial resumption of classes in Lagos, Nigeria, since the COVID-19 lockdown. Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Oyebola Oyesola, Cornell University; Christian Happi, Redeemer's University; Dr Adewole A Adekola, University of London; Dr Chinedu Ugwu A, Redeemer's University; Jonathan Heeney, University of Cambridge, and Opeoluwa Adewale-Fasoro, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

The pace of SARS-CoV-2 transmission has triggered different government responses globally. These have had varying levels of effectiveness and some unintended outcomes.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with many densely populated cities, presents a unique situation for the explosive spread of SARS-CoV-2. Factors include high population density, limited health-care resources and access, and a high poverty index among a range of other socioeconomic factors.

Yet, by early August the number of reported confirmed infections (44,443) and mortality (910) was lower than other countries with dense urban populations and similar socioeconomic challenges.

As we point out in our paper, Insights into the Nigerian CoVID-19 Outbreak, the exact reasons for this are not clear but might include societal, immunological, epidemiological, political and infrastructural factors.

In our paper we set out to describe the ongoing CoVID-19 outbreak and its associated peculiarities. We also identify critical steps that still need to be taken to contain and control the outbreak.

Insights

We found that the CoVID-19 outbreak in Nigeria showed age and sex specific differences. More young people were affected compared to older people. This was different to the global trend.

This age-specific difference was also seen across other African countries. Examples include Ghana and South Africa.

We hypothesise that the age difference in the profile of cases in Nigeria could be due to the lower median age (a more youthful population) in Nigeria and Africa compared to the US and European countries.

Also, there was a sex and gender-based difference in the severity of the outbreak in Nigeria. More males than females have been infected. This is similar to patterns elsewhere in the world.

The reason for this is not clear. Several factors have been suggested. These include the role of sex hormones in the regulation of immune response and the expression of the SARS-CoV-2 receptor.

The expression of the viral receptor - ACE2 - in the Nigerian population should be investigated using various tools such as immunogenetics. This kind of study would help us understand differences in the expression of the receptor across the country, and how this has affected the outcome of the disease.

In immunology, constant exposure to disease causing agents (pathogens) like viruses makes a critical arm of the immune system (innate immune system) more primed to be able to respond quicker and faster to different pathogens. This concept – called trained immunity – is being debated as a possible explanation for the low COVID-19 incidence in Nigeria and Africa due to constant exposure and high burden of different infectious disease.

However, the benefits or detriments of this still have to be fully explored.

Lastly, we argue that public mistrust, misinformation and disinformation could be a major driver of COVID-19 in Nigeria. This mistrust has been an offshoot of the initial widespread dismissal of the reported cases as a “disease of the elite” and an embezzlement ploy for allocated response funds.

This was further reinforced by conspiracy theories emanating from various traditional and online media sources. The consequences of this mistrust were reflected in non-compliance with lockdown rules and social distancing restrictions. This potentially undermined the impact of the government containment response.

A scientist at the African Center for Genomics of Infectious Disease receives suspected COVID-19 samples for processing. African Center for Genomics of Infectious Disease

Modelling

Our research used the age-stratified SEIR (susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered) model to predict and model the Nigerian COVID-19 outbreak.

This showed that Nigeria is still in the early stages of the outbreak. The expected trajectory depends on the mitigation measures to contain the spread. A surge is expected in the coming months.

It is important to note that the COVID-19 situation in Nigeria is fast evolving. It is therefore difficult to ascertain the efficacy of the mitigation measures.

In addition, this is only a prediction and comes with a level of uncertainty in the parameters and the simplification of the model we used. As with all models, it might not capture the full complexity of the outbreak. But it can help better understand the dynamics of the outbreak. And it can inform government decisions on future interventions.

Consequence and impact

The incidence and spread of COVID-19 has affected Nigerian public health facilities both negatively and positively.

One of the negative consequences includes the impact on other infectious diseases. For example, an evaluation of the Lassa fever epidemiological trend over the past 5 years (2016 – 2020) of the same reporting period (week 1 – 23) also indicates the highest case peak reported in 2020.

This surge might not be absolutely associated with the current COVID-19 outbreak. But the impact of the outbreak would undoubtedly influence resource allocation and the working capacity of the national public health infrastructure.

This suggests that the current pandemic could affect the epidemiology and response to other endemic and integrated diseases. These include cerebrospinal meningitis, malaria, cholera, measles, Lassa fever and Yellow fever.

On a positive note, the COVID-19 outbreak has brought improvements to the health sector. This has included an increase in the implementation of the collaborative One-Health approach. This involves the collaborative participation of stakeholders from the human, animal and environmental health sector.

Examples include the incorporation of veterinarians and environmentalists in the Joint Task Force in response to CoVID-19, and port authorities in the establishment of the Coronavirus preparedness group.

There has also been rapid scale-up and activation of various stand alone laboratories. Lastly, the pandemic has highlighted the enormous potential for genomic surveillance in Nigeria.

But the COVID-19 outbreak, like other infectious disease outbreaks, has exposed the fragile health system in Nigeria. The lack of adequate testing, the poor health infrastructure, sub-optimal investment and funding in the STEM field and inadequate trained health professionals, leave Nigeria on an unknown trajectory.

As we work towards returning to normal, we argue that Nigeria’s leeway out of the COVID-19 outbreak, and other future outbreaks, will require improved diagnostic capacity, effective testing and tracing, and massive investment in research and health infrastructures.

Oyebola Oyesola, Recent PhD graduate from Cornell University, Cornell University; Christian Happi, Professor of Molecular Biology and Genomics, Redeemer's University; Dr Adewole A Adekola, Pathobiology and Population Sciences, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, University of London; Dr Chinedu Ugwu A, Research Fellow/Lecturer, Africa Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Disease (ACEGID), Redeemer's University, Redeemer's University; Jonathan Heeney, Professor of Comparative Pathology, Cambridge University, University of Cambridge, and Opeoluwa Adewale-Fasoro, Researcher, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology department, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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What is ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3), the chemical that exploded in Beirut?

Wael Hamzeh/EPA

The Lebanese capital Beirut was rocked on Tuesday evening local time by an explosion that has killed at least 78 people and injured thousands more.

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Decrypted messages from the Biafran war that have remained secret for 50 years

A freedom march for Biafra held to mark the anniversary of the unilateral declaration of independence in 1967 that sparked a brutal 30-month civil war in Nigeria. Stefano Montesi - Corbis/Getty Images

Richard Bean, The University of Queensland; Frode Weierud, CERN, and George Lasry, University of Kassel

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Biafran conflict in 1970.

The trigger for the conflict was the proclamation by Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu on 30 May 1967 that Biafra had become a republic. After 30 months of war, Biafra surrendered and was once again incorporated into Nigeria.

According to the author John de St Jorre, between half a million and a million Nigerians died, mainly from starvation, during the war.

Through the efforts of their roving diplomats during the war, Biafra achieved recognition from the states of Tanzania, Gabon, Haiti, Ivory Coast, and Zambia. But the fledgling state struggled to secure wider diplomatic support. It also found it difficult to purchase weapons and smuggle them into its controlled territory via airlift.

The efforts of these diplomats have recently come to light through the decryption of telexes sent from Portugal to Biafra during the war. Telex, short for teleprinter exchange, was a method for transmitting messages electronically over land lines or radio. Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, had become the centre for Biafran diplomacy in Europe because the government of Portugal under António de Oliveira Salazar supported Biafra with air landing and communication privileges. Paris and London were also key centres for Biafran diplomats.

In our paper we set out what was in the encrypted messages, and how we solved them. Three of us worked on the project, each with different disciplines – a mathematician, a computer scientist and a radio technologist. We used manual and computerised cryptanalysis methods to decipher a series of transposition ciphers sent by Biafran officials in 1968 and 1969.

It took us three months to figure out how the encryption worked and what keys were used. We also needed to read about the context of the war to understand and interpret the messages. The historical figures were unfamiliar to us and many codewords were used for people, countries and objects.

In the end, the decrypted messages provided a treasure trove of information about how men and women working for the breakaway state in Europe tried to garner support for Biafra from afar during the war.

Decades long decryption project

At the time, the Biafrans sent some of their messages in plain English text and made some extra effort to encrypt some in order to ensure that at least casual eavesdroppers couldn’t read the encrypted ones. However, they made mistakes which meant that professional as well as amateur eavesdroppers could have read them.

We know of at least two professional organisations that did intercept them: the Swedish signals intelligence agency, the FRA, and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Some were also intercepted by at least one amateur radio operator, Frode Weierud, in Oslo, a co-author of our academic paper.

At the end of July 1969 Weierud discovered a signal in the shortwave band transmitting a regular message in radioteletype: “This is Biscaia testing to LDA/3”.

Using teleprinter devices, he was able to intercept a series of messages from the station “Biscaia”. The messages were initially in understandable English, but soon they started arriving in ciphertext, in both five-letter and five-figure groups.

Example of five-letter encrypted message.

These messages were from a telex link between Biafra and Lisbon. During the war, Biafra had only one telex machine. It was the only communications link to and from the outside world. The machine was moved around Biafra depending on what territory was controlled.

The unencrypted, or “plaintext” messages sent over the link were often intended for wider distribution via Biafra’s public relations firm in Geneva, Markpress. The encrypted messages were between Biafran diplomats in European cities and the leaders of Biafra and were not intended for public distribution.

Although Weierud tried to decipher the messages in 1974 and wrote to a cryptography journal about them in 1978, the messages remained publicly undeciphered until he published them on his website in 2019. A Swedish signals intelligence veteran, Jan-Olof Grahn, also described the content of some messages in a 2019 book.

After Weierud published the messages, I joined him, as did George Lasry, a computer scientist from Israel, to decipher the messages. This was a difficult task as the cipher system was unknown. In fact, we used advanced computer algorithms, and also needed to improve them, to decipher some of the more challenging traffic. We also had to resort to manual methods at some points, writing out the letters on strips of paper and rearranging them by hand to form readable English.

Solving the ciphers by hand.

The task took many hours across all the messages. In general, the task for a code breaker is easier when more “ciphertext”, or encrypted messages, are available. The Swedish intelligence agency would have made short work of the messages, given the great number of messages intercepted by their superior equipment and the regular nature of the messages.

For instance, each message begins with the word “SECRET” followed by the name of the sender and recipient, which is given in both plain and ciphertext. If the codebreaker knows a particular phrase like this, called a “crib”, occurs in the plaintext, this can make the process of deciphering much easier.

Being able to see the original texts allows for a more accurate record of history, as the messages offer a contemporary, first person view into the conflict. Later accounts may well be whitewashed or self-serving by contrast.

What we found

The broad subjects covered by the messages included travel arrangements, arms deals, expenses and public relations.

The longest message was from Austine Okwu, the Biafran representative to Tanzania, to Colonel Ojukwu about taking the Biafran cause to the United Nations General Assembly. Other key characters in the messages were Christopher Mojekwu, described as “Ojukwu’s closest confidant of all”, and Chris Onyekwelu, Ojukwu’s brother-in-law.

One of the messages referred to members of the delegation bringing Biafra into disrepute by not being able to pay their hotel or telephone bills. The leaders urged frugality in the message.

Other messages referred to logistics, travel and shipments. For instance, one message from Mojekwu to Ojukwu referred to a weapons transfer and contacting “Achebe” – perhaps referring to the famous author.

Another message from October 1969 referred to the possibility of flights for salt and meat, and the extension of a hospital under the direction of Edgar Ritchie, an Irish obstetrician.

What next

Many of the cities and characters are still obscured by acronyms or codewords and remain to be identified, such as “HY” and “Chabert”. On the other hand, we were able to identify a whole series of other codewords concerning places because the plaintext described public events using codewords.

The key to the solutions was increased by computer power, storage, improved algorithms and international collaboration. The five-figure ciphers remain unsolved for any readers who want a challenge; although if a “one-time pad” encryption system has been used correctly, they may never be solved. Such a system provides perfect security if certain conditions are met.

In contrast, the system used would not have provided security to a determined eavesdropper. This gave us a rare window to see diplomatic communication – often protected by strong encryption – in action. To listen in, intelligence agencies either break the codes or insert a “backdoor” into the machines used.

Apart from being a fascinating project, we also believe the messages we decrypted provide a useful complement to the later written accounts of the participants in the war.

Richard Bean, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland; Frode Weierud, Electronics engineer, CERN, and George Lasry, Ph.D., the DECRYPT Project, University of Kassel

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Discovery of the earliest glass production in Nigeria and what it means.

Glass related artifacts excavated from Igbo Olokun, Ile Ife. Left: glass beads, Right: fragments of glass making crucibles. Courtesy Author

Abidemi Babatunde Babalola, University of Cambridge

The story of humankind from the earliest times to the present is in many ways a story about technology. Archaeologists tend to study the development of technology to show how people lived and how they interacted with their environment.

Discoveries of technological innovation and skill in ancient African societies have challenged western theories that had no place for such evidence. Western scholars tried instead to explain these findings as the result of external influence. For example the debate on the invention of iron metallurgy in Africa remains unsettled. And it took several decades before Africans were credited for the construction of the Great Zimbabwe stone architecture.

My ongoing research is another example of how archaeological evidence continues to overturn assumptions about technology in African societies. I found archaeological evidence of sophisticated indigenous glass technology at Ile-Ife, in southwest Nigeria, dated to about 1,000 years ago.

The evidence shows that the region was not just a consumer of glass made elsewhere but also contributed to technological development, innovation and creativity. It also suggests that glass beads were mass-produced at Ile-Ife and traded as prestige items.

Looking for evidence

The first evidence of glass made by humans dates to 2,500 BC. Globally, archaeologically known centres of primary glass production are few and concentrated in the Middle East, Mediterranean and Levant.

When investigating ancient glass making, archaeologists look for furnace remains, tools, finished objects, production waste, and presence or availability of raw materials. To complicate the matter, glass production does not generate much waste because failed products, scrapings, or droppings are added to and melted with the next batch. But sometimes archaeologists are fortunate to have more than one form of material relating to glass production to work with. This was the case at Ile-Ife, where my research on indigenous glass making has been going on for nearly a decade.

Over the years, we focused on a site called Igbo-Olokun, where evidence of a glass workshop had been known for over a century but never studied in detail. We also studied archaeological materials stored in the Natural History Museum at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife.

The findings from the archaeological excavations at Ile-Ife include several pits that appeared to be furnace ruins, over 20,000 glass beads, 1,500 crucible fragments (ceramic vessels used in glass production), and several kilograms of glass waste. Another artifact from the site is semi-finished glass, which is the object of study of my recently published work. Semi-finished glass is a halfway vitrified glass. The raw materials for the glass have coagulated but not yet turned completely into glass.

Laboratory analysis of this material with my colleagues Professor Thilo Rehren and Dr Laura Dussubieux provided a better understanding of the chemical signature of the glass. We could determine the source and types of the raw materials used, and decipher the technological process.

Results of the analysis show that Ile-Ife glass is chemically distinctive. It is now referred to as high lime high alumina (HLHA) glass – not known from anywhere else in the world.

What this tells us

The Ile-Ife site is the first known primary glass workshop in sub-Saharan Africa. Like their counterparts in other parts of the world, the glass makers at Ile-Ife explored the raw materials – geological and forest resources – that were available in the area. The concentration of the elements of the glass is consistent with that of the geological components in the region, which suggests that the glass makers invented their own glass recipe using the available resources.

The glass makers in ancient Ile-Ife used feldspar-rich granitic sand and/or pegmatite as the source of silica. They also used snail shell, which would have helped to reduce the melting temperature of the silicate materials and improve the quality of the glass. The quality was as good as glasses from other ancient societies.

Besides telling us how sophisticated this technology was, the research also tells us more about the role of West African forest communities in early regional commercial networks. We have established that bead was the main product manufactured at the workshop in Ile-Ife. It appears to have been produced in large quantities for trade. This means Ile-Ife was a producer and supplier of prestige items.

It is known from the archaeological evidence that sub-Saharan Africa was entwined in global connection through importing items like glass beads as far back as 600-400 BC. But this luxury item was also available within the region a thousand years ago.

Africans patronised the local sources, circulating and consuming locally made items. Ile-Ife HLHA glass beads have been found in early West African trading towns and cities such as Gao and Essouk in what is now Mali, and among the glass beads used to adorn the elite burial at Igbo Ukwu in eastern Nigeria.

This research has illuminated an aspect of Africa’s past that is often misrepresented or completely obliterated. Africa has always contributed to global technological breakthroughs and economic systems. The continent has an untold history of creativity.

Abidemi Babatunde Babalola, Smuts Research Fellow in African Studies , University of Cambridge

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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