The Nigeria-based culture and politics magazine The Republic has released its latest issue—Volume 9, Number 2 (May–July 2025)—under the bold and satirical title, “Who Dey Fear Donald Trump? Not Us.” The edition explores Africa’s global positioning amid what the magazine calls the “new Trumpian era of multipolarity,” marked by shifting power dynamics, climate collapse, and the urgent search for homegrown solutions.

This issue’s powerful cover, titled “Make the World Burn Again” by Edel Rodriguez, features vivid flames—symbolizing both destruction and renewal—and sets the tone for the probing essays, interviews, and fiction within.

In his foreword, Editor-in-Chief Wale Lawal writes: “We have chosen this title to assert a distinctly African disposition toward power: unimpressed, unafraid and un-fooled.” Reflecting on theorist Arjun Appadurai’s framework of “nonisomorphic paths,” Lawal suggests that Africa is no longer merely reacting to global decisions, but increasingly shaping them: “Africa’s role is becoming increasingly direct… how African states, regional organizations, and initiatives respond to and influence these shifts in the interest of the continent.”

Reflecting on the articles, Lawal cites Trumpism as a key moment of reflection: “Not exactly the anomaly Western media portrays him to be, Donald Trump and his politics have mutated into a global grammar: a language of exclusion, denial and delusion, spoken from Israel to the UK. And yet, in many parts of Africa, this new disorder feels eerily familiar. We’ve seen this script before. Sometimes we’ve written it.”

Contributors to the issue include a diverse range of voices such as Chinyere Rita Agu, Manasseh Azure Awuni, Sokari Douglas Camp, Toni Haastrup, Imad Musa, Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, and Blessing Simura, among others. Articles explore the continent’s capacity to develop economic resilience and rethink foreign aid relationships (Abel B.S. Gaiya, Eberechukwu Ezike, Andrea Ngombet), while others call for intersectional and decolonial approaches to the climate crisis (Chido Nyaruwata, Imad Musa).

Elsewhere, essays by Maggie LoWilla, Nicholas Kimble, and Lotfi Sour examine alternative governance structures rooted in indigenous African models, feminist pan-African movements, and the role of civil society in political transformation.

This issue also marks a milestone for The Republic with its first-ever print collection of original fiction, selected by inaugural fiction editor Chiozie Obioma. These stories delve into themes of systemic neglect, racism, and the evolving meanings of African identity. A brilliant interview with Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ challenges the hierarchies of global literature and questions the idea of the “great African novel.” “We simply do not know enough and have not read widely enough to make such judgements,” he says. “The idea of major and minor literatures is manufactured for us.”

The issue ultimately centers on a critical question: “What happens when the fire reaches us? Or, perhaps more sharply, hasn’t it already been burning here for a while?” Yet, as Lawal emphasizes, the tone is not one of despair. “You will find voices that refused to play the fool… survival is not new.”

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Read a selection of articles from Who Dey Fear Donald Trump? and subscribe to The Republic here!