''The Africans'' was a series of five fifteen-minute programmes broadcast on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

during 2007, introduced by Nigerian journalist Ken Wiwa, whose father

Ken Saro-Wiwa Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa (10 October 1941 – 10 November 1995) was a Nigerians, Nigerian writer, teacher, television producer, and social rights activist. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland ...

was executed by the Nigerian military government in 1995. The series attempted to give a more positive or different view of Africa than the commonly held pessimistic one, by interviewing "ordinary people doing extraordinary things" in different parts of the continent. The series was produced by Caroline Pare. The programme interviewed Africans living in

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

, Benin,

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and focused on the everyday lives of people working for social change, democratisation and progress in their own local communities. The series bore a resemblance to Radio 4's '' Crossing Continents'' and followed a similar format.

External links

* BBC Radio 4 programmes 2007 radio programme debuts {{BBC-radio-stub