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Written By Dumebi Favour Ezekeke On the 26th of July, 2025, Grammy-winning singer Ciara shocked the world again. Not with a new single or a popular dance trend, but by becoming one of the first public figures to receive citizenship in the Benin Republic. This was celebrated in a public ceremony in Cotonou and by an Instagram post where she thanked the Beninese government for “opening its arms and heart to her.” While this news went viral, she is not the first celebrity or African American to trace their origins and find their way back to Africa. In January 2020, African American rapper and songwriter; Ludacris received citizenship in Gabon along with his mother and daughters. In May 2024, music legend Stevie Wonder also received Ghanaian citizenship from then-President Nana Akufo-Addo. Public figures aside, Africans in the diaspora are coming back to Africa in growing numbers. Some are obtaining citizenship, while others are pursuing education and deepening their understanding of their heritage. Many are also choosing to develop or start businesses on African soil that they hope will be impactful to the next generation. These changes stand out, especially at a time when diaspora wars on social media platforms seem to have reignited. This article looks at the reasons for this emigration, the history behind it, and why, for many people of African heritage, all roads now lead back to the motherland. What Sparked the Mass Return? In the year 2000, Ghana did an audacious thing. The country passed the ‘Right of Abode’ Law. This basically meant that any person of African descent in the diaspora, could live or work in Ghana without a permit. Provided that they are contributing substantially to the country’s development. Seven years later, Ghana stretched its hands out to the diaspora again with the Joseph Project. Which commemorated 200 years since the abolition of slavery by the British Parliament and again, calling the African diaspora to return home. This event went farther than the first, but it still stayed in the shadows. It was the Year of Return in 2019 that truly lit the match on all that the country had been trying to do since 2000. What started as a campaign mainly aimed at natural-born Ghanaians who had relocated abroad for one reason or another, spilled over to the wider diaspora and became an internet frenzy. Instagram reels of people taking videos on Ghana’s streets. Emotional videos of first-time visitors walking through the door of No Return. Celebrities like Steve Harvey going on his show to publicly discuss how he felt when he walked through the door. And influencers posting ‘before and after’ DNA results followed by their arrival into Accra, became the order of the day. To a layman, this could’ve felt like mere tourism. But for the people of African descent, it was way deeper than that. People started looking at land, scouting for business opportunities and applying for residency. By the end of the first year, over a thousand people from the diaspora had either been granted citizenship or Right of Abode in Ghana. And, this number is predicted to increase in the coming years, because this trend of returning is simply at the beginning. Now you may be wondering why Ghana is the core focus of this section. The truth is that they were the first to take up the baton. Over time, other African countries joined the race in their own ways too. In East Africa, Kenya began connecting with its diaspora through investment conferences, heritage tours and programs that made it easier for Kenyans abroad to reconnect with their roots. In West Africa, Gabon made headlines in 2020 when it welcomed Ludacris and his family as citizens. Ludacris, on the other hand, seemed to take it a step further by posting viral videos on social media that showcased his daily activities and experiences with the people of Gabon. Benin Republic also opened its doors in September, 2024. By enacting the My Afro-Origins Law. Which basically grants citizenships to people who can trace their ancestry to Africans taken from the region during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Less than a year later, this policy became more than words on paper when Ciara honored it and received a Beninese citizenship. So far, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, and Benin Republic are the only countries in West Africa to enact such “My Afro” laws, but it is a wave that is likely to grow in the coming years. Why is This Happening Now? Africans on the continent often react with shock or disbelief, when they hear that people from the diaspora are choosing to return. Especially at a time when so many locals are trying to leave. For those at home, leaving often means chasing better opportunities, safety, or stability. For those abroad, coming back can mean searching for belonging, reconnecting with culture, or investing in the future here. The contrast is striking, and it shows how different experiences can shape how we see the same place. In April 2025, Edith Kimani hosted a public debate on  Deutsche Welle (DW) where Ghanaian locals openly questioned whether returnees were simply coming back because they had made enough money abroad and now saw little future there. But for the returnees, the story couldn’t be more different. It was not about the money but the pull of belonging. That indescribable comfort of tracing your roots, reconnecting with family and being seen for who you truly are, without anything attached. Similarly, in a research on Sierra Leonean diaspora tourists, participants described how visiting their homeland eased isolation, deepened emotional ties to the land and brought psychological healing. Steve Harvey once captured these feelings in much simpler terms: In foreign lands, he felt weighed down by race and labels. But back home, those labels slip away. ‘You’re no longer known as the “other”, you’re just yourself; walking, living and belonging”. This proves that these changes are not just mere social media trends or FOMO. It’s a deep human urge

Written by: Dumebi Favour Ezekeke Are dolls mere toys? African girls of the 21st century, like me, still vividly remember our Barbie years. Yes. That period when a doll and a string of cartoons sparked an entire era of pop culture, music, beauty, and fashion standards. At the time, our interactions with these dolls seemed harmless. Barbie dolls came across as a beautiful and incredibly cool representation of a female lead character we saw on our screens. But I remember wishing my Afro hair could grow long and silky like Barbie’s. I wished my waist could shrink into the kind of figure that let you wear Barbie’s outfits. I wanted the songs, the sparkle, the fantasy. And I know I wasn’t the only one. In fact, the Barbie culture ran so deep that it seeped into celebrity culture and mainstream music. Nicki Minaj, for instance, continues to embody what a “real-life” Barbie should look like. And at the time she took on the name, girls like me; watching from the other side of the screen, saw her as proof that Barbie could be real. But the sad part was, she still didn’t look like the average Black girl. These dolls carried quiet messages about what beauty should be. And somehow, we were made to feel wrong for not being a part of it. This reflects the deeper truth about dolls and their significance; they are not just toys. They are symbols. And Barbie is not the only one that has carried this kind of weight. Long before her, African doll-making was a practice deeply tied to womanhood, fertility, ancestry, and identity. But the message of “civilization” that colonialism brought along branded these traditions as primitive. It called the craft “witchcraft” and erased it from cultural memory. But what did we lose when we stopped making our dolls? What stories did traditional African dolls tell? Unlike the average Barbie or commercialized dolls found in markets today, African traditional dolls rarely aimed to replicate the female body or push any standards of what physical beauty should look like. Even though the process itself was often an art passed down from mother to child. In many parts of Southern Africa, for instance, girls were taught by older women (usually their mothers) in their families, to sew, crochet and design clothing for their dolls. According to the Australian Institute of Arts, this early engagement of doll making for young girls helped in shaping their abilities to imagine, create or express themselves.  In other words, under such circumstances, the doll itself (or what it should look like) was never the issue. It was the act of creating that mattered. Doll making wasn’t just about shaping creative processes. It was also about giving young African girls a sense of belonging. Like; ‘I am allowed to create what I play with and not just buy it off the market’. Read that again.  This freedom meant that no two dolls had to look alike. Some had elongated necks stacked with beads. Others had exaggerated heads or no facial features at all. Some were wrapped in fabric with intricate patterns, while others were carved from wood and adorned with cowrie shells. They didn’t come out of factories, they came out of the mind.  This may be one of the reasons why it was easy (especially under colonial and missionary eyes), to look at these dolls as figures of witchcraft and not as symbols of cultural and creative exploration.  The creative exploration of female identity through traditional doll-making was only one version of its significance. Dolls were also often deemed as gifts, goodluck charms and symbols of deep cultural and spiritual meanings. Some notable examples of such dolls includes: Ndebele Dolls: Deeply rooted in the Ndebele culture of Southern Africa, Ndebele dolls were not just symbols of tradition, but of femininity itself. They were often gifted to young girls by their mothers or grandmothers at different stages of life. And because of this, the dolls came in different variations. There were dolls for fertility, for coming of age, for ancestral lineage, and for spiritual connection to the community. Each one marked a moment. Each one carried a message. They were the clearest depiction of what Ndebele femininity looked like, or what a woman was expected to grow into as she got older. Ere Ibeji Dolls Alternatively known as ‘twin memorial dolls’, the Ere Ibeji are deeply rooted in the Yoruba tradition of Southern Nigeria. They were often sculpted after the death of one twin, not as toys, but as spiritual placeholders. These dolls were never played with. Instead, they were cared for by the mothers as if they were the living child. Many times, the mothers bathed the carved figures in special oils, dressed them, fed them, and even danced with them during festivals. The making of these dolls was rooted in the belief that twins share one soul. So, when one passes, it becomes necessary to create another figure to maintain spiritual balance between the twins, regardless of the distance or realm one of them may have crossed into. Namji dolls Namji dolls of Cameroon also held deep cultural and spiritual significance, much like the Ndebele dolls. These dolls were often given to brides on their wedding day as symbols of good fortune during childbirth. They were carved from wood and adorned with beads, cowrie shells, and sometimes coins. Each item is believed to carry spiritual or fertility power. Some were also given to young girls, who cared for them like real children, learning early how to nurture and take responsibility. More than just symbols of motherhood, Namji dolls carried the spiritual weight of femininity in the Namji culture.  How African Traditional Dolls became witchcraft The answer to this question can be summed up in one word; colonialism. Sure, in our history and government classes back in secondary school, most of us were told that colonialism was justified because it came to ‘civilize’ the so-called primitive cultures and