Colonial-era censorship bodies continue to stifle African creativity, but a new wave of artists and activists are driving a pan-African push for reform.
Still from Rafiki.
Across Africa, censorship bodies—relics of colonial-era laws—restrict artistic expression and suppress dissent, stifling the transformative potential of art to challenge injustice and inspire collective progress.
We are in a unique moment where reforming censorship bodies is both vital and achievable. We are witnessing the rise of digital platforms—a tool for both communication and silencing—and social movements across the continent. In 2024, artists galvanized the youth-led, anti-austerity #RejectFinanceBill movement in Kenya; Sudanese cartoonists produced and communicated political analysis as their “forgotten war” moves into its second year; and theater makers in Zimbabwe redefined local participatory governance structures. Yet at all levels of artistic output, creatives face censorship, prosecution, and threats for expressing ideas and challenging power through their work.
On February 15, 2024, Nigerian filmmaker and scriptwriter Hajiya Amart received a letter from the Kano State Censorship Board:
I am pleased to write and revoke the license of Kannywood Enterprises Limited as a Distributor/Exhibitor as well as the License of Amart Entertainment due to the following reasons:
Non-compliance to the Rules of the Law of the Board
Defamation of character and abusing Director Film Production and Development in the Office of Executive Secretary in the Presence of Director Publications.
This letter wasn’t the first time Amart dealt with the censorship board. She had already received threats because of her advocacy against film piracy—often orchestrated to benefit board officials—and unfavorable depictions of authority in her work. As an advocate of artistic rights, she reported the board’s attempt to silence her to the commissioner of information and the attorney general in Kano State. In retaliation, the Kano State Censorship Board added “defamation of character” to her alleged offence and revoked her license entirely. Amart lost her livelihood and her ability to create and express, and she feared losing the company she had built to uplift the next generation of Nigerian filmmakers.
Amart’s story illustrates a systemic issue: censorship boards are key institutional mechanisms used to restrict artistic expression and protect political and cultural elites. In Kano State alone, artists reported over 160 cases of unjust censorship during the first three quarters of 2024. These trends spread across the continent. In Kenya, the acclaimed LGBTQ film Rafiki remains banned over six years after its release, despite an ongoing court case to reverse the ruling. And in July, Tanzanian authorities prosecuted and later abducted the painter and TikToker Shadrack Chaula after he criticized President Samia Suluhu Hassan through his art. These acts of censorship have a chilling effect on artists as the stakes of their expression become starkly evident.
Censorship boards’ entrenched power and approach to control is not coincidental. They are rooted in colonial-era frameworks designed to suppress art’s power to inspire cultural and political change. Today, they still operate under mandates of prohibition and restriction, not protection or classification. Their structure also responds to political agendas. These boards are almost universally composed of government appointees. In Nigeria, members of the National Film Video Censors Board are appointed by the president; in Zimbabwe, the Board of Censors is appointed by the minister; and Kenya’s Film Classification Board mirrors Zimbabwe with the addition of other members also serving in the executive branch of government.
Despite the challenges artists face across the continent, there is fundamental progress towards legislative reform.
In response to the revocation of her license, Amart filed a lawsuit against the censorship board at the Kano State High Court. For the first time in Nigeria, on Wednesday, November 13, 2024, the court ruled in her favor, restraining the Kano State Censorship Board from interfering with her artistic operations. This landmark ruling set a powerful precedent, encouraging other artists to resist censorship.
Along with changing legal precedents, national reform is already underway in Zambia. The censorship board was enshrined in their constitution by a colonial 1929 law. The board itself, housed under the Ministry of Information, stopped functioning seven years ago as Zambia focused on protecting artistic freedoms. However, the law is still in place, and a shift in political will could reactivate its function at any time. The Zambian Ministry of Youth, Sport and Arts has started the process of repealing the long-entrenched law by writing a Cabinet Memo. The Cabinet will review the memo at their next meeting, initiating procedures for constitutional reform.
From Nigeria to Zambia, there is important work taking place to shift censorship structures at both the local and national level. However, shared challenges demand collective solutions. Despite the similar structure and mandate of censorship bodies across Africa, there is yet to be a unified regional response to their control. While there is considerable effort in African civil society and policy circles to address defamation laws, which have long been used to suppress critical voices more broadly, the same focus has yet to be applied to censorship boards that target their restrictions on artists.
Transforming censorship bodies is a pan-African project that requires regional cooperation, even with distinct national legislative and governance landscapes. This is a moment of legislative and political momentum when change is timely and achievable. We need to use our successes to generate a structured response.
Many organizations working with local artists and government officials on reform are unaware of similar efforts happening in other countries. We need to create platforms where these groups can share insights, develop tactics, pool resources, and coordinate strategies. Such efforts must also lead to engagement with the African Union and other regional bodies from a unified and coordinated collective.
To reform censorship laws, we must undertake a detailed legal assessment of censorship laws across the continent, comparing their structures with diverse international models. This analysis is exclusively legal, not political. By filling this knowledge gap, we will develop model legislation that shifts the mission of censorship boards to one that classifies and protects cultural interests rather than restricts creative rights.
But legal transformation requires more than top-down legislative changes—it is an iterative process that demands setting new legal precedents. Amart’s victory in Kano State has powerful implications for holding censorship boards to account. We must work with networks of lawyers to identify and defend artists whose rights have been infringed upon and use these cases as catalysts for legislative reform.
By coordinating civil society engagement, legislative reform, and strategic litigation, we can reshape the structure and function of censorship bodies across Africa.
Join us on Thursday, December 5, at 4 p.m. CAT for a groundbreaking panel discussion on reforming censorship boards to advance artistic freedom across Africa. Hosted by Africa Is a Country and Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), this event brings together leading artists and civil society advocates from across the continent to tackle shared challenges, celebrate progress, and envision transformative policies. We will explore strategies to protect artistic expression and build a freer, more inclusive African creative landscape.
