Imagine you are young in Nigeria, and the world feels heavy. The electricity flickers, the prices in the market climb, jobs seem to hide from your CV, and every election cycle brings a storm of promises that often evaporate before the ballots are counted. In the middle of that exhaustion, a musician named Alex Ibeh—known to many as Kool’—stepped forward in Abuja at the investiture ceremony of youth ambassadors for the Independent National Electoral Commission. He was not there to perform or entertain. He was there to talk plainly to his generation, and he used one image that should linger…

Israel is gearing up for its 2026 election, and the conversation around it sounds like something from a science-fiction thriller. There is talk of artificial intelligence, deepfakes, malicious bots, and social media campaigns designed to deceive voters in ways that did not exist just a few years ago. And yet, if you actually walk into a polling station on election day, you will find something almost stubbornly old-fashioned: a physical piece of paper, a pencil, and a ballot box. This is not an accident. It is a deliberate design choice, according to Dean Livne, the acting director general of Israel’s…