Possible Clues:

• Former name of Zambia and Zimbabwe
• Onetime Botswana neighbor
• Hair wrapped round poems from the old country
• So I heard broadcast where Ian Smith was premier
• Old country broadcast set up to include last of such poems
• What became Zimbabwe
• Old country lanes heard cracking up
• Radio he's retuned once in Africa
• Greek island, one with a colony in Africa at one time
• Island south of Greek island, a former British colony