Rip-roaring growth, youth unemployment and deepening schisms in the political class will make for an eventful year before the 2015 elections
With some 170 million people, 250 different languages and an economy about to overtake South Africa’s as the continent’s biggest, Nigeria is in many ways a symbol for the rest of Africa in 2014. Its economy is blowing in all directions, many of them eagerly followed by foreign investors in pursuit of fabled hyper-profits, but its politics are more contested than ever, often in the most damaging way. President
Goodluck Jonathan is at war with his own People’s Democratic Party: five state governors have defected to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), as have 37 members of parliament, depriving the PDP of a majority (AC Vol 54 No 25, Presidential letter bombs and Vol 55 No 1,
Goodluck Jonathan loses the numbers game). Now the talk in Abuja is of senators defecting to the opposition, which would allow it to scupper what remains of the President’s legislative programme.
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April's elections will be more about the standing of President Zuma than about loyalty to the governing ANC
There is no serious doubt that the governing African National Congress will easily win the general election likely to be held in the last two weeks of April. The real question will...
Secretive and fearful of change, the ruling circle sees no reason to rock the boat with reforms. New major projects are likely to suffer delay
Whether or not the speculation about President José Eduardo dos Santos being in poor health turns out to be correct, 2014 could be the year that his successor is named. His ...
