The seven presidential candidates and parties contesting the 7 December elections offer an odd mix of professed ideologies and political histories. For 50 years, Ghanaian political allegiance has...

On 6 November, a new prime minister, Ernest Yonli, took over from the respected but hamstrung technocrat Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo. His first big difficulty was to find enough...

Prime Minister Moustapha Niasse is getting ready to resign, probably before the constitutional referendum due on 7 January.

The nation's troubles are not over yet. On 10 December, elections for the National Assembly will follow the 22 October presidential election. This is the poll in which...

Nigeria is questioning the legitimacy of much of the US$27 million debt claimed by the Paris Club of Western government creditors. Almost unprecedentedly, the meeting on 26-27 October...

President Blaise Compaoré has been stuck in a political crisis for two years.

Investigators pursuing some US$3 billion of funds stolen by the late General Sani Abacha's regime between 1993-98 have established that the cash was deposited in more than 30...

Privatisation is keenly favoured by the international community and - for quite different reasons - by Nigeria's own business people. President Olusegun Obasanjo's privatisation plans, although behind schedule,...

President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba, is a Nigerian first. His efforts to reestablish the nation after two decades of misrule are now at risk from violence involving its...

The flight of military leader General Robert Gueï to Benin and the assumption of the Presidency by Laurent Gbagbo, the winner of the 22 October election, solves one...