Assimi Goïta’s regime is teetering as insurgent attacks intensify and its Russian allies withdraw
Three days after Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) fighters killed defence minister Sadio Camara and destroyed his home in Kati, General Assimi Goïta finally resurfaced. After...
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The killing of Sadio Camara and the fall of Kidal to Tuareg rebels delivered a devastating blow to Assimi Goïta's junta and casts doubt on Russia's security claims
Amid a combined offensive by Tuareg and jihadist fighters against the Bamako junta at dawn on 25 April, the killing of Defence Minister General Sadio Camara, the architect...
A High Court ruling has effectively stripped the Office of the Special Prosecutor of its independence, giving President Mahama’s Attorney-General decisive control
Ghana's seven-year experiment with an independent anti-corruption prosecutor is unravelling. On 15 April, the High Court in Accra ruled that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) could...
A US-backed mining bid is stalling as environmental warnings and political hesitation in Conakry leave Ivanhoe Atlantic struggling for traction
The United States-registered Ivanhoe Atlantic, which aims to develop the Kon Kweni iron ore mine in southeast Guinea, has intensified its efforts to secure a mining permit after...
The former Vice-President has hired US lobbyists to exploit the Trump’s administration’s enmity towards President Tinubu
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has become the latest Nigerian politician to throw money at K-Street lobbyists, hiring Von Batten, Montague, York on a US$1.2 million retainer as he...
Leaked memos reveal millions spent on pro-Russian online stories, but the documents’ claims to be directing policies in friendly states don’t check out
A cache of 75 secret Russian memos about the Kremlin’s propaganda offensive in Africa by the Wagner Group and its successor organisation, ‘The Company’, has exposed a vast...
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Dakar’s negotiating team with the Fund wants to avoid a complex restructuring deal that will put the Sonko government’s growth plans on hold
Finance Minister Cheikh Diba is in Washington for high-stakes talks at the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings from 13-18 April for a fresh funding programme as the...
Dakar is paying the creditors but the political split between the president and the premier is widening
As Beijing has started to hold back vital funding, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko faces intensifying pressure to reach an accommodation with the IMF. The open rift between the...
The President is moving faster to unlock stalled investments but forward crude sales and pipeline attacks are cutting into the oil price windfall
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came to office in May 2023 promising to reverse two decades of decline in Nigeria’s petroleum sector, and on paper the progress is real:...
With real competition stripped from the race, the finance minister’s biggest obstacle is persuading citizens to turn out at all
As Romuald Wadagni approaches presidential election day on 12 April, abstentions pose the greatest threat to his hopes of securing a decisive mandate. With the main opposition...
When Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the World Trade Organization’s director-general, finally called time on its biannual ministerial conference in Cameroon in the early hours of 30 March, the sticking point...
The soft launch for Neofingo, a ‘Ghana-Britain digital trade finance corridor’, by a public and non-profit consortium on 28 March championed a new way to cut through the...
By getting MPs to back spending increases taking the 2026 budget to US$49.4 billion, a 15% increase on the plan tabled in December, President Bola Tinubu is leaving...
Expelled from the Sahel and estranged from Washington, the EU has signed its first African security pact with Ghana and wants Nigeria as an Atlantic anchor
Amid its fraying ties with the United States, the European Union is shoring up defences on its eastern flank and negotiating security deals in North and West Africa...
A mid-season farmgate price cut of nearly 30% has sent farmers into the streets, exposed Cocobod's $3 billion debt mountain and is damaging the President politically
When President John Dramani Mahama's National Democratic Congress swept back to power in December 2024 on a wave of popular goodwill, its pledge to nearly double the cocoa...
With output halved and farmers threatening revolt, the Mahama government chooses between radical reform for the cocoa board or its dissolution
When President John Dramani Mahama convened an emergency Cabinet meeting in February to address what officials privately described as a ‘structural heart attack’ in Ghana's cocoa sector, few...
Vol 67 No 6 |
- NIGERIA
- BRITAIN
With rivals co-opted, detained or outmanoeuvred, and a new electoral law, the President has engineered near-total political dominance
When they meet Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on his 18-19 March state visit hosted by Britain’s King Charles III at Windsor Castle, some politicians in the ruling...
Opposition activists claim that the new electoral act, hurriedly signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is aimed at disqualifying all the substantive opposition from contesting in national elections...
He was already leader of the traditional Dioula/Sénoufo hunter community – the dozos – when Ali Konaté rose to national prominence. In February 2018, dressed in his hunter’s...
Over two weeks, São Tomé’s police detained two foreign special advisors appointed by Prime Minister Américo Ramos and President Carlos Vila Nova. The scandals are an unexpected boost...
The spreading security emergency and foreign political interference will cost President Bola Tinubu votes
A claim by a United States Congressional committee that Nigeria is the deadliest place in the world to practice Christianity has reignited tensions between Washington and Abuja as...
A year after breaking with Ecowas, the military regimes face more jihadist assaults but are getting some unlikely help from the US
For the juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the first anniversary of their breakaway from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) was marked by an...
General Abdourahamane Tiani, Niger’s military ruler, is reluctantly climbing down from the junta’s bitter dispute with the French nuclear group Orano, even as he launched a fresh barrage...
Vol 67 No 5 |
- SIERRA LEONE
The President appears to be ignoring reforms agreed with the main opposition party
Political fault lines are widening ahead of national elections due by July 2028. The ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and the opposition All People’s Congress (APC) are...
With the economy in technical default and a student killed in campus protests, the prime minister may be forced to accept an IMF-debt restructuring
Senegal’s government is sliding toward a financial reckoning. Now Africa's most indebted country – its debts are estimated at 132% of GDP after a post-election audit exposed US$7...
Abuja is spinning President Tinubu’s stay in the Palace – and warmer ties with the British government – as part of a reset of bilateral relations
On the back foot since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu made France the centrepiece of his foreign policy, Britain is trying to restore its waning relationship with Nigeria. To...
Who would be in the new government? The buzz began after Côte d’Ivoire’s 27 December legislative elections, won by the ruling Rassemblement des houphoëtistes pour la démocatie et...
The former Vice-President will need new ideas and allies to take on President Mahama and his resurgent party
Mahamudu Bawumia has been re-elected as the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) presidential candidate for the 2028 general elections, securing 56% of the vote in the party primaries. This...
Growth, reserves and inflation are improving but the government’s new revenue drive is politically risky
Almost a year before they seek re-election, President Bola Tinubu and his All Progressives Congress (APC) administration continue to promote the much debated benefits of their ambitious reform...
A 1,000 tonne stockpile of yellowcake is the latest flashpoint in General Tiani’s pivot from Paris to Moscow
Concerns are growing for the security of a consignment of about 1,000 tonnes of uranium held at the Niger government’s military Air Base 101 next to the Diori...
Diezani Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s former Petroleum Minister (2010-15), appeared at Southwark Crown Court on 19 January ahead of her trial on 26 January. She faces six bribery charges, including...
By paying $9 million to US lobbyists through a pop-up law firm, the Abuja government has outbid Christian secessionists
Scrambling in the wake of US President Donald J Trump’s threat to ‘go into Nigeria guns ablazing’ on 1 November to end what he called a ‘Christian genocide’,...
A master of electoral politicking, the president is still threatened by rumbling insecurity and shockingly low federal revenues
Only a fool hell-bent on a suicidal path can dare to challenge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, 73, in 2027, says Vice President Kashim Shettima. Discounting politicians’ default sycophancy,...
President Mahama had the wind in his sails through 2025. This year will bring a mixed bag of golden opportunities and make-or-break need for reform
The honeymoon period for President John Dramani Mahama will come to an abrupt end in 2026 as political and economic challenges mount. Top of the list will be...
After winning his fourth presidential election, Alassane Ouattara is under pressure to organise a succession plan
With the presidential and legislative elections done and dusted amidst much indifference (the 28 December legislative elections attracted less than a third of eligible voters), political minds can...
Opening one of the biggest iron ore mines in the world helped General Doumbouya win the election – now people want to see the benefits
General Mamady Doumbouya is a happy man at the start of the New Year. Since his election on 28 December as Guinea’s first nonpartisan candidate (he hardly bothered...
Will President and Prime Minister agree to set aside differences and work together to meet great expectations and stop jihadists on the border?
This has to be the year of delivery for President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko as their administration moves into midterm, the electoral triumphs of...
The junta leader sidelined all election challengers – but frustrations among his fellow military officers are growing
The interior ministry awarded General Mamady Doumbouya a landslide in Guinea’s presidential election on 28 December but the junta is tightening control as it presides over the booming...
Both governments are turning jihadist operations to their political advantage
Few confirmed details have emerged about the Pentagon’s attacks – launching 16 GPS-guided missiles from MQ-9 Reaper drones – on claimed jihadist camps near Jabo in Sokoto State...