The stunning victory of President Laurent Koudou Gbagbo's Front Populaire Ivoirien in the parliamentary elections on 10 December settles nothing. In many respects, it makes matters worse. Even...

Opposition politicians brim with confidence after the 7 December elections gave the New Patriotic Party 99 seats in the 200-seat parliament against 92 for the incumbent National Democratic...

Are relations improving between Gambia and the Commonwealth? In 1995, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) was set up to look at members' attitudes to democracy.

Desperation and nostalgia help explain why more than 5,000 Sierra Leoneans crowded in to the National Stadium in Freetown on 23 November to show their support for British...

It seems that troops loyal to President Kumba Yala killed self-proclaimed Chief of Staff General Ansumane Mane in an ambush about 30 kilometres from the capital, Bissau, on...

One of Ghana's experienced political observers recently confided to a friend in Accra: 'For the first time in this country, I have no idea what is going to...

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...

As political crisis succeeds political crisis - insurgency in the Niger Delta, Yoruba separatism, Sharia and born-again Biafra campaigners - a new battle for power and influence is...

President Olusegun Obasanjo's security structure works as follows...

The head of the military junta, General Robert Gueï, says the generals who ranked second and third in his regime tried to have him murdered. And when seven...

Nwankwo Kanu of Nigeria, the current African Player of the Year who now plys his trade in Britain after spells in Holland and Italy, is telling British newspapers...

In 18 months' time, Mali is supposed to run two big events almost simultaneously - the African Nations' Cup and a presidential election. Malians may find the football...

The plot reads like a cross between West African market literature and an American soap opera. Yet the 'love story' - or mere 'platonic relationship' - between presidential...

Not much is going right in the government's efforts to relaunch licensing of prime oil exploration acreage: it had cancelled many awards made under military rule. The present...

Self-proclaimed guerrilla maestro Charles Taylor is in a bind. The border wars between Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, stoked by the Liberian President, are rebounding on his government....

General Robert Gueï's junta aims to set up a civilian regime before the end of the year, but is not even in full control of its own army....

New troubles face President Yahya Jammeh following the shooting of 13 student demonstrators in early April (AC Vol 41 No 8). Opposition leader Oussainou Darboe was arrested on...

Belgium's Chatelet Investment Company is suing the government in the first such case in a local court. Its lawyers, Banda Thomas and Co., appeared before High Court Justice...

The latest spate of sabre rattling between Monrovia and Freetown signals the final unravelling of the Sierra Leone peace accord signed in Lomé last July. The governments of...

The battle of the conjunctions has been joined. The conjunctions in question are 'ou' and 'et'. They are dominating political debate in Abidjan. Behind it is the constitutional...

In Paris, General Robert Gueï is supported by a troop of retired generals who have gone into business. Most prominent is Gen. Jeannou Lacaze, Chief of Staff of...

Spiralling fuel price rises, a troublesome cotton privatisation and a strong whiff of institutional corruption mean President Mathieu Kérékou should worry about his re-election fight next March with...

The future of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's government and of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (Unamsil) rests on a hastily constructed security pyramid. At its apex...

The arrest and detention on 19 May of Corporal Foday Sankoh, leader of the Revolutionary United Front, strengthened President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's weak and too conciliatory government. Kabbah...

President Olusegun Obasanjo ended his first year in office on 29 May much as he arrived, struggling on several fronts against outbreaks of ethnic, regional and religious violence...

The famous victory of 19 March (AC Vol 41 Nos 5 & 7) is 100 days old. The democratic elan and spirit survive but the 'state of grace'...

Britain's military and diplomatic mission in Sierra Leone is leaping rather than creeping. Among members of parliament from the ruling Labour Party side (and their Liberal Democrat allies)...

The next few weeks will be critical for Sierra Leoneans and, more widely, for peacekeeping missions across Africa. Much will depend on the defence of Freetown mounted by...

The suspense is over. President Jerry Rawlings told a special convention of his National Democratic Congress (NDC) on 29 April: 'When - I am not saying if -...

Abidjan's cash crisis has brought it to the verge of default on its Brady bond commercial debt. President-General Robert Gueï's key ministers - government coordinator Seydou Diarra and...

Two new rows are brewing about Nigeria's debt. One concerns the whereabouts of some US$700-800 million of Nigerian promissory notes. Although the International Monetary Fund says that there...

Near the top of the list for President Bill Clinton's trip to Nigeria in June are the Abuja government's plans for a huge expansion of the oil industry,...

The postponement of a critical cabinet meeting of 13 April to decide the dates of a constitutional referendum and subsequent national elections has sent some ominous signals about...

Gambians are shocked by the killing of 14 people, mainly students, when security forces quelled demonstrations in Banjul on 10-11 April. It could be a turning point for...

After intense and delicate bargaining to form the new government, Dakar politics became a shambles this week when Education Minister Marie-Lucienne Tissa Mbengue was dismissed after only a...

The determination of President Olusegun Obasanjo's government to probe the financial management of its military predecessors is to be tested by soccer star John Fashanu. He has launched...

Senegalese are still reeling from the change they have brought about. By voting out their President of 17 years, Abdou Diouf, they have steered the country into the...

President Charles Taylor's 15 March order closing down two independent radio stations - Swiss-funded Star Radio and the Catholic-run Radio Veritas - may be linked to embarrassing reports...

Relations between President Jerry Rawlings' government and the World Bank are at their lowest ebb following the Bank's decision to cancel a US$100 million water project loan because...

The government appears to have negotiated a respite in its latest crisis. On 29 February the governors of five northern states said they would stop plans to enforce...

Changement was on everyone's lips during the presidential campaign. And change is indeed happening in Senegal. For the first time, the man who has led one of Africa's...

President Mathieu Kérékou has kept his head down amid celebrations of his overthrow ten years ago. His friends say he developed humility when he became a Catholic while...

At least five major Western banks were involved in the transfer, in 1996 and 1997, of 973 million Deutschemark (US$512 mn.) of Nigerian state funds to accounts linked...

President Abdou Diouf's plans for a fourth term in office face two big obstacles in the 27 February elections: growing militancy and coordination among the opposition parties and...

From the day he pronounced himself President, General Robert Gueï has insisted he has no political ambitions and will withdraw from government as soon as free elections can...

Who controls account No. J36650-70 at United Overseas Bank, 11 Quai des Bergues, Geneva? That is the issue in Gambia's latest scandal. Details of the private Swiss account...

The much hyped, much criticised, trans-Saharan car race, the Dakar-Cairo Rally (still called Paris-Dakar), won huge but costly publicity when, instead of for the first time driving across...

General Robert Gueï is still far from consolidating his position as head of state following the 24 December Christmas coup that brought him to power. Too many civilians...