'Everything is in place,' the tall man in babariga assured his audience in a Kaduna street. 'In place for what?' came the reply. 'Regime change of course!' the...

With a presidential election looming on 21 December, Guinea's military high command has banned soldiers from carrying arms in the Samory Touré barracks ­ where President Lansana Conté...

President Laurent Gbagbo's state visit to France, now rescheduled for sometime in January, will test diplomatic limits on both sides. Gbagbo doesn't want to appear too chummy with...

Who stole Nigeria Airways? A cabal of managers, ministers and senior officials, said a judicial inquiry report last month. It details how the airline was destroyed by asset...

Lieutenant Zadi's forcible interruption of state television programmes on 30 November to demand the withdrawal of French troops may presage a new offensive by loyalists of President Laurent...

The row over crude oil supplies to the state-owned Volta River Authority is turning into a full-scale political battle in the run up to next year's general elections....

The sacking of Jackson Gaius Obaseki, Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, on 3 November, is linked to the growing problems with well connected firm Sahara...

Renewed fighting in Liberia's north-east Nimba County rings alarm bells across the region. Fingers are pointing at ousted President Charles Ghankay Taylor, now exiled in south-eastern Nigeria, who...

There is growing frustration that a boycott of an immunisation campaign in northern Nigeria may be leading to a resurgence of poliomyelitis in the region. This would thwart...

The government's latest bid to liberalise (and inevitably raise) fuel prices has united traders, trades unionists and state governors against President Olusegun Obasanjo's new economic team. The team...

Allegations by Federal Capital Territory Minister Nassir el-Rufai that two senators had solicited a 54 million naira (US$420,000) bribe for approving his appointment are set to cause more...

Togo was a German colony, then a French one. The two former masters now disagree about Togo's dubious democracy and its 35-year President, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, 65. European aid...

Rilwanu Lukman's sudden resignation on 7 October as Special Advisor on Oil to Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo is likely to trigger other high-level departures as the crisis in...

President Olusegun Obasanjo's commitment to fighting oil sector corruption (AC Vol 44 No 18) is being severely tested on the one hand by a Federal Government probe of...

Africa's most predicted coup finally happened on 14 September when Army Chief of Staff General Verissimo Correia Seabra stepped in to end President Kumba Yala's ill-starred three and...

Despite the repeated declarations of peace, Côte d'Ivoire's crisis is still far from solution. As the conflict heads into its second year, the splits between President Laurent Gbagbo's...

The military's plans for the Niger Delta are unclear. The army launched 'Operation Restore Hope' in July, with the stated aims of enforcing peace and protecting oilfields. Troops...

The kidnapping of Anambra State Governor Chris Ngige and the subsequent impunity of those involved have dealt another blow to the credibility of President Olusegun Obasanjo's post-election government...

In recent years, President Yahya Jammeh has quietly established himself as one of former Liberian President Charles Taylor's best allies in West Africa. Their relationship seemed to...

As relations worsen between President Laurent Gbagbo and Prime Minister Seydou Diarra, a coup plot is no great surprise. But the plotters, a group of mercenaries led...

While delegates to the Ghana peace talks wrangled about how many vice presidents Liberia should have in a new interim government, President Charles Taylor still remained in Monrovia...

The death in custody of Revolutionary United Front leader Foday Sankoh on 29 July is the latest blow to the United Nations-backed Special Court's efforts to bring those...

As Nigerian units redeploy to Liberia from United Nations' peacekeeping duties in Freetown, child protection agencies are warning that severe funding shortfalls for long-term rehabilitation of child soldiers...

The latest coup attempt in São Tomé e Príncipe, which only temporarily toppled President Fradique de Menezes (who was in Nigeria when it happened on 16 July) and...

The indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas by the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) in the latest upsurge of fighting has removed any lingering hope that...

Next week, the first component of 1,000 West African peacekeepers is due in Liberia to enforce a fragile ceasefire between President Charles Taylor's crumbling government and his rebel...

Accra has become the centre for the inchoate efforts to end Liberia's civil war after weeks of hosting inconclusive peace talks and now, planeloads of foreign military planners....

Liberia's latest ceasefire lasted barely a week. President Charles Taylor vowed to fight on as the rebels advanced through Bushrod Island and headed for Monrovia's city centre and...

General Abdulsalami Abubakar appeared to have won the trust of all sides at the peace talks in Ghana. The Nigerian former ruler was on the verge of getting...

Promising that his second-term government would be based on merit not party allegiance, President Olusegun Obasanjo said the focus would be on economic growth and job creation as...

A new security team is emerging to take on rising crime, threats of terrorism and political unrest in the Niger Delta as President Olusegun Obasanjo consolidates power. Here,...

The Sierra Leone Special Court's indictment of President Charles Taylor leaves him little option but to fight to the death, potentially taking the thousands of Liberians who have...

Revelations by Royal Dutch/Shell that thefts of crude oil from its operations in the Niger Delta could amount to as much as 100,000 barrels a day have been...

President Gnassingbé Eyadéma will secure a third presidential term on 1 June but this time, hardly anyone is taking the process seriously. The European Union's decision not to...

The Special Court set up to try those 'who bear most responsibility' for the decade-long civil war faces a cash crisis which may delay trials and scupper plans...

Three former officials of ex-President Jerry Rawlings's National Democratic Congress (NDC) were gaoled on 28 April for their part in the Quality Grain scandal, involving a loan of...

President John Agyekum Kufuor's late March cabinet changes brought in some younger ministers and deputy ministers, but were dismissed by the opposition National Democratic Congress as 'more recycle...

The planned United Nations Security Council mission to West Africa will find President Charles Taylor in a tight corner. Two armed groups on two fronts supported by Guinea...

President Charles Taylor in March 2003 told the press that Liberia had 'ordered arms'. Defence Minister Daniel Chea subsequently provided a 'comprehensive listing of military hardware and materials...

Despite a new ceasefire signed by the government and rebels on 3 May, tension has scarcely abated. The latest flashpoint for violence is the students' union congress, where...

'Don't give me any more of those Florida results!' bellowed a Nigerian journalist at a computer screen in the Election Commission's media centre. The machine was spewing out...

The presidential and gubernatorial elections in the oil-rich Niger Delta set new standards of improbability. Just over twelve hours after voting ended in some parts of Rivers, the...

Two former military leaders, General Abdulsalami Abubakar and Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, look out from their hilltop mansions in Minna, central Nigeria, unperturbed by the furore over the elections...

A battle is going on behind the scenes at the United Nations Security Council over whether to give sanctions on Liberia a wider regional focus. Key issues are...

The 1 June presidential election could be as big a travesty of democracy as 1998, when the electoral commission was replaced on polling day so that phony results...

President Amadou Toumani Touré ('ATT') has had little chance to relax after his election in May 2002, as he struggles with domestic politics and the economic fall-out from...

After the multi-million dollar election cycle this month, the winners will face an array of pressing economic and political issues... Criminality and security: The police service urgently...

Nigeria's elections were pulled back from the brink of collapse on 16 April when leading opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari insisted he would not join a boycott of presidential...

President Laurent Gbagbo, under fire over renewed claims that his government is using mercenaries to fight rebels in the north and west, may have thought he was hiring...

The 5 pm traffic jam of cars with African Development Bank licence plates heading out of Abidjan's Plateau business district to leafy villas in Cocody and Deux Plateaux...

Around President Laurent Gbagbo is a hard core which is fiercely opposed to the Marcoussis peace accord and firmly convinced of the truth of Pastor Moïse Koré's assertion...

Gravely ill with complications from diabetes, President Lansana Conté has withdrawn to his home village of Moussayah, leaving the army and the divided opposition holding their breath...

Just when oil markets needed abundant West African crude supplies (AC Vol 44 No 6), an explosion of violence in Delta State has cut off a third of...

After Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia, neighbouring Guinea faces troubled times. President Lansana Conté, who has heart trouble, diabetes and a heavy smoking habit, seems too ill to succeed...

The political scene has been ominously quiet as several constitutional issues rumble. The most serious is whether the 18 April presidential election can be held within President Olusegun...

Nigeria's 36 state governors have proved a durable crowd. All but two of those elected in 1999 are to stand again for the same party in April's elections...

It was an impressive turnout. Forty-two heads of state or government braved the icy cold of Paris and its unlovely Porte Maillot conference centre for the biennial...

Some 20 to 30 people accused of the most heinous crimes in Sierra Leone's brutal civil war are to be tried this year at the Special Court in...

Nigerians now have a choice of presidential candidates in the 19 April election which almost exactly reflects the nation's schisms and idiosyncrasies (AC Vol 43 No 25 &...

France's efforts to impose a peace accord have failed. Côte d'Ivoire will now dominate the Franco-African summit in Paris on 19-21 February, far more than the controversial presence...

Major changes to laws on eligibility to hold political office and to own land have been outlined by Côte d'Ivoire's political parties and rebel movements meeting in France...

The standoff between President Fradique de Menezes and oil interests in Nigeria, Norway and the United States blocks development of São Tomé e Príncipe's offshore zone, which may...

Sindiély Wade, daughter of President Abdoulaye Wade, chose to compete in the Paris-Dakar rally the one year the rally came nowhere near the Senegalese capital. Part of Nissan's...