Having lost two successive elections to President John Kufuor, former Vice-President John Evans Atta Mills is tipped to win the presidential nomination for the opposition National Democratic Congress...

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's economic record is widely praised, as she gets ready for her first anniversary on 16 January. Yet she does not control the flow of finance...

In its last days, Charles Gyude Bryant’s National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) signed a US$900 million, 25-year deal with the world’s largest steel company, British-registered, Indian-owned and...

Since March, fighting has raged between rebels and troops in Senegal's southern Casamance province, driving more than 10,000 refugees across the border. Rebel fighters crossed too: their leader,...

Vice-President Atiku Abubakar launched his campaign for the presidency in Abuja on 25 November, insisting that he could win elections due next April, despite the open hostility of...

Intrigue, speculation, betrayal and disappointment marked the run-up to the 17 November deadline for submission of nomination papers to compete to be the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP)...

With President Olusegun Obasanjo's sacking of Transport Minister Abiye Sekibo on 6 October, the row over the 215 million euro (US$275.5 mn.) contract to supply aerial drones for...

Congolese President Joseph Kabila's campaign helicopter is at the centre of a legal battle between Belgian businessman Philippe de Moerloose and Guinea's Paramount Airlines' Ismaël Doukouré.

Within two months, Nigeria's political parties are due to chose their presidential candidates and launch their campaigns for next May's elections. So far, there is an eerie surreality...

On 20 October, Swiss-based and Canadian-listed Addax Petroleum announced that it was buying a controlling interest in a lucrative Nigerian oil block - the award of which until...

Africa, with less than four per cent of the world's air traffic, suffers about a third of its air disasters. The latest, on 29 October, killed the Sultan...

The French-sponsored resolution at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on 1 Novmber, increasing the powers of Premier Charles Konan Banny at the expense of President Laurent Gbagbo,...

As the net closes in on those state governors accused of corruption and fraud, President Olusegun Obasanjo's position has strengthened markedly against his Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and most...

Another round of regional negotiations has failed, a credible election is impossible by the deadline of 31 October and the international and regional organisations look increasingly ineffectual. The...

Diamonds slip through the export ban imposed on Côte d'Ivoire last year. Many are now routed through Ghana. Production is estimated at between 114,000 and 214,000...

International oil traders Trafigura's Chief Executive, Claude Dauphin, and his West Africa Manager Jean-Pierre Valentini remain in Abidjan's high-security Maison d'Arrêt et de Correction gaol. Trafigura denies wrong-doing...

In a system that typically leaves the key decisions until the last moment, Nigeria's politicians are leaving things very late. Nominations for candidates for next April's state and...

No Nigerian official has been able to explain convincingly the reasons for the delays in publishing the results of the national census held in March. That is no...

The poisonous waste was carried on a Greek-owned tanker , the Probo Koala, flying a Panamanian flag, leased by the London branch of a Swiss oil-trading company whose...

2 July: Probo Koala docked at Amsterdam after unloading at Algesiras, Spain. It asked Amsterdam Port Services (APS) to empty its slops tank. More than 500 cubic metres...

Opposition posturing and weak election monitoring handed President Alhaji Col. (Rtd.) Dr. Yahya AJJ Jammeh another easy win in the presidential election on 22 September. But it was...

While President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar sling mud at each other, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), an official anti-corruption body led by Nuhu Ribadu,...

The northern Nigerian elite is in the unfamiliar position of trying to side-step the manoeuvrings of a southern President determined to block the political ambitions of at least...

The choice of leading oppositionist Yaovi Agboyigbo as Prime Minister on 16 September and offers of aid and investment from Brussels and Paris point to a changing climate....

The opposition has dashed its hopes of victory by failing to field a single candidate. The two rival alliances stand almost no chance against President Yahya Jammeh in...

After almost a week of 'medical checks' in Switzerland, President Lansana Conté's quiet return on 17 August was marked only by a brief statement, without pictures, on state...

After spending US$22 million on the African Union (AU) summit last month, President Yahya Jammeh has called a snap election on 22 September. With only six weeks to...

Despite a record budget of US$1.2 billion for 2006, Rivers State government isn't helping those worst hit by the violence and oil shut downs in the Niger Delta....

The Ghana Bar Association says it is considering disciplinary action against Capt (retd) Nkrabea Effah-Dartey, a former deputy Interior Minister and ex officio Chairman of the Narcotics Control...

Dutch police are investigating Mittal Steel's US$900 million deal to mine iron ore in Liberia following a slew of allegations by politicians and trades unionists about the contract...

President Olusegun Obasanjo quietly reshuffled his reform team on 21 June. He moved high-profile Finance Minister and former World Bank Vice-President Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to Foreign Affairs and fellow...

The new government has started by shooting school children. On 12 June, five died in Conakry, two in Nzérékoré, some 970 kilometres south-east of the capital, and four...

At the Lumley Beach roundabout, the bar sign that said 'Sweet Salone 2025' has rusted over and nearly collapsed, leaving only Sweet Sal. With the other places of...

The row over a US$200 million contract won by Israel's Aeronautics Ventures to supply aerial drones for use in the Niger Delta coincides with last week's sacking of...

Fodé Bangoura is preparing for the presidency. In April, he helped the ailing President Lansana Conté to oust Premier Cellou Dallein Diallo and eleven other ministers. Then on...

The African Union's next host, for July's summit in Banjul, is upsetting those concerned with good governance and human rights. The charge sheet against Gambian President Yahya Jammeh...

The attempt to change the constitution, allowing President Olusegun Obasanjo to stand for a third term in 2007, has failed, defeated in a Senate vote. The result damages...

The business lobby Corporate Nigeria and mega-company Transcorp give substance to the view in Nigeria that all politics is business and all business is politics.

The United Nations and European Union are stepping up pressure on President Laurent Gbagbo's government to account for its oil windfall funds and its levies on cocoa exports....

Nobody seems to be in charge of Guinea. The authority of the state and the economy of the world's second largest bauxite producer (after Australia) have steadily dwindled...

Northern Nigeria's political elite flocked to Abuja on 20 April to launch the Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD), which aims to block a constitutional change allowing President Olusegun...

The top managers of the new Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD) are Lawal Kaita (former Kaduna State Governor under President Shehu Shagari); Ghali Na'abba (Speaker of the House...

Widespread scepticism has greeted denials by Chief of Staff and Presidential Affairs Minister Kwadwo Okyere Mpiani that he had no hand in the dismissal of four top executives...

As daylight faded, the United Nations helicopter carrying Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor came in low and fast over the hills of Freetown, depositing the Liberian warlord president-turned-fugitive inside...

When Liberia's ex-President Charles Ghankay Taylor finally arrived at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, he joined nine other indicted war criminals, both rebel commanders whom he is...

The main point of the United Nations-backed Special Court was to try 'those with the greatest responsibility' for the ten-year war that left 50,000 people dead and half...

A row between Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny and President Laurent Gbagbo about identity cards and the electoral roll goes to the heart of the political crisis (AC...

It was a bizarre political week, even by Nigeria's historically high standards. President Olusegun Obasanjo's advisors openly demanded the immediate resignation of Vice-President Atiku Abubakar after he publicly...

Why would leading arms exporter BAE Systems want to introduce Zamfara State Governor Ahmed Sani, who is under investigation by Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for corrupt...

After announcing on 22 March that his doughty security agents had foiled yet another coup plot, the tenth in twelve years, President Yahya Jammeh returned to Banjul under...

Intense pressure from domestic opinion and from the European Union - which threatened cuts in aid and promised US$4 million towards the $6 mn. election budget - persuaded...

The results of the 26 March elections will fuel concern among neighbouring countries. The coalition led by the Movimento Democrático das Forças da Mudança (MDFM), nominally loyal to...

The militants know that hostage-taking and cutting pipelines is the quickest way to draw international attention to the Niger Delta, as part of the cat and mouse game...

Some of the militant leaders linked to the attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta earn tens of thousands of dollars from contracts with the oil majors....

Some three million Ghanaians living overseas are entitled to vote in presidential and parliamentary elections, since President John Agyekum Kufuor signed the Representation of the People Law Amendment...

Expectations of an imminent oil boom may dominate campaigning for the 26 March parliamentary elections. It is five years since São Tomé signed a deal with Nigeria to...

There is no sign of a letup in the conflict between President Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Konan Banny, the former banker appointed Prime Minister last November. The United...

Opposition in Africa, and particularly Nigeria, is a dangerous business. It requires courage, determination and integrity; even then there is no guarantee of success. Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti had...

The release of four foreign hostages after 19 days in captivity in the Niger Delta did not end the crisis (AC Vol 47 Nos 1 & 2). Nor...

The main puzzle about the latest wave of attacks and kidnappings to sweep the Niger Delta is why it took so long this time. Local leaders had been...

China's US$2.27 billion foray into oil production for a 45 per cent stake in Nigeria's Block 130 is not the 'definitive agreement' that the China National Offshore Oil...

The great and the good lined up under the bullet-speckled walls of the National Assembly to welcome new President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf on 16 January (AC Vols 46 No...

Antoinette Sayeh, Minister of Finance: economist, ran World Bank programme in Benin, securing debt relief under Heavily Indebted Poor Countries scheme. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf hopes to do...

While Europe strives to keep out African would-be migrants, Algeria and, increasingly, Libya daily dump hundreds of them, penniless, south across the border into Niger. The European Union's...

The ruling Front Populaire Ivoirien's withdrawal from the national power-sharing government on 16 January serves up the first full-blown crisis to Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny, appointed on...