Worsening international economic conditions, tighter credit lines and Nigeria’s weak industrial policy have led to a sharp cutback in the US$3.3 billion cement manufacturing deal between China’s Sinoma...

The hard-fought general elections on 7 December saw many national political figures lose their parliamentary seats. Neither of the two leading presidential candidates gained enough votes to win...

Whoever wins the second round of the presidential election – John Atta Mills or Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo – will have to make tough economic decisions as...

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria says there is no need to panic, the country is adequately insulated from the global slowdown and will not suffer...

Calculated and recalculated according to the wild swings of the global oil market, the 2009 budget is almost up there with the election tribunal and the cabinet reshuffle...

The catastrophic failure in November of Nigeria’s US$340 million, Chinese-built satellite NIGCOMSAT-1, launched only a year ago, is the latest, most visible indication of increasing difficulties...

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s desire to put an end to ‘dollar diplomacy’ (AAC Vol 1 No 11) has been put to the test by his counterparts in Burkina...

Three groups of ambitious politicians stalk Abuja's corridors of power, hoping for events to unfold in their favour. There are the men who would be king: former Vice-President...

After months of speculation, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has sacked half his cabinet but retained several of his old associates and surprisingly kept on a few of the...

Last week's discovery of a consignment of weapons in a car en route to Mali raises yet more questions about corruption and divisions within Guinea's security forces. A...

A sizable and much-ballyhooed credit line looks to be little more than a goodwill gesture from China to Nigeria, promising much but delivering little. The brief fanfare attached to the initial...

Born in 1954, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala studied economics at Harvard University, then earned a Ph.D in regional economics and development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981. She joined the World...

Since joining Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's cabinet in 2007 as Finance Minister, Shamsudeen Usman has courted foreign investment - particularly from China - to rejuvenate Nigeria's infrastructure and boost its petroleum production....

Ambassador to Africa’s biggest oil producer, Xu Jianguo has presided over a rapid expansion of commercial and diplomatic ties since his posting to Abuja in September 2006. Chinese...

Agreements signed this month between Dangote Industries of Nigeria and China's Sinoma International Engineering Company to build 13 cement production lines across Africa at a cost of US$2.8 billion will give...

The appointment of a new Prime Minister in São Tomé e Príncipe could herald a reverse for Taiwan, according to regional diplomatic sources, who say political and commercial considerations are pushing the government...

Taiwan's Presidential elections on 22 March have delayed the appointment of Taipei's new ambassadors to Gambia and São Tomé e Príncipe. Taipei may also be waiting to see what comes...

The abrupt closure of the Malaysian textile company Ramatex Group's operations in Windhoek with a loss of 3,000 jobs in early March has sparked a political row with trades unionists accusing...

The new Defence Ministry building in Accra is under construction by Chinese contractors. Chinese companies built the Tamale and Sekondi stadiums, which were used in February’s 2008 African...

Politicians all agree that the latest election deadline of 30 November cannot be met and expect the polls to be held in March next year at the earliest....

A trio of veterans compete to fill the shoes of Côte d'Ivoire's founding President Félix Houphouët-Boigny. President Laurent Gbagbo, 63, was a university teacher and trade unionist who...

In another desperate attempt to win over some opposition supporters to his ineffectual coalition, President Thomas Boni Yayi announced a ministerial reshuffle on 22 October. Yet the horse-trading...

Watching oil prices fall from US$147 a barrel to $57 over the past month and listening to endless media speculation about his health must have been disconcerting for...

Nigerian visitors to London’s Heathrow Airport are pleasantly surprised to see billboards publicising one or another of their country’s biggest banks. Many of the taxis operating out of...

Officials from Guinea’s Ministry of Mines are due in Beijing to negotiate a US$21 billion countertrade deal to swap bauxite and iron ore concessions for investments in dams,...

Liberia's government, foreign diplomats and United Nations officials say that Liberia is a nation reborn. War is over, corruption is being rooted out and under the two-and-half year...

Life in Liberia is gradually improving, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told the United Nations' General Assembly to some applause on 23 September. The economy has been getting...

A new round of legal action against local and foreign companies accused of dumping toxic waste in Côte d'Ivoire which killed 16 people in 2006 could have serious...

Nobody has told Nigerians what was wrong with their President, who was in hospital in Saudi Arabia from 20 August to 6 September. Things are clearly not well...

In northern Ghana, the campaign got off to a violent start when Mahamudu Bawumia, vice-presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party for the elections on 7 December, arrived...

The two main parties’ vice-presidential candidates are both under fifty years old and from northern Ghana. Otherwise they are very different. The National Democratic Congress’s John Dramani...

President Abdoulaye Wade took office in 2000, claiming democratic and economic credentials. Times have changed. After scandalous revelations about budgetary excess, his government’s competence and honesty are being...

Things turned nasty in late July, when the Minister of Justice, Carmelita Pires, and the Public Prosecutor, Luis Manuel Cabral, received death threats. This was due to their...

Britain’s Virgin Atlantic has lost the first round in its battle with Nigeria’s government and is expected to sell all but 7% of its 49% stake in the...

Telecoms impresario Mike Adenuga has bounced back, despite the longrunning investigation into his company by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The rumours of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s demise reverberating around Nigeria’s mobile phone networks over the past week were assuredly exaggerated, a combination of misinformation and idle political...

Concern about the conduct of December’s elections is growing in the wake of violent clashes during the primary elections, electoral registration and political rallies.

Offering military assistance to a country that did not request it is extremely bad manners, responded a seasoned Nigerian analyst after French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British...

Nigerian suspicion of foreign military support creates opportunities for the security professionals, some of whom are looking for business openings since an agreement between the United States and...

It is a rule of politics that any substantial sale of state assets agreed less than six months before national elections needs close scrutiny. The government's decision...

Political controversy has dogged Ghana Telecom since the telecom sector was deregulated in the mid-1990s under the National Democratic Congress government. Its performance under the management of Telkom...

The shock must have been great when mining giant Rio Tinto was told on 4 August that it had just lost its greatest potential asset, the gigantic...

President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's appointment of new service chiefs and a new Chief of Defence Staff on 20 August will further reduce the political power of former President...

Since President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua came to power after a widely-criticised election and started extolling the rule of law much has changed. Yar Adua's own electoral case will...

Even his opponents concede that Tsatsu Tsikata is a gifted lawyer, whose ties with ex-President Jerry John Rawlings have kept him at the centre of Ghana's bitter political...

Cameroonian security forces in the disputed oil-rich Bakassi peninsula are on maximum alert after fatal attacks by the Niger Delta Defence and Security Council. The NDDSC, a little-known,...

On election, President Ernest Bai Koroma gave himself three years to turn Sierra Leone around, but the first year has been unimpressive, and the smart performance of President...

Finance Minister David Carew, Foreign Minister Zainab Bangura and Lands Minister Benjamin Davies are generally held in high esteem. Other ministers are less appreciated. Rumours of corruption and...

President Laurent Gbagbo assured representatives of the United Nations Security Council - on a flying visit to Abidjan on 9 June - that the November election deadline would...

Côte d'Ivoire's Public Prosecutor, Raymond Tchimou, is leading a crackdown on corruption in the cocoa industry, which accounts for 40% of world supply. On 13 June, Tchimou announced...

Ghana seeks partners following its 19 June purchase of Alcoa's 10% stake in the 200,000 tonne/year Volta Aluminum Company (Valco) smelter, mothballed since March 2007. The statal Volta...

The wealth of Côte d'Ivoire's defunct founding father, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, was on display at an auction in the historic French town of Fontainebleau on 29 June. The sale...

Troops from Nigeria and Cameroon were put on high alert in the Bakassi Peninsula, following the unexplained slaughter of five Cameroonian soldiers and a local government official on...

Nigeria is determined to raise its oil production capacity to four million barrels per day by 2010, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua told Africa Confidential in Paris on 13...

These are tough times for Mali and its President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT). On top of the surge in prices which affects all of Africa, he faces a...

Mali's democratic credentials are wearing thin at home despite winning international plaudits in the 16 years since Amadou Toumani Touré started the constitutional revolution in 1992.

Former Delta State Governor James Ibori faces charges of fraud and corruption in the Kaduna High Court and his wife Theresa faces money laundering charges in Britain, where...

President John Agyekum Kufuor’s government faces new problems, both political and economic, as it prepares for national elections in December, when the President will step down. Rising world...

Three days after announcing his economic package, President John Kufuor completed his much-delayed reshuffle. Kwamena Bartels was the main casualty, after less than a year as Interior Minister....

There was little fanfare for Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s first anniversary as Nigeria’s President on 29 May. His quiet leadership infuriates his opponents and bewilders those accustomed to rulers...

He was supposed to be a consensus Prime Minister but he did not last long. Lansana Kouyaté, appointed in February 2007, after bloodshed and strikes had almost toppled...

British banks could face awkward questions after police in London charged Theresa Nkoyo Ibori, wife of former Delta State Governor James Ibori, with money laundering on 20 May....

Criminal investigators in the United States and Europe are widening their probe into claims that the USA's oil service giant Halliburton and three other multinationals working on a...

The discovery by Halliburton's lawyers Baker Botts of more than 500 pages of notes penned by Wojciech Chodan (a Halliburton consultant and the Samuel Pepys of the energy...

With elections ahead on 7 December - and the prospect of prolonged powerlessness for the losers - prodigal sons and daughters are rushing to rejoin Ghana's two main...

The humiliation of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo is forging ahead, less than a year after he left office. In the past few months, parliamentary committees have exposed allegations of...

If nothing else, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has proved wrong those critics who claimed he would be a mere puppet of his predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo. Both men lead...

The elections that were due in January are now scheduled for 30 November, but the old bugbears that caused the delay have still not been laid to rest,...

The resignation of former Trade Minister and unsuccessful presidential candidate Alan Kyerematen from the ruling New Patriotic Party on 17 April has shocked Ghana’s political class. Kyerematen...

President Umaru Yar'Adua has launched a thorough restructuring of the state-owned energy sector and a review of commercial contracts. His reform team hopes to bring in partners like...

The National Democratic Congress flagbearer, John Evans Atta Mills, has chosen John Dramani Mahama as his running mate. This is unlikely to stop feuding in the main opposition...

Liberia's Finance Minister Antoinette Sayeh faces a huge problem as she steers the country into qualifiying for the World Bank's and International Monetary Fund's debt reduction programme by...

Arguments over the financing of a presidential jet are to set the terms for a wider debate about corruption in the run-up to December's national elections. In the...

Known as the Bauxite King, Victor Dahdaleh is at the centre of a US case in which the Gulf State of Bahrain accuses him and the...

The verdict was emphatic. On 26 February, Justice James Ogebe and his four colleagues on the Presidential Election Tribunal in Abuja voted 5-0 to dismiss the petitions brought...

At last Senegal's many opposition parties have decided to get together for local elections that are due on 18 May. Siggil Sénégal (Save Senegal), whose main component is...

Several varieties of uncertainty hang over the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) before its summit meeting in Dakar on 13-14 March. Unfinished buildings are scattered across the...

The rival factions in the political drama in Abuja agree on one thing: the legal and political battles over the legitimacy of the 2007 elections will rumble on...

Relations between multinational oil companies and the government of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua are deteriorating. The big oil companies are talking of a chronic financing crisis. Tony Chukwueke,...

Links to the former colonial power serve Sierra Leone well. On a trip this week to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Prince of Wales, the...

The army stands in the wings, looking suspiciously at the government of the ailing President Lansana Conté, while Conté looks suspiciously at his 'consensus' Prime Minister Lansana Kouyaté,...

An hysterical attack by the Inspector General of Police, Patrick Kwarteng Acheampong, on the sacked National Security Minister, Francis Poku, has backfired, prompting a new round of public...

A diplomatic storm is brewing as Mozambican police crack down on West Africans they accuse of being illegal miners. The formal tone of a letter from the Mozambican...

The politicians, police and spies could not have found a worst time to pick a fight with each other. It is a year of red alert for the...