Who's who in the line-up against Boko Haram?

The entrance of international pop star, media mogul and child of the Dakar slums Youssou N'Dour on to the political stage has galvanised the race for the presidency...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) looks set to bend its rules this month to accommodate Ghana’s rush to raise a US$700 million loan from China to build a...

Many in the governing National Democratic Congress want to boost ties with China to new heights: their target is some US$10 billion of Chinese loans (AAC Vol 3...

The multi-billion-dollar housing venture run by South Korea’s STX and a group of Ghanaian investors looks close to collapse, with the partners embroiled in lengthy court actions against...

After nearly a decade of instability, Côte d’Ivoire is undergoing a slow process of revitalisation. Moussa Dosso, the Industry Minister and member of Guillaume Soro’s Forces Nouvelles, is...

Mali is looking forward to perhaps the most competitive presidential election since the advent of multiparty democracy two decades ago. The first round of the poll on 29...

The serenity of the elections contrasts starkly with deteriorating security in the north, with hundreds of well-armed Tuareg fighters and weapons streaming in from Libya, increased Tuareg banditry...

The promise that an offshore gas pipeline and processing plant – a cornerstone of Ghana’s new industrial plan – will be completed around the time of the presidential...

The view of Ghana as an economic success, one held by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, comes with a price tag. Last year, the first...

The arrest of former President Laurent Gbagbo by the International Criminal Court and his rendition to the Hague on 30 November prompted surprisingly little protest, given that 46%...

The International Criminal Court may have accelerated the arrest and rendition of ex-President Laurent Gbagbo to the Hague because of the discovery of an apparent plot to spring...

The parliamentary elections due on 29 December have been postponed until early next year following a meeting between President Alpha Condé and opposition leaders on 15 November under...

Since the assassination attempt in July, President Alpha Condé has shut himself up in the Sékoutouréyah palace behind a massive guard, some trained by his ally, President Blaise...

Rumours of Farida Waziri’s imminent demise as head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had been circulating for weeks before President Goodluck Jonathan administered the coup de...

The federal government’s decision to remove fuel subsidies from 1 January 2012 is dividing the public and raising the spectre of unrest. The government insists that it cannot...

On taking office in 2007, President Ernest Bai Koroma vowed to run the country as a ‘business venture’. What he did not intend was the state social security...

The Congress for Democratic Change presidential candidate Wilson A. Tubman had already decided to boycott the presidential run-off when police shot dead four of his supporters on 7...

Putschist President Yahya Jammeh will win re-election for the third time on 24 November at the head of his Alliance for Patriotic Reconciliation and Construction (APRC). He may...

Luanda appears willing to forget its past strong support for Côte d’Ivoire’s then President, Laurent Gbagbo, and reconcile with his successor, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, but there is much...

More information is emerging about ex-President Laurent Gbagbo’s former Youth Minister, Charles Blé Goudé, leader of the Jeunes Patriotes. He has been living in luxurious exile in Ghana,...

Threats by Wilson A. Tubman and his Congress for Democratic Change to boycott the second round of the presidential election on 8 November were unresolved as Africa Confidential...

President Alpha Condé is being consulted about bringing charges against any Guinean nationals who may have taken bribes from Victor Dahdaleh, a former senior Guinean official told Africa...

The battle for the soul of Africa’s oldest republic is raging, with a war of words and dirty tricks between the governing Unity Party (UP) and the other...

The United Nations Security Council does not lack for African problems: the continent’s woes take up about three quarters of the Council’s time. Later this month, a new...

When Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf visited Luanda in September, Angola asked her to help mend fences with Ivorian President Alassane Dramane Ouattara (ADO), say Abidjan sources. Angolan...

Suspicion has been growing in Nigeria that some of the billions recovered from corrupt public officials may have been stolen again. A human rights group, the Socio-Economic Rights...

The schism in the Partido Africano de Independência de Cabo Verde (PAICV) resulting from the presidential election remains unresolved. It probably won’t be addressed until local elections next...

President Alassane Dramane Ouattara is earning international praise and strong flows of cash for reconstruction. Yet as he enters the second half of his first year in office,...

Politicians in Accra have been exploiting sensational material in the latest batch of leaked United States diplomatic cables. The gossip, insights and purportedly inside information seem to damage...

Opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) members of parliament were up in arms when the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) used its slim parliamentary majority to push through approval...

President Alpha Condé’s new government has been investigating the capacity of one of China’s large state-owned construction companies during the last few months. A June trip to China...

Guinean President Alpha Condé has removed the most attractive clauses of China International Fund’s joint venture agreement with the former military junta of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara. The...

The list of problems for the STX housing deal grows longer as plans to fly in thousands of Asian workers divide the project’s backers. STX Group of Korea...

A group of power-brokers and fortune-seekers is taking shape around President Goodluck Jonathan. Often rivals, most have interests in the oil business, whose centre is his native Niger...

The United States was engaged in the ‘rendition’ of prisoners from Nigeria to the USA even before the attacks of 11 September 2001, according to US State Department...

Laurent Koudou Gbagbo’s previously ruling Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) has quickly followed its master into obscurity and irrelevance since he was ousted on 11 April. The same cannot...

The French Licorne force played a decisive role in the United Nations’ storming of the presidential palace and the capture of ex-President Laurent Gbagbo. French troops took few...

More than halfway through President John Atta Mills’s ‘Action Year’ and almost a year since the government first announced that Ghana’s Eastern Corridor was to be rehabilitated, a...

On 3 August, the oil giant Shell agreed in the London High Court to settle a compensation claim for oil spills in Bodo, in the Niger Delta. This...

As the Bodo case was being settled, a damning United Nations report estimated the cost of an environmental clean-up in Ogoni at US$1 billion over up to 30...

The victory of Jorge Carlos Fonseca over Manuel Inocêncio Sousa in the presidential run-off on 21 August with 54% of the vote will test the political nerves of...

A veteran of the liberation struggle, Manuel Pinto da Costa, defeated Evaristo do Espírito Santo Carvalho, Speaker of Parliament and candidate of the governing Acção Democrática Independente (ADI),...

Security jitters and financial worries have haunted President Alassane Dramane Ouattara’s first 100 days, suggesting he is yet to entrench himself in office after a bloody six-month stand-off...

The former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, does not bother with false modesty. Neither does he demur at the description of himself as patron of...

Asiawaju Bola Tinubu, James Ibori and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha stand at extremes on the spectrum of life after Government House (see Feature). There are several points in between. Plateau’s...

Thousands are fleeing Maiduguri, Borno State, where attacks by the Islamist militia Boko Haram and clashes with the army’s Joint Task Force have left scores of people dead...

More than any previous leader in Liberia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has worked to break the grip of corruption on business and politics. She has pressed multinational mining...

Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, wife of ex-President Jerry John Rawlings, the National Democratic Congress founder, timed her bid badly. A special congress of Ghana’s governing NDC on 8-9...

Rioting over power cuts and bids to change the constitution had already hurt President Abdoulaye Wade and his son Karim politically and now they seem also to have...

The two armed attacks on President Alpha Condé that claimed three lives on the night of 19 July are part of the struggle between old and new members...

A year after it was first proposed, the US$1.5 billion housing deal between a South Korean company, STX, and the Ghanaian government is no nearer completion. The contract...

After only two years in office, the National Democratic Congress government has increased Ghana’s total debt from US$8.1 billion at the end of 2008 to $13.4 bn. in...

Businessman Vasile Frank Timis, the Chairman of African Minerals Limited (AML), has signed a memorandum of understanding with Chinese partners to develop a project that has already...

President Goodluck Jonathan shows little desire to impose himself on the country as the 36 state governors and the National Assembly jockey to push their nominees into the...

President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet was not complete when we went to press. Here are some key appointments and some of those tipped for appointment soon.

It is a symbol of the politics behind Senegal’s energy crisis. The North Korean-built African Renaissance monument on the hill above the darkened capital was bathed in light....

The Chairman of the Board of the Société africaine de raffinage (SAR) is Serigne Mboup, a one-time ally of former Prime Minister Macky Sall, who is expected to...

The starting gun for Liberia’s second free presidential election since the civil war was officially fired on 5 July. Early indications for October’s poll show that President Ellen...

Beyond the bonhomie and the stream of foreign dignitaries trooping to see President Alpha Condé in Conakry, evidence is emerging of grand corruption in public works and mining...

The most obvious beneficiaries of Ghana’s oil boom so far have been the shareholders of the international companies operating there. Both Ireland’s Tullow Oil, listed on the London...

Few seem convinced by President Goodluck Jonathan’s assurances that the security situation is under control following the bombing on 16 June of Louis Edet House, the national police...

Community control of oil can worsen local strife, to judge by the experience of the Neconde Group, which won the bid for Shell’s 45% of Operations Management Licence...

Sierra Leone will start earning hundreds of millions of dollars from taxes when iron-ore production begins in November. At least that is what the controversial British-based mining entrepreneur...

So far the election season is a three-cornered contest with a lively battle for the leadership of the governing National Democratic Congress, which has prompted the leader of...

On 22 June, President Abdoulaye Wade – officially 84 but probably nearer 90 – was about to propose a constitutional amendment to secure a guaranteed third term in...

In early June, Guinea’s President Alpha Condé set the tone for more tense negotiations with mining investors when he declared that Chinese-style mines-for-infrastructure deals are unacceptable. The government...

Senegal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Madické Niang has kept up a busy Asian schedule this year. February took him to Delhi for meetings with his counterpart, SM Krishna....

After his grand inauguration at Yamoussoukro on 21 May and pronouncements on the need for Ivorians to reconcile and rebuild the country, one of new President Alassane Dramane...

Despite a growing sense that he is losing his political touch, President Abdoulaye Wade is determined to stand in February’s presidential election, people close to him have told...

President Abdoulaye Wade warmly welcomed Ivorian President Alassane Dramane Ouattara’s victory at the polls. The two are politically close, which excluded Wade as a mediator during the subsequent...

The United Nations’ latest projection of world demographic trends* predicts that Africa’s population will reach 2.2 billion by 2050, 24% of the global population. Nigeria’s population, according to...

Overseas, Ghana’s stock could hardly be higher. Its many admirers point to its record of organising free elections, resolving conflict and sound economic management. So onlookers are baffled...

When Sierra Leone gained Independence from Britain in 1961, the event was so peaceful that one foreign observer described it as ‘independence without pain’. On 27 April this...

ADO's woes The difficulties facing President Alassane Dramane Ouattara (‘ADO’) in reconciling former enemies emerged again in the 6 May inauguration ceremony. In his acceptance speech, he praised...

The death of Ibrahim Coulibaly (‘IB’), a former commander with the Forces Nouvelles, points to the difficulties of establishing a new security order in Côte d’Ivoire. IB died...

The bloody aftermath of Goodluck Jonathan’s victory in the 16 April presidential election will require decisive action from his new government to prevent a dangerous and widening gulf between north...

For ambitious politicians, the exalted office of state governor is worth fighting for, sometimes literally. That made the 26 April gubernatorial elections in 24 of Nigeria’s 36 states a hefty test...

Almost before Blaise Compaoré had a chance to celebrate the installation of his friend Alassane Dramane Ouattara as President of neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire, he had to deal with the most serious...

Parliamentary elections on 9 April showed that Nigerians are no longer willing to be taken for granted by the People’s Democratic Party, which has towered over the political...

The armed eviction of Laurent Gbagbo from the Ivorian presidency by a coalition of opposition, United Nations and French forces together with the organisation of national elections in...

President Alpha Condé averted the risk of opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo receiving a massive welcome on his return to Conakry on 3 April by the simple expedient...

President Alpha Condé has invited the United States billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros to advise on a new mining code which, the President says, will facilitate ‘the...

São Tomé e Príncipe holds its much delayed presidential election in July. Meanwhile, a parliamentary inquiry into claimed corruption over an oil project with Nigeria is upsetting the...

As Foreign Minister, Odein Ajumogobia leads an outspoken diplomatic corps. Nigeria urged Laurent Gbagbo to quit after losing Côte d’Ivoire’s presidential election. As the crisis dragged on, Ajumogobia condemned the West...

Until now, every Nigerian national election has been more or less managed under an elite pact. The richest and most powerful people informally agree to accept the outcome,...

The six states of south-west Nigeria may determine the national elections for President Goodluck Jonathan, whose People’s Democratic Party lost much of its following in the region under...

After managing a transition which led to the election on 12 March of new President Mahamdou Issoufou, the military junta has announced that it will not hand over...

Addax, a British-listed oil and gas company controlled by China’s Sinopec, may benefit from this month’s decision by the Nigerian and Cameroonian governments to collaborate in the Bakassi...

Trade sources in Moscow and London report that business allies of Laurent Gbagbo have begun exporting cocoa out of the port of San Pedro in defiance of President-elect...

Opposition parties claim that over US$27 billion is missing from state accounts, managed by the People’s Democratic Party government under President Goodluck Jonathan and his late predecessor, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Coming just...

The United Nations, which supervised and certified last year’s vote, now warns of a return to civil war. After its consultations failed to make progress, the African Union is extending...

Opposition candidates declared the first round of the presidential election on 23 January tainted (‘vicié’), putting President François Bozizé’s 64.7% share of the vote in doubt (AC Vol 51 No...

Mining investors are bracing for a long battle. On 24 January, new President Alpha Condé backtracked on promises to review mining contracts, saying that the government would instead...

Big deals between the Nigerian government and Chinese companies have fallen through, providing yet another chapter to the up-and-down drama between Beijing and Abuja. On 10 February,...

Another attempt at privatising fixed-line operator Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd. (Nitel) and mobile operator Mtel has failed.

The bitter rivalry between presidential claimants Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Dramane Ouattara has come to personify the arguments over how to manage elections in Africa and beyond. Although...

Laurent Gbagbo’s economic options are narrowing. While sanctions have deprived him of most of his income from cocoa, he did, say local reports, make off with US$500 million...

Political violence in the Niger Delta is escalating in the run-up to the April elections, threatening to plunge President Goodluck Jonathan’s power base into chaos again and compromising...

Europe is adding its own sanctions to the pressure on President Laurent Gbagbo from Africa's regional organisations to force him to stand down in the post-election stand off. At the same...

Around 40% of the world's cocoa is grown in Côte d'Ivoire and the market is in confusion as a result of the reigning political paralysis. The harvests, though, are large...

Rivalry between two former loyalists of President Goodluck Jonathan and his People's Democratic Party in his home state of Bayelsa presages fierce confrontations before April's elections. The split in the Bayelsa...

President Goodluck Jonathan clinched the presidential nomination of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on 14 January with an unexpected 77% of the votes. Jonathan, the insiders quickly learned,...

The two main contenders in April’s presidential election – both regional bankers – are evenly matched but for now the balance of support favours the incumbent, President Thomas...

Many in the Francophone African exile community have been unusually supportive of Laurent Gbagbo, in spite of his sanguinary reputation and with few doubts about the fairness of...

All the ingredients in the presidential and parliamentary elections due in April make for a fierce political battle. The dominant national party for over a decade is losing...

Strategy for the presidential and parliamentary elections on 11 October will dominate political life, with incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf tipped to win. Yet a strong push by...

Abdoulaye Bio Tchané, the Governor of the regional Banque ouest-africaine de développement, this week officially launched his bid for April’s presidential election in Benin. This had been long...