After stellar elections, demands mount on the new government for a speedy economic turnaround and thousands of jobs
Young revellers partied long into the night in Accra and Kumasi on 9 December, marking the victory of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo with 53.8% of the vote in...
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Both parties are to blame for the rigging and killings that could weaken President Buhari's national standing
No one emerges with credit from the violent fiasco of the elections that were re-run in Rivers State on 10 December. Nationally, the polls were a test of...
Jammeh made history twice: first by conceding defeat and then by changing his mind. Presidents are trying to talk him down
It would take a mere seven days for President Yahya Jammeh to pronounce the unthinkable and request the impossible. On 2 December, he appeared on television to tell...
A late surge in campaigning has improved the opposition's chances of victory as the economy stutters
A succession of bad elections this year in Africa – in Uganda, Gabon and Zambia – make the 7 December presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana an important...
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The Ondo gubernatorial election was a proving ground for political rivals within the APC camp
The victory of Rotimi Akeredolu, candidate of the governing All Progressives' Congress (APC) in the Ondo State governorship election on 26 November, has strong national resonance in the...
Five years ago, the movement for a separate Igbo nation, Biafra, seemed dead in the water of the Niger Delta. Fighting between leaders of the secessionist Movement for...
The general who seized power in 2012 as Mali's army crumbled before advancing jihadists and Tuareg independence fighters, Amadou Haya Sanogo, goes on trial this week for the...
Economic stagnation and rising prices are eroding the regional alliances at the heart of Buhari’s government
Arguments over the response to the country's worst recession for 25 years are threatening to split the governing All Progressives' Congress. The APC is a fragile alliance between...
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Vol 57 No 23 |
- CABO VERDE
The party that once dominated Cape Verdean politics has had a disastrous year and faces a divisive power struggle
In a speech delivered in Cuba in 1966, the father of Guinea-Bissau's and Cape Verde's independence movement, Amilcar Cabral, offered delegates an African saying: 'When your house is...
Rio Tinto has finally called time on Simandou, one of the world's largest untapped iron ore deposits, by signing a non-binding agreement with its partner, the Aluminium Corporation...
President Muhammadu Buhari stirred a predictable hornets' nest when he dismissed, in a most patriarchal manner, criticisms his wife had made of his presidency. On 14 October Aisha...
An increasingly isolated and paranoid President has become even more dictatorial in the lead-up to national elections
The last time Gambia went to the polls, in November 2011, the incumbent President Yahya Jammeh won 72% of the vote, crushing two below-par opposition coalitions. The Commonwealth...
Vol 57 No 20 |
- SIERRA LEONE
Facing lacklustre demand in the global market, the country's iron-ore production is only slowly recovering from the disaster of the Ebola epidemic of 2014-2015. The leading company in...
Both sides are edging towards some sort of deal that will get the money flowing again – to the Treasury and to the Delta
There is an inexorable logic to the tortuous negotiations between the government and the Niger Delta Avengers, the most determined of the militant groups launching attacks in the...
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A reshuffle has given the government a new strategy in the North but insecurity is spreading southwards
As he struggles to cut a deal with armed groups over northern regional councils and faces persistent militant attacks in central areas, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta has...
Vol 57 No 19 |
- SIERRA LEONE
The weak opposition is unable to take advantage of deepening rifts in the increasingly unpopular ruling party
The sudden death in a London hospital of businessman and politician Gibril Santigie Moseray Fadika on 7 August has cast some light on the intrigues surrounding the battle...
Patience Jonathan, wife of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, has reacted with fury to Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) freezing more than US$14 million in accounts she controls.
Vol 57 No 18 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
The President seeks to entrench his party after his departure and improve the country's stability
Keeping the gunmen at bay is one reason that President Alassane Dramane Ouattara has launched a constitutional review. The other is to secure the future of his governing...
The government's negotiations on debt and budgets with the IMF are politically contentious ahead of December's elections
The politically charged deadline for the government's latest agreement with the International Monetary Fund is to be delayed again, following the report of a mission to Accra from...
Just as investment companies began advising clients to return to the Nigerian market to take advantage of the sharp depreciation of the naira currency over the past two...
The arrest of Samuel Mebiame by the US Department of Justice on 16 August is causing sleepless nights in Guinea, Chad and Niger. Son of the former Gabonese...
The deepening crisis in the Niger Delta is now the most serious threat to the government's plans for economic revival
This month's announcement that the government is to resume payments to former militants in the Niger Delta is by any measure a victory for the myriad gangs and...
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For the first time since the country's democratic transition in 1991, the losers of an election have claimed the vote was rigged and refuse to recognise the official...
The man who was Guinea's Acting President before the 2010 elections that brought Alpha Condé to office, General Sékouba Konaté, has kept an important African Union job...
Vol 57 No 15 |
- GUINEA BISSAU
In what most opponents of Guinea-Bissau's corrupt elite view as a serious blow, the Supreme Court ruled on 14 July that the appointment of Baciro Djá as Prime...
The first-round victory of Evaristo Carvalho, 74, candidate of the ruling Acção Democrática Independente (ADI) in the presidential election came as a surprise to most observers. He received...
A three-way presidential race to succeed the incumbent is developing while corruption scandals play out
As President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf approaches the end of her final term, scandal and defections hang over her Unity Party, which twice carried her into the country's top job....
Vol 57 No 14 |
- BURKINA FASO
The country's new leaders are showing a lack of zeal in prosecuting historic crimes while trying to compromise judicial independence
Six months into the presidency of Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, frustration is mounting with a government that appears to have no idea how to pull the country out...
Pardoning Karim Wade weakens Macky Sall's political reform programme. But he has other aims, and other opponents
The release on 24 June of Karim Wade, son of the previous President, immediately stirred suspicion that President Macky Sall had one eye on next year's elections. Karim,...
Just as the authorities dig into a series of suspicious transactions made by the late President Sani Abacha's Oil Minister, Chief Dauzia Loya 'Dan' Etete, his son Edward...
The president hopes an appeal to 'the people' will allow him to change the constitution so he can stand for a third term
Eight months into his second term, President Alpha Condé is barely concealing his desire for a third term even if this means overturning the 2010 Constitution, which...
Facing its deepest economic crisis for two decades, Nigeria has been bolstered by two modest pieces of good news this week. Firstly, officials in Abuja say they have...
The government says the hard times are a blip before the next boom. Its opponents accuse it of wrecking the economy
Jobs, prices, taxes and electricity are dominating political arguments in the lead up to presidential and parliamentary elections on 7 November. So, when the government said on 1...
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Vol 57 No 12 |
- GUINEA BISSAU
Despite a court ruling against him, the head of state has re-appointed a controversial Prime Minister
President José Mário Vaz's appointment of ruling party renegade Baciro Djá as Prime Minister on 27 May marks a tactical victory in the chronic conflict between the reform...
Vol 57 No 12 |
- CHAD
- SENEGAL
The President is proud of Senegal's role in hosting the Habré trial but does not want to set a precedent
Following the landmark trial in Dakar of Chadian former dictator Hissène Habré, President Macky Sall has played down suggestions that Senegal should now become the permanent home of...
Victories against Boko Haram and crooked politicians are overshadowed by a faltering economy and new militants in the Delta
It would be hard to concoct a worse conjunction of calamities than that facing President Muhammadu Buhari as he prepares to mark his first year as President on...
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The government wants to fire up growth with an expansionary budget but has made U-turns on the currency and fuel prices
Less than a after month President Muhammadu Buhari signed on 6 May a growth-boosting but much delayed budget for 2016, the government has made two important policy reversals...
The President has launched a task force to investigate claims of bribery of public officials as a top lawyer is arrested
Evidence that senior public officials took bribes from the United Kingdom-listed resources company Sable Mining have caused deep shock in Monrovia. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has launched a Presidential...
A mining company sought to open doors throughout West Africa with bribes, a huge leak of internal emails shows
Senior politicians in the governments of Guinea and Liberia took bribes from the publicly quoted British company Sable Mining Africa Limited to facilitate access to valuable mining concessions,...
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France and Germany are using a joint visit by their foreign ministers to Mali and Niger last week to send a message about deeper European military, as well...
As sabotage attacks and pipeline breakdowns in the Delta take as much as 400,000 barrels per day (bpd), the shadowy Niger Delta Avengers group claims it has launched...
One more change of government through the ballot box has taken place and a liberation movement retreats
As the country took stock after the shooting of eleven people on 26 April, the new Movimento para a Democracia (MpD) government denied the assassin was politically motivated...
Vol 57 No 9 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
Although the presidential elections are a good four years off, fighting inside the governing coalition is already off to a lively start
Now that it has finally sunk in that this is President Alassane Dramane Ouattara's final term of office, the two main parties that formed the governing Rassemblement des...
An uneasy peace has returned to Kidal after two demonstrators were killed in clashes with United Nations' peacekeepers last week but the mood remains fragile in the heartland...
After a late-night meeting at Aso Rock, the dispute between President Muhammadu Buhari and National Assembly leaders over 2016 budget amendments ended in smiles and a deal on...
The Panama Papers have prompted governments to look more seriously at the costs of trade mispricing and illicit financial flows
Following the leak of over eleven million company files from the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama on 3 April, many African activists and law enforcement officers have...
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Dilemmas over the exchange rate top a lengthening list of woes. The government turns to China for help
A year after the national boost from Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the presidential election, the economic crisis is deepening, worsened by a combination of falling commodity prices, tighter...
Vol 57 No 7 |
- SIERRA LEONE
Crashing prices and Ebola blighted the economy. Now, hopes are pinned on the mining sector for a much-needed rebirth
Flattened by an Ebola epidemic, the crash in world iron prices and serial mismanagement in its mining companies, Sierra Leone's economy is in intensive care. On 15 March,...
The voters knew what they didn't want – the old President's placeman. But do they know what they are getting instead?
The winner of the presidential election, business tycoon Patrice Talon, remains a cipher as the impact of his unexpected victory sinks in and the public wonders what changes...
Vol 57 No 7 |
- BURKINA FASO
The government has revoked the appointment of the former transitional Prime Minister, General Yacouba Isaac Zida, as Ambassador to the United States over corruption allegations. A question mark...
From the lofty vantage point of his 92.5% victory in the presidential election on 20 March, President Mahamadou Issoufou is offering opposition members government places. Having boycotted the...
Vol 57 No 7 |
- SIERRA LEONE
A raft of new cabinet appointments has reignited suspicion that President Koroma may be planning to stay on beyond the end of his second term
President Ernest Bai Koroma named 13 new ministers and deputy ministers, some of them his most devoted and hardline supporters, on 14 March in Freetown. One Freetown daily...
The President is trying to keep up hope for the massive iron mine even though its value has been written down by $1 billion
Guinea's recently re-elected President Alpha Condé has adopted a conciliatory tone towards mining company Rio Tinto over its sluggish development of the Simandou iron-ore mine, despite the British-Australian...
Vol 57 No 6 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
The nation's first jihadist terrorist attack claimed 22 lives on 13 March as politicians on all sides tried to use it to score points against each other. The...
A cash-for-immunity deal brokered in 2014 by Swiss lawyers between the then President Goodluck Jonathan's government and two sons of the late General Sani Abacha, Mohammed and Abba,...
The two leading contenders for the presidency opened their campaigns with sharply differing assessments of the country's health
It was a foretaste of what is set to be the country's most fiercely contested election against a backdrop of the worst austerity since the 1980s. On 25...
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Both the main parties have form when it comes to spending sprees and big contracts ahead of elections
Come commodity crash or boom, if it's election year, it's contract time. That's when incumbents hand out largesse and stock up the political war-chest. In Ghana, election year...
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Federal troops are back in the heartland of the former Delta rebellion as politicians use militants and gangsters to expand their reach
The return of the army to Ogoniland after an 18-year absence has deep political resonance. All the more so because there is now a fierce contest for political...
Security concerns are growing after the death of an opponent of the President and the coming withdrawal of UN peacekeepers
The death of influential politician and businessman Harry Greaves, whose body was found washed up on a Monrovia beach on 31 January, has thrown up questions in Liberia...
Compaoré cannot now be extradited and Burkinabè are now questioning the zeal of their new leaders
Ivorian President Alassane Dramane Ouattara's decision to protect Burkina Faso's deposed President Blaise Compaoré /strong> by granting him citizenship is an act of aggression, say many in Ouagadougou....
President Mahamadou Issoufou approaches the 20 March second round of the presidential election all but certain of a victorious outcome. He fell short of his loudly proclaimed intention...
Whether or not he ends up in a Lagos court, Tompolo and his supporters can cause havoc by relaunching the militant campaign in the Delta
The search is on for the militant kingpin High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo, who has disappeared since a court warrant was issued last month for his arrest...
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Vol 57 No 4 |
- SIERRA LEONE
Unused ambulances parked in the open in the midst of the outbreak are just one image of horror emerging in a new report
Standing prominently in front of the maternity ward of Kenema Government Hospital is a newly erected plaque bearing the names of 36 health workers who perished combating the...
After less than a year in politics, the Premier looks the favourite to succeed Thomas Yayi Boni as President
Prime Minister only since May and widely viewed as a politically naive presidential protégé, Lionel Zinsou approaches the first round of voting in the presidential election on 6...
Vol 57 No 4 |
- SIERRA LEONE
President Ernest Bai Koroma is planning to take out a massive Chinese loan to build an airport despite promising the International Monetary Fund he would not, we hear....
Vol 57 No 4 |
- GUINEA BISSAU
The struggle between a rent-seeking old guard and young reformers bent on making history of impunity has reached a crucial juncture
Almost six months after President José Mario Vaz 'Jomav' sacked the popular Prime Minister Domingos Simões Pereira, a deadly struggle for power grinds on. Both sides are...
The president's efforts to stamp out corruption are meeting resistance from loyalists seeking rewards, while the opposition goes into freefall
President Alpha Condé is enjoying the freedom of manoeuvre that his second and final term of office has given him. He has picked a cabinet of ministers of...
Last month's bombings in Ouagadougou could signal a much bigger campaign of attacks in Africa
Al Qaida's military-security chief Seif el Adel is suspected by Western security experts of having played a key role in the bombing of the Splendid Hotel and the...
The state oil company could close as exploration stutters under the impact of the weak oil price and governance problems
A recent round of bidding for four offshore oil blocks has ended disappointingly for all concerned. A clutch of local and international companies bid for them during a...
Business and government are locked in a dispute about the exchange rate as officials try to rebuild the economy
Political convention has it that an incoming government has six months to blame its predecessor for the economic and other devastation which it has inherited. However, Nigeria's demanding...
Former Prime Minister Hama Amadou, in custody since November charged with child-trafficking, is set to contest the presidential election from his cell after being denied bail on appeal....
Vol 57 No 2 |
- BURKINA FASO
Ouagadougou is awash with speculation about connections between the jihadists who attacked the capital on 15 January and ex-President Blaise Compaoré's now-disbanded Praetorian guard, the Régiment de sécurité...
The country's new broom has to rebuild the economy and face down Boko Haram against the background of a depleted treasury
Fortunately for Muhammadu Buhari, who still harbours deep frustration with partisan politicking, his agenda in 2016 will be dominated by the issues on which he is most engaged...
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After two near electoral misses, Nana Akufo-Addo has got the wind in his sails ahead of November's elections
On the face of it, a shrinking economy, a crippling power crisis and a string of corruption scandals will strongly favour the opposition in presidential and parliamentary elections...
The Islamist threat secures foreign support but the President is courting danger by ignoring widespread discontent
The coming presidential election in February and March dominates all political calculations in Niamey at the moment. At least half a dozen candidates are already in the running,...
Vol 57 No 1 |
- BURKINA FASO
The new leader will have to stick to his big promises. Society has acquired a taste for justice and scrutiny and is in no mood for excuses
President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré received a solid mandate from the electorate in November and the election received a clean bill of health (AC Vol 56 No 24)....
Unless the President takes a much firmer grip, the year ahead will not see a breakthrough on the country's many crises
The portents are mixed. Despite the shock of November's murderous attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, there are some grounds for encouragement (AC Vol 56 No...
Vol 57 No 1 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
Reconciling the nation, purging the army and restoring a stable political culture are the President's big challenges in his second term
President Alassane Dramane Ouattara's second term in office will be about bestowing a legacy of lasting political stability and economic reconstruction when he leaves office in 2020. He...
Despite the success of some development projects, politics is stagnant and the economy still refuses to spring to life
On being elected in 2012, President Macky Sall promised to reduce the presidential term from seven to five years. His predecessor, Abdoulaye Wade, had said he would make...