It was all running like clockwork. The verdict in the national elections on 7 December was set to be free and clear of dispute – more or less...

This time last year President Muhammadu Buhari and his numerous economic policymakers were optimistic that 2020 could see growth acceleration, job creation, significant infrastructure investments and progress on...

The long-delayed development of Guinea's headline-grabbing Simandou iron ore project has once again climbed to the top of President Alpha Condé's agenda, as he settles into a much-disputed...

With the 27 December first round of the presidential election approaching fast, Mohamed Bazoum – who spent 10 years as President Mahamadou Issoufou's right-hand man – is in...

With jobs and education topping the list of voter concerns the incumbent, Nana Addo Akufo-Addo, goes into the presidential elections on 7 December with a clear margin over...

Nigerian government officials continue to downplay the army shootings at youth-led protests against the rogue Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit in October, and are doubling down on...

On 26 November, shouts of 'Un coup, KO!', started ringing around the capital, Ouagadougou. The Commission électorale nationale indépendante (CENI), led by former journalist Newton Ahmed Barry, had...

São Tomé's government-controlled Constitutional Court has denied recognition of veteran politician Patrice Trovoada's unopposed election in absentia as leader of the opposition Acção Democrática Independente .

It was only hours after the Constitutional Court confirmed President Alassane Ouattara's overwhelming win at the 31 October presidential elections on 9 November that the victor extended an...

With just weeks to go until presidential elections on 7 December National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate, former president John Dramani Mahama, is still struggling to alter public perceptions...

Ghana's independent Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, resigned his post on 16 November after experiencing government interference in his job, he said in a letter to President Nana Akufo-Addo....

The Nigerian army's version of the shootings during the October protests was spelled out at a bizarre press conference in Abuja on 2 November by Attorney General Abubakar...

Dampened by the pandemic, economic worries and voter fatigue, campaigning for the national elections on 7 December is heading into the final stretch. Jobs and living standards dominate...

The voting figures show a deeply divided nation. Although President Alassane Ouattara won a third successive presidential term with 94% of the popular vote, it was on a...

Whether his win with 59.49% of the votes in the 18 October elections was credible or not matters little to President Alpha Condé and his governing team. On...

Pressure is mounting on President Muhammadu Buhari's government after the shooting of protestors at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos on 20 October with the African Union and...

After losing the Edo state elections last month, the ruling All Progressives' Congress (APC) held on to Rotimi Akeredolu's governorship of Ondo State on 10 October – a...

With no sign of President Alassane Ouattara or his major opponents considering meaningful compromise over the 31 October election, tensions have taken on a dangerously inter-communal tinge.

Three-time presidential challenger Cellou Dalein Diallo decided on 19 October that the best way to respond to the almost certain victory at the polls of the incumbent, Alpha...

The deal that saw Jama'a Nusrat ul Islam wa al Muslimin?(JNIM), the Malian branch of Al Qaida led by Iyad ag Ghaly, exchange four hostages for 204 presumed...

In what government supporters see as a watershed moment and critics say is a precursor to civil unrest, formal corruption investigations have opened against former President Ernest Bai...

United in condemnation of Alassane Ouattara's bid for a third term, but failing to present a coherent alternative, the Ivorian opposition has all but written off its chances...

Delegates from West Africa and beyond have been flying in and out of Bamako for weeks to impress their priorities and concerns upon the junta (the Comité national...

There has been consensus in the country on two things since the return to civil rule in 1999: the management of oil and gas, which dominates the export...

Shrinking oil revenues and the wider economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic are putting pressure on policymakers to limit the damage. In the short term that will mean...

The contest for Edo State governor on 19 September was set to be bitter and partisan with a heady mix of local and personal rivalries, just as the...

The junta has named the 70-year-old former defence minister and retired officer Bah N'Daw as transitional president, thus testing to the limit the absolute insistence of the Economic...

Rowdy partisan battles and a pandemic-weakened economy are slowing the government's efforts to create jobs and invest in education and public health. Promoting national reconciliation after two decades...

Many Nigerians are disappointed that, as President Muhammadu Buhari is a year into his second term, he has not done more to halt the scourge of corrupt trading...

Burkina Faso is holding presidential and parliamentary elections on 22 November, although many parts of the country are unlikely to participate because the safety of polling booths cannot...

It's been a week of hard bargaining in Bamako and over the West African airwaves as the putschists who turfed Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta out of the presidency negotiate...

Timipre Sylva's meeting with Nyesom Wike at the governor's mansion in Port Harcourt on 23 August bore all the signs of an old friends' reunion. Both are political...

That the Commission électorale indépendante (CEI) would clear President Alassane Ouattara to stand for a third term – as happened on 24 August – was never in doubt,...

The pro forma condemnation by West African leaders of the overthrow of the hapless President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta on 18 August – not to mention the strong popular...

The decision by President Alassane Dramane Ouattara to tear up his promise to make way for a new generation of leaders is a gamble that risks dividing the...

Last month, a massive new video screen appeared at the busiest intersection in Benin City, centre of a once towering kingdom and now capital of Edo state. Where...

Politicians and pundits in Nigeria have shown a rare unanimity in outrage at comments by Mamman Daura, widely regarded as President Muhammadu Buhari's most influential advisor, about the...

Two years after bitterly disputed and tight presidential elections, political leaders have divided along party lines over the appointment of the National Electoral Commission's (NEC) new head.

Benin is planning to close 24 of its 27 embassies around the world in the second major retrenchment of the country's diplomatic corps since President Patrice Talon took...

The 27 July online summit of West African leaders has given full, emphatic backing to President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK) in his confrontation with the opposition and threatened...

A substantial part of Nigeria's foreign financing strategy and the fortunes of a New York hedge fund, in partnership with an obscure entity registered in the British Virgin...

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and several of the country’s most senior ministers recommended hard-hitting reforms to rein in the sprawling and notoriously unaccountable state oil company earlier this year...

Politics is in deep turmoil following the sudden death on 8 July of the man widely expected to have become the new president by the end of the...

With the Covid-19 pandemic spreading and the economy on the slide, the country's top politicians have taken refuge in the familiarity of an old-fashioned internal power struggle. Rival...

News that on 5 July the beleaguered head of state President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK) had held talks with Mahmoud Dicko, the conservative imam whose mass mobilising appeal...

São Tomé and Príncipe has cancelled the appointment of the controversial Chad-born French businessman Vincent Miclet as honorary consul in Marrakech, Morocco, after it emerged he had been...

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Abuja's candidate and emerging front-runner for the top post at the World Trade Organisation, faces tough questions about her campaign's use of lobbyists who advocate for...

The regional summit in the Mauritanian capital on 30 June started with a note of collective self-congratulation sounded by President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani speaking of reinforcements for Operation...

This week lawyers for the 40,000 people in the Ogale and Bille communities in the Niger Delta have been pressing their case in London's Supreme Court to hold...

There are plenty of heads of state in their 80s, but few who stand for presidential election at the age of 86. That's what Henri Konan Bédié –...

An article smearing President Macky Sall's radical opponent in last year's presidential election may have been the work of one the country's most influential investigative journalists, Baba Aidara,...

In the best traditions of international bureaucracy, Ibrahim Gambari, 75, has been consulting widely but quietly as he acclimatises to his new role as President Muhammadu Buhari's chief...

President Alpha Condé has held up his end of a secret bargain with Israeli mining billionaire Beny Steinmetz now that Conakry's prosecutors have dropped all bribery charges against...

Nearly a week after the charismatic conservative imam Mahmoud Dicko led tens of thousands of demonstrators onto the streets of Bamako demanding President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta's resignation, the...

Once again, the International Criminal Court is upending Ivorian politics. This time it's the Court's surprise decision on 29 May to lift its travel restrictions on former President...

Faced with the prospect of its oil and gas revenues falling this year by at least US$26.5 billion, President Muhammadu Buhari's government sees the dismissal of a $10bn...

Ghana responded quicker than most countries and has the biggest Covid-19 testing programme in Africa outside South Africa and a pro-active information campaign. Yet its economy will be...

In the boom times, oil and gas generated 95% of the country's export revenues and the recycling of that cash powered over 60% of the economy. In the...

Criticisms are mounting about the lack of a coherent national strategy to manage the coronavirus pandemic. The missing piece is effective leadership from the national task force, under...

Abba Kyari was neither an administrator nor a politician. So, he was not an obvious choice for the post of chief of staff to the president, a job...

As oil prices crash to an 18-year low in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, weakening global demand, and a price war, President Muhammadu Buhari's spending plans are...

President Alpha Condé got what he wanted: a 92% 'yes' vote in the constitutional referendum, which was held on 22 March alongside a long overdue legislative election which...

After speculation about his health and whether he was even in the country, President Muhammadu Buhari gave a belated televised address on 29 March announcing a lockdown of...

At the end of March, the government restricted movement between Greater Abidjan and the rest of the country. The streets of the commercial capital are almost deserted. Borders...

Baton blows to over-sociable Dakarois and raids on wedding parties were not the gentlest way for police to secure the public's cooperation with quarantine and social distancing rules...

Malians voted with their feet, choosing to protect themselves from the Covid-19 virus rather than cast ballots in parliamentary elections on 29 March. The turnout fell to 5%...

For the second time in as many decades, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has been pushed out of a top institution, with opinion divided over his future. Again, he will...

The crucial first stage of the race to succeed President Alassane Ouattara ended quickly when Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly was hastily named as the candidate of the...

The crippling petrol shortages this year have pushed up the prices of fuel and much else as commercial transporters raised their fares. Liberians, angered by the steep fall...

It was the worst-kept secret in Abuja. Officials in President Muhammadu Buhari's government blame one another for the administration's failings, especially in areas such as security. After a...

Outright victory in the first round of the presidential election came for the incumbent President Faure Gnassingbé with 72% of the vote on an impressive 76% turnout. The...

Late on 28 February, President Alpha Condé made an unexpected appearance on national television, admitting he had been pressured into delaying the double poll he had called for...

Confusion is growing about the mounting cost and sluggish progress of the UN-mandated clean-up of Ogoni, in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta.

The surprise victory of Úmaro Sissoco Embaló in the second round of the presidential election has failed to end the country's political turbulence. The losing candidate, Domingos Simões...

Speaking to journalists on 7 February, the army's theatre commander for north-eastern Nigeria, Major-General Olusegun Adeniyi, repeated the government's frequent assertion that Boko Haram has been defeated. Yet...

President Julius Maada Bio put firms operating in the countrys mining sector on notice when he outlined a reform programme at the annual Mining Indaba in Cape Town...

Francophone West African countries' decision to convert their CFA franc into a first version of the 'eco', a planned single currency for the whole region, has sparked furious...

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta says his envoy Dioncounda Traoré had his full authority to initiate talks with jihadist chiefs Iyad ag Ghaly and Amadou Koufa – after years...

As he wrestles with mutually reinforcing economic and security problems, President Muhammadu Buhari can no longer blame an uncooperative national assembly or opposition state governors if his planned...

Prevented from re-entering his country, Guillaume Soro remains determined to stand in the presidential election. He announced at a 28 January press conference in Paris law suits in...

The leader of the 2012 failed military coup, and suspect in the torture and murder of multiple Red Beret paratroopers opposed to his putsch, Amadou Haya Sanogo,...

In his New Year address to the nation, President Alpha Condé confirmed his plans to submit a new constitution to a popular referendum. But he again failed to...

Ivorians go to the polls in October in what promises to be a no-holds-barred battle for the presidency. The main contenders are familiar – possibly too familiar to...

Eleven months ahead of national elections, the best guess is that President Nana Addo Akufo-Addo will win more narrowly than he did in 2016 and his New Patriotic...

For President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta the new year brings renewed diplomatic pressure – and not just from an international community exasperated by the lack of progress in implementing...