Following his victory in the 7 December presidential elections and securing a two-thirds majority in parliament, President-elect John Dramani Mahama has the executive power and the parliamentary support...

For the multilateral financial institutions and investment banks, President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms are stabilising the country’s finances and staunching the loss of billions of dollars in revenues...

President Bola Tinubu’s alliance with northern Nigeria, which helped him get into power last year, risks falling apart as he attempts to re-engineer the country’s revenue structure. Tinubu’s...

Former President John Dramani Mahama won the 7 December presidential election decisively – defeating Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and leading the opposition National...

Using the slogan ‘Breaking the Eight’, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia is vying to succeed President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in an ambitious bid to win a third consecutive national...

Faced with security threats on multiple levels – jihadist fighters, mass unrest and would-be putschists – President Bola Tinubu is taking no chances. He is building the country’s...

Revenge rarely tastes so sweet. A year ago Ousmane Sonko was in jail, his hopes of standing in Senegal’s 2024 presidential poll clearly doomed. Now he has celebrated...

No official reaction has followed Africa Confidential and the Gambian Republic investigative website’s article on sanctions-busting by a Russian company in Banjul. The United Arab Emirates-registered company Apogee...

If President Bassirou Diomaye Faye hoped a relaxation of nomination rules for the 17 November parliamentary elections would see opposition to his ruling Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour...

As two credible opinion polls show the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its presidential candidate Mahamudu Bawumia heading for defeat three weeks ahead of the national elections...

An Africa Confidential Special Report By Mustapha K Darboe and Andrew Weir

A prominent voice on trade, economics, and climate change, Carlos Lopes, is known for his competence and combative nature. As the African Union’s chief negotiator on what became...

Uranium production will effectively cease with the decision by France’s Orano to suspend activities at the Arlit mine operated by Société des mines de l’Aïr (Somaïr), due to...

A trial of strength between powerful figures in Edo State and the Federal Government highlights the complexities around demands for reparations and restitution to Africa. The bold vision...

Five months after receiving a performance report on his 45 ministers, President Bola Tinubu finally reshuffled his cabinet, sacking five ministers and making seven new ones, raising the...

With just over a month until the elections, Ghana’s government is struggling with domestic protests, strikes, and the challenge of convincing a sceptical inflation-hit electorate that the economy...

The Parti démocratique de Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), which ruled the country unopposed between independence in 1960 and the country’s first coup in 1999, wants back in. But the...

President Bola Tinubu ate his dish of revenge lukewarm last month when he orchestrated the defeat of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the Edo State...

General Abdourahamane Tiani’s military junta has carried out its threat to revoke the uranium mining licences of companies deemed not to have progressed their projects quickly enough, but...

In response to growing outrage at the damage to farmland, livelihoods and the wider economy caused by galamsey mining, the government has promised to set up four specialised...

Many Nigerians say the country is going through the worst hardship for 30 years, with an economy blighted by spiralling prices, capital flight and grand corruption. And rights...

The Cotonou political class is in shock following the detention of Olivier Boko, a close associate of President Patrice Talon, and former sports minister Oswald Homéky, amid allegations...

When Sierra Leone’s parliament returns from recess on 31 October, one of the first orders of business will be to ratify President Julius Maada Bio’s endorsement of the...

Two months from now millions of Senegalese voters are due to return to the polling stations, following the dissolution of the national assembly by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye,...

Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) announced on 27 August that ‘after a careful review of’ Africa Confidential’s special report on how the University of Sierra Leone (USL) lost...

The threat of more mass protests and the spiralling cost of petrol, over 1,000 naira (62 US cents) a litre in parts of Nigeria, have played to Aliko...

Dakar political life is slowing down in August giving President Bassirou Diomaye Faye some time to weigh up whether to dissolve the National Assembly in September and call...

An Africa Confidential Special Report By Josef Skrdlik and Andrew Weir

For President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, one of the most threatening elements of the ‘Days of Rage’ protests against his government is their national spread stretching from the ‘usual...

A month after Kenyan activists forced President William Ruto to drop plans for sweeping tax hikes, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government has organised a comprehensive pre-emption campaign against...

Toumani Diabaté, one of Mali’s greatest kora players, died on 19 July ending a career spanning 45 years. He was 58. His global reputation debuted with the release...

As spiralling prices hit a 30-year high and the weakening naira triggers another round of protests and strikes due to start on 1 August, the Central Bank of...

Sitting atop a 120-foot telecommunications mast in Abuja and threatening to jump, unemployed labourer Shuaibu Yushau refused to come down until the government addressed the economic hardship, insecurity...

Burkina Faso’s national airline, Air Burkina, has struggled for more than a decade. But instead of saving West Africa’s oldest airline, the junta of Captain Ibrahim Traoré had...

The standing of Burkina Faso’s transitional leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who seized power in September, has hit a new low. But public opinion is the least of his...

The mass protests in Kenya which forced William Ruto’s government to scrap US$2.4 billion of tax hikes, albeit after 20 citizens lost their lives, have prompted calls for...

Until this month Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia had the unenviable job of running for the presidency as leader of the government’s economic management team which has presided over the...

A few more lights are flickering at the other end of Ghana’s US$44 billion debt tunnel. First, the country’s gross domestic product grew 4.7% in the first quarter...

France’s Parquet national financier (PNF), the national agency for prosecuting financial crime, has referred the Breton billionaire and media magnate Vincent Bolloré for possible prosecution for bribery of...

The government has signed concessions to operate its airport and a large power plant with Turkey’s FB Group, prompting speculation about Ankara’s geopolitical ambitions in the region. FB...

Two emirs are laying claim to the throne of the Kano Emirate – a 220-year-old stool. On the surface it is just a battle of two cousins but...

The arrest of five Nigérien oil technicians in Benin at the beginning of June has sparked accusations of ‘kidnapping’ and ‘hostage-taking’ from General Abdourahamane Tiani’s regime and has...

Facing the challenges of succession or a high-risk bid for a third term, President Patrice Talon has been buffeted by the junta-versus-civilian-regime rivalries playing out in West Africa....

In a West Africa where Bassirou Diomaye Faye's presidential election victory in Senegal and the wave of military coups have shown that change is possible, President Faure Gnassingbé...

Ivorian public calendars are dominated by a fortnight of official homage to former President Henri Konan Bédié, who died last August but will only be interred on 1...

As he prepares to mark a year in office, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has received a scorecard from his Political Advisor, Hadiza Bala Usman, which contains an evaluation...

São Tomé's leaders have played down the political significance of their new military cooperation agreement with Russia, signed by Defence Minister Jorge Amado in St Petersburg on 24...

A stark contrast in diplomatic style and messaging has been on display from Senegal's new leadership duo over recent days.

Officials in Abuja say that Binance, an online platform to trade cryptocurrencies, came close to destroying what is now only Africa's third largest economy by facilitating money laundering...

The lean season in the Sahel this year is starting under the toughest economic and political conditions for generations. Mali and Burkina Faso have been baked by a...

Ogoni activists say most of the companies contracted by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) to carry out remediation work on disastrously polluted Ogoniland have not turned up...

The scale of the ruling Union pour la République (UNIR) victory in the parliamentary elections on 29 April dashes the hopes of opposition parties that the vote might...

Top officials at the European Commission say they have concluded talks on a migrant readmission and return agreement with Nigeria that could mark a breakthrough in Brussels-Abuja relations....

An improbable revolutionary, central bank governor, Olayemi Michael Cardoso, could preside over the biggest shake-up of Nigeria's financial sector for decades. His announcement last month of tough new...

Junta leader General Abdourahamane Tiani has fallen out with companies promoting potential uranium mines over the pace of their development.

Mahamudu Bawumia, presidential candidate for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and John Dramani Mahama, his rival and candidate for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) agree on...

President Faure Gnassingbé is seeking to strengthen his government's ties to the United States and secure US investment under two recent laws. This coincides with a contentious bid...

In Abuja, the story is of the rise and fall and rise again of James Ibori, former Governor of oil-rich Delta State, sentenced to 13 years in Britain...

The international rehabilitation of billionaire businessman Gilbert Chagoury had seemed complete. Convicted in Geneva for laundering money stolen by military leader Sani Abacha and in the United States...

After nearly three decades of delays and litigation, production at the giant Simandou iron ore reserves is to start early next year, say the main investors.

As detailed results from around the country trickled in, Amadou Ba, former Prime Minister and standard bearer for the ruling Benno Bokk Yaakaar (BBY) alliance, could draw only...

Withdraw from the French-backed Communauté Financière Africaine (CFA) monetary zone, restructure public debt and renegotiate the oil, gas and mining contracts – these are the policy imperatives that...

Two former executives and a business consultant from collapsed Sierra Leone iron ore developer London Mining PLC are set to stand trial in London on charges of making...

Severing military ties with the United States on 16 March, three months after France closed its embassy in Niamey, General Abdourahamane Tiani's Conseil national pour la sauvegarde de...

The presidential election on 24 March is the most important in Senegal's history offering voters a clear choice on economic policy at a time of heightened political tensions....

The cost-of-living crisis is becoming the most serious political challenge facing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's government a year after it was elected. Whether it is maladministration and corruption...

Colonel Alpha Yaya Sangaré went from celebrated author to prisoner in one week. On 24 February, he presented his book, Mali, le défi du terrorisme en Afrique, (Mali:...

It is the shortest and most dramatic presidential election campaign to date in Senegal. It will be telescoped into less than two weeks after the Constitutional Council accepted...

There was no hiding the desperation when Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Olayemi Cardoso announced on 27 February that interest rates would be hiked from 18.75% to 22.75%,...

Unless a yet-to-be-known actor has a spectacular political ascent, the 2025 presidential election will be a contest between the Parti démocratique de Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) on the one...

Unconfirmed reports in Tripoli claim that a group of Tuareg fighters in southwestern Libya has captured some Wagner Group soldiers there in revenge for the capture of Kidal,...

Rasmané Zinaba and Bassirou Badjo, youth leaders in the pro-democracy movement Balai Citoyen (Citizen Sweep), were abducted on 20 February and 21 February respectively by unidentified agents, continuing...

It took President Macky Sall less than a day to accept the ruling by the Conseil constitutionnel on 15 February that the postponement of the presidential election and...

President Macky Sall's announcement on 3 February postponing this month's elections has wrecked what was left of his legacy and is undermining Senegal's governance amid multiple clashes between...

Facing multiple challenges to their authority, West African leaders are trying to dampen down what seem to be mutually reinforcing crises for their regional organisation. On 28 January...

The detention of former Humanitarian Affairs Minister Sadiya Umar Farouq on 2 January on charges related to alleged fraud over US$38 million of public funds has led to...

Embattled Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, 65, was removed by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on 14 February in a reshuffle involving another 11 ministers and 10 deputy ministers.

Activists and environmentalists looking for a policy change on the troubled US$1 billion clean-up project in the Niger Delta by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's government have been disappointed....

The campaign for a 'Jewish Autonomous Region in Biafra' is trying to boost its profile after hiring new lobbyists in the United States. Its backers hope to rekindle...

President Bola Tinubu's great gamble that shock therapy – ending subsidies and devaluing the naira – would bring back foreign capital and stabilise state finances isn't working. Instead,...

At the start of a crucial election year, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's embattled government has some reasons to be cheerful following confirmation on 12 January by the...

Now definitively excluded from the presidential race, the imprisoned Ousmane Sonko waits to learn whether his stand-in, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, will be allowed out of jail to campaign...

Ex-President Ernest Bai Koroma's release for 'medical treatment' in Nigeria and the backroom deal that brought it about has enraged many of President Julius Maada Bio's supporters. Controversy...

When the British oil major Shell announced on 16 January that it would be selling its interests in 18 oil licences in shallow water and onshore Niger Delta...

Confirmation on 17 January of a deal between Ghana and its official bilateral creditors (Paris Club and China) to restructure payments owed on US$5.4 billion of debt, is...

The reported deaths of Nabeeha Al-Kadriyar, who was kidnapped along with 22 others in the Bwari Area of Abuja, and 13-year-old Folasade Ariyo, who was abducted alongside eleven...

Following the signature of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on joint business opportunities in the upstream with Shell in March 2023, on 27 December Brazil's state-controlled oil company...

Political tensions are mounting in Freetown after the secret plan to allow Sierra Leone's former President, Ernest Bai Koroma to go into exile in Nigeria and drop the...

As the President's lengthy convoy snaked its way through the bustling streets of Isale-Eko (Lagos Island), where he was to attend the last Friday prayers of the year...

On 7 December, Ghanaians are due to elect a successor to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in what is shaping up to...

The suspense continues. On 5 January, the Constitutional Court will rule on statements from 13 parliamentarians in support of the presidential candidacy of Ousmane Sonko, leader of the...

The decision by Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng not to prosecute former deputy Finance Minister, Charles Adu Boahen, has been widely criticised by lawyers and civil society as denting...