President Yoweri Museveni has set up a new Anti-Corruption Unit, but Kampala pundits believe its real function is to prevent opposition politicians raising money from wealthy businesses for...
A former Shabaab leader stands a good chance of election in South West State and Mogadishu is determined to stop him
President Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed 'Farmajo' and his government experienced temporary relief on 2 December when the electoral commission supervising South West State's presidential election postponed the poll –...
Twelve months into Uhuru’s second term, Kenyans are taking stock, and taking aim at the failures in the anti-corruption campaign
Commentators and pundits have been giving their verdicts on the first year of President Uhuru Kenyatta's second term of office since the anniversary fell on 28 November. There...
The arrest of senior officials on corruption charges is popular with the public but many are Tigrayan, which is creating tension
For millions of Ethiopians, the arrest of former senior officials from the intelligence services and the Metals and Engineering Corporation (MetEC), a wayward military enterprise, were welcome signs...
US operations increase but the Islamists are showing resilience. The government is trying to manage expectations
The most lethal United States drone strike against Al Shabaab in over a year killed about 60 fighters at Aga Adde, near Galharere in the Central Region, on...
Vol 59 No 22 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The much-publicised return of rebel leader Riek Machar to attend the 31 October peace celebrations in Juba was hailed as a milestone in the finalisation of the latest...
Even when faced with an attempted coup d’état, Prime Minister Abiy somehow turned it into a public relations triumph
After disgruntled – and fully armed – troops marched into Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's office in central Addis Ababa on 11 October, initial reports unconvincingly suggested the head...
President Yoweri Museveni is to appoint former members of the opposition as ministers, according to a leak of a cabinet list. The President means to divide the opposition...
The case of a business manager who lost his job because he was not in the inner circle of President Mohamed Abdullah Mohamed 'Farmajo' is discouraging diaspora investors....
Backbench Jubilee and Nasa MPs are ganging up against revenue plans by President Kenyatta and Raila Odinga
On Tuesday 18 September, President Uhuru Kenyatta's governing Jubilee party and the opposition (at least in name) National Super Alliance (Nasa), led by Raila Odinga, held separate emergency...
Vol 59 No 19 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The new agreement between the warring parties has ambition but twice-bitten donors won’t fund it. Few believe it has a future
It's official: the peace agreement has been signed, all protocols observed, the countdown begun. With all parties supposedly on board, a Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity is...
The federal patchwork is barely holding together while a new currency launches. Farmajo's absence in New York is raising questions
The Finance Minister of the federal government, Abdirahman Bayle, believed he had good reason to congratulate himself at the end of a week of talks with the International...
The President is taking no chances and making no concessions. He is mobilising 24,000 reservists as popular protests continue
Thousands of new security personnel are being deployed to meet the threat of mass civil unrest after the triumphant return to Kampala of Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine...
Ethnic killings, shootings by police and mass detentions rock Addis Ababa as Abiy’s democratic openings trigger ferment
Ethiopia's rulers scheduled the triumphant return of two diametrically opposed political movements a week apart in a move that spoke of either breezy confidence or naivety. The events...
Shortly after coming to power in November 2015, President John Magufuli sacked Edward Hoseah, long-serving director general of the Prevention and Combatting Corruption Bureau (PCCB), replacing him with...
The Bobi Wine protests are growing into demonstrations against autocracy and impunity as the veteran President's grip falters
Ever since President Yoweri Museveni's personal guards beat up and almost killed the popular musician-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, on 14 August, the normally effective mixture of...
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Abiy is distancing himself from the troubled dam project, which some political opponents are trying to use against him
The death of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project manager, Simegnew Bekele, was ruled a suicide by authorities last week, but the announcement has done little to...
Deadlock over plans to raise fuel taxes to satisfy the IMF risks derailing the President’s economic plans
Kenya's debt burden has been growing rapidly for the past four years, rising from 45% of GDP to near 60% now. Solid growth rates have given leaders freedom...
Vol 59 No 18 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The conviction of 10 of the 12 soldiers accused of the July 2016 Terrain Hotel attack in Juba has had a lukewarm response from human rights organisations. They...
Vol 59 No 17 |
- ETHIOPIA
- SOMALIA
Addis's relations with its neighbours may be changing as radically as those on the domestic front. A new deal with Somalia could be in the offing
As soon as he was appointed Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed was as eager to embrace peace and normalisation with neighbouring states as to reform the regime at home....
The death of the great dam’s chief engineer sees an outpouring of grief as regional reactions to Abiy’s radical initiatives gather speed
For many Ethiopians, dam engineer Simegnew Bekele was the embodiment of their aspirations for a better future, which explains the widespread shock when he was discovered shot dead...
The veteran opposition leader is gaining enough from his historic compromise with Uhuru to worry Vice-President Ruto
Five months after the handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga and its promise to build bridges between Kenya's hostile ethnic groups, Odinga seems to...
Vol 59 No 16 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
'Very much a starting point' was the verdict of United Nations Special Representative David Shearer on the latest agreement by the main political actors of South Sudan on...
A new investigation says those responsible for the Solai dam disaster could escape prosecution
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Mohamed Haj has charged the manager and owner of the Nakuru County farm on which the Milmet Solai dam collapsed, causing dozens...
Vol 59 No 15 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Mediators are talking up a five-party power-sharing deal but the leaders shirk responsibility for mass killings
Hardly a day passes without some new iteration of a South Sudan peace deal, new venues for talks, new concessions, and new demands but without much forward motion...
Al Shabaab offers its Da’ish competitors a simple choice: recant or face execution
The early days of Da'ish in Somalia were not auspicious. The leader of Somalia's version of the pan-regional and Middle Eastern Islamist movement also known as 'Islamic State'...
Vol 59 No 15 |
- ERITREA
- ETHIOPIA
What to do about the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and how powerful the rebel faction is, are among the most important 'known unknowns' as the political landscape takes...
At the meeting of donor countries in Brussels on 17 July, the European Commission pledged €200 million to President Mohamed Abdullah Mohamed 'Farmajo's' government. The agreement includes €100...
Vol 59 No 14 |
- ERITREA
- ETHIOPIA
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has topped off weeks of revolutionary change by triumphantly making peace with Eritrea
The Ethiopian leader's previously inconceivable trip to Asmara on a mission of reconciliation on 8 July has reshaped regional geopolitics and crowned Abiy Ahmed's premiership with a hugely...
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The deal between Kenyatta and Odinga has re-aligned old rivalries. Nairobi insiders puzzle over who the winners and losers are
Every politician in Nairobi has a favourite theory about the causes and consequences of the rapprochement between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga on 9 March...
Vol 59 No 14 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
June's surprise Khartoum Declaration of Agreement, which saw both government and rebels recommit to a cessation of hostilities and work towards power-sharing was just enough to postpone planned...
Warm words from President Kenyatta about tackling corruption hold little promise of transforming an endemic culture of rot
Grand corruption throughout society is being exposed on a scale Kenyans have never seen before – all, apparently, with the full support of President Uhuru Kenyatta. Such is...
Vol 59 No 13 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
June's abortive round of the South Sudan peace 'revitalisation' process in Addis Ababa, convened by the eight-nation regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), did agree something. Riek Machar...
Vol 59 No 13 |
- ETHIOPIA
- SOMALIA
The leading representative of the Ethiopian security services in Somalia, Colonel Gebregziabher Alemseged, better known in Somalia as Colonel Gebre, has been recalled. Since 2002 Colonel Gebre had...
Vol 59 No 13 |
- ERITREA
- ETHIOPIA
An Eritrean Government delegation arrived in Addis Ababa on 26 June in response to the Ethiopian ruling coalition's latest peace initiative. The dispatch of the fact-finding mission by...
It's a year since the businessmen Harbinder Singh Sethi and James Rugemalira – alleged architects of scams involving the public-private Independent Power Tanzania Ltd (IPTL) – were arrested...
Vol 59 No 12 |
- ERITREA
- ETHIOPIA
Addis’s radical offer to implement the UN’s ruling on the border is meeting resistance at home and silence in Asmara
The Ethiopian government's announcement that it was ready to implement the 2002 border ruling to try and resolve the freeze in relations with Eritrea has met with worrying...
A new cabinet is appointed in the midst of an economic meltdown as the army plans to wipe out the rebels in Darfur
The proposal by Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the United Nations head of Peacekeeping Operations, on 11 June to halve the UN-African Union peacekeeping force to 4,050 soldiers over the next...
The bipartisan committee appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga to look into 'building bridges' to achieve national unity has not reported, but a pattern...
Vol 59 No 12 |
- ERITREA
- ETHIOPIA
Abiy Ahmed will need strong backing from the party as well as his new security chiefs to make his new policies work
A credible offer to end the war with Eritrea and the opening up of state companies to private capital are Ethiopia's biggest strategic shifts in over a decade....
Far from being on the brink of defeat, Al Shabaab is improving its propaganda and still holding its own on the military front
Al Shabaab's leader, Abu Ubaydah, made a major speech on jihadist broadcast media on 18 May marking the beginning of Ramadan and setting out his political stall, scotching...
The new premier plays a clever game of balancing competing interests – but bringing the corrupt to book is not on the agenda
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been boosting his reputation as a crowd-pleaser with government actions which have delighted a Saudi tycoon, youthful demonstrators, opposition leaders, jailed executives and...
Vol 59 No 10 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
An increasingly isolated Salva is under threat and making desperate moves as his former army chief defects
In April, the unity of President Salva Kiir Mayardit's Dinka-dominated alliance fractured further when his former army chief Paul Malong Awan announced the formation of yet another opposition...
The ruling Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front's favourite billionaire, the Ethiopian-Saudi Mohammed Hussein al Amoudi, seems to have disappeared from favour in Addis Ababa as surely as he...
Qatar and the UAE, along with a host of bit players, fought their latest battle in Somalia over whose man got to be the new Speaker of Parliament
Months of vicious intrigue centring on the rivalry between the United Arab Emirates and its declared enemy, Qatar, ended on 30 April when Mohamed Mursal Abdirahman became the...
A veteran spy chief returns and the foreign minister is pushed out as President El Beshir tries to prolong his tenure
The sacking of Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour on 18 April after he complained in parliament that diplomats hadn't been paid for seven months points to the depth of...
The Prime Minister's first cabinet rewards allies and begins to take on the securocrats' power in politics and the economy
Building on an assertive start, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has revealed more about his leadership style with an aggressive set of federal government appointments. Although hardly unexpected, the...
President Magufuli's crackdown is hampering economic development plans and intimidating civil servants and companies alike
Tanzania is in the midst of its ambitious second Five-Year Development Plan, a programme to rebuild and improve infrastructure while jump-starting industrial manufacturing with special economic zones and...
Viewed from the Casablanca commercial courtroom where the bankruptcy and mothballing of his Société Anonyme Marocaine de l'Industrie du Raffinage (Samir) refinery company has been disputed since...
President Uhuru Kenyatta was affable good humour personified on 17 April when he nipped across London's Mayfair from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to the Chatham House...
After two weeks in office, new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has produced little policy detail, let alone tangible achievements, but the choice of destinations to launch his premiership...
Vol 59 No 7 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
A reshuffle has seen the President promote his kinsmen to shore up his position, but that narrows his base and could weaken him further
President Salva Kiir Mayardit has tightened his control over key finance and security posts by appointing loyalists from his home region. In March, Salva sacked Stephen Dhieu Dau...
Expectations are high that the youthful new Oromo Prime Minister can be a unifying force. He's even trying to reconcile with Eritrea
The ruling party took a promising step towards greater stability when it elected Abiy Ahmed, the head of its Oromia wing, as its new Chairperson and Prime Minister...
Parliament is at odds with the executive. Cash is coursing through the chamber as proxies of foreign states fight for supremacy
Until mid-February, Mogadishu's parliament had been in recess while the government went about its business. So controversial was the business that Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire had...
The President’s authoritarian measures are meeting increasing resistance, but he is set on his course and has made ugly threats against dissenters
Half-way through his first term, President John Pombe Magufuli is under pressure. Facing a mainstream political threat from the opposition Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema), civil society...
The opposition is in disarray after its erstwhile leader signs a surprise agreement with President Kenyatta
It was the most ambiguous of handshakes, despite the claims that President Uhuru Kenyatta and the opposition leader Raila Odinga's meeting on 9 March – after months of...
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Vol 59 No 6 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
An influx of cash is expected now that debts to Khartoum are almost clear. Arms and oilfield security will have first call on the money
Oil money will soon begin flowing into South Sudan's coffers once more as the clearance of all its arrears to Khartoum approaches. Juba is due to wipe out...
The government's expulsion of an important Gulf company is the latest example of growing commercial and security rivalries in the Horn
The vote by Somalia's parliament on 12 March to expel the state-owned United Arab Emirates company DP World in protest against its $442 million deal to build a...
Vol 59 No 6 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The government is exploiting Riek Machar's obduracy to push back against pressure from the mediators in Addis Ababa
South Sudan's sequestered president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, made a rare excursion out of Juba the first week of March. Rarer still, the trip was within the country's borders....
A bid by some in the ruling coalition to appoint an Oromo prime minister faces deep-seated opposition
The national crisis has entered an even more dangerous phase after a disputed parliamentary vote triggered another strike in Oromia, amid opposition concerns that the ruling party is...
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The government claims its political crackdown will boost growth. It's more likely to do the opposite
There has been a sea change in President Uhuru Kenyatta's political style. In a television interview last September, David Wakairu Murathe, the Jubilee Party Deputy Chairman and a...
First a concession, then a crackdown. The ruling party's divisions over how to respond to growing revolt are on show
After the most tumultuous week in Ethiopian politics for years, which included the resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, hardliners appear to be reasserting themselves in the accustomed...
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Once Museveni's devoted chief enforcer, General Kale Kayihura has fallen from grace in a tussle for security control
Once regarded as the most powerful general in Ugandan internal security circles, the Inspector General of Police, General Kale Kayihura, has fallen from President Yoweri Museveni's favour. Kayihura...
The government has banned reporting of Raila's 'inauguration' and picked a fight with the EU election observers' mission as the political impasse worsens
The government took three of Kenya's main television stations off the air rather than allow them to broadcast opposition leader Raila Odinga's self-styled inauguration as the 'people's president'...
Vol 59 No 2 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Ceasefire violations, threats of sanctions and censorship in Juba will accompany the fighting in the absence of outside intervention
As the New Year dawned, diplomats, peacekeepers and humanitarian officials from all corners of the globe silently breathed sighs of relief that the Christmas ceasefire appeared to be...
President Magufuli's clampdown on political opponents and the media will continue unabated, which won't help the economy
A tough twelve months lie ahead in Tanzania. The economy will continue to slow down. Under-pressure tax collectors will continue to squeeze domestic investors while foreign businesses understand...
The unrest and instability of the prolonged electoral crisis will continue to dominate politics as Kenyatta looks to his legacy
The political tug-of-war between the governing Jubilee Party of Kenya and the opposition National Super Alliance (Nasa) which dominated 2017 is expected to continue through the rest of...
The biggest threats to the successes of the 'developmental state' are the growing challenges to the ruling party's legitimacy
The most worrying thing about the chaos towards the end of the year in Ethiopia was just how commonplace it seemed – a clear indication that the engine...
Farmajo is swamped by an ocean of political problems, and victory over Al Shabaab will be no closer this year
No one could have predicted that Mohamed Abdullah Mohamed 'Farmajo' would have lost so much popularity, and become so dictatorial less than a year after becoming president. He...
Vol 59 No 1 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
As the two sides in the conflict meet in Addis they trade accusations of unwarranted attacks. The notion of talks being 'revitalised' is already coming under question
The 'High Level Revitalisation Forum' in Addis Ababa looked doomed as soon as it began on 18 December. Several military offensives are already in progress and are unlikely...