After a heated argument with the First Lady, Rear-Admiral Joseph Fouda was drummed out of the presidency accused of fraud
He headed no unit of the Cameroonian armed forces, nor did he even grace its highest ranks, let alone did he earn President Paul Biya’s eternal gratitude by...
The putschist general may stay in power after a constitutional change allows him to stand in next year’s elections
Having secured a 91.8% ‘Yes’ vote in the 16 November referendum on the new constitution, transitional head of state General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema is set to run...
Pope Francis’s plan to beatify Belgium’s late King Baudouin risks re-opening the wounds of Congo-Kinshasa’s brutal colonial past.
The President walks a fine line, relying on military support from Moscow as he shores up ties with the EU and France
The regime of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra may have staved off the threat of a coup d’état – unlike neighbouring Gabon and three Sahelian states – but citizens complain...
UAE leader Mohamed bin Zayed will want political and other favours in return for his hefty investment in Mahamat Kaka
After meeting France’s President Emmanuel Macron at the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) in Villers-Cotterêts on 4-5 October, Chad’s President Mahamat Déby Itno ‘Kaka’ rushed to Abu...
The Zaghawa are turning against the President’s arms shipment deals with the UAE and backing for Hemeti’s RSF militia
Two raging urban battles – in Khartoum and El Fasher in North Darfur – could determine the next stage in Sudan’s devastating war: the de facto partition of...
At a moment of unusual diplomatic glory and with another term in sight, Cameroon’s 91-year-old ruler has disappeared from public view
Paul Biya has not been seen in public since leaving Beijing on 8 September after attending the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC). Government sources say Cameroon’s 91-year-old ruler,...
Vol 65 No 20 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
Paranoia is growing as Tshisekedi uses the coup fiasco to send a clear message to his opponents
The botched coup attempt in May bordered on the farcical with bands of ill-trained recruits charging around the empty presidential offices claiming to have usurped power. But its...
The country’s foreign policy allows it to maintain dynamic partnerships with the US, China, France, Russia and regional powers in the Middle East
Gabon’s President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema has extolled his country’s partnership with Beijing, hailing China’s role in bolstering Gabon’s digital economy – which made it the first Central...
Massive human rights abuses, including the murder and rape of refugees and blockades of humanitarian aid, have been committed by the Rwandan army and the M23 militia group...
Vol 65 No 17 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
After months of plotting, President Félix Tshisekedi has finally made a decisive move against his predecessor Joseph Kabila.
Western officials won’t help a detained aid worker in Bangui for fear of losing influence with Touadéra’s increasingly arbitrary regime
The detention of 41-year-old aid worker Joseph Figueira Martin at Camp de Roux in Bangui shows the power of Russia’s security services over President Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s government and...
UN Security Council mulls crisis after experts say 3,000-4,000 Rwandan troops are fighting alongside M23 militia in Congo
The most damning assertion in the latest report by the UN Group of Experts (GoE) on Congo-Kinshasa, that 3,000-4,000 Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) troops had ‘de facto control’...
A new autocracy takes root after a dubious poll with only subtle changes to the rulership style of the last 30 years visible in the President's picks for the new cabinet
The electoral commission outdid itself in producing the results of the 6 May presidential election in record time. Having set a deadline of 21 May the Agence nationale...
The death of Prigozhin has neither reduced the influence of Russia nor diminished France's efforts to charm Bangui out of the Kremlin's grip
Russian mercenaries no longer openly roam the streets of Bangui by day as in the Wagner Group's heyday, but they still pluck President Faustin-Archange Touadéra's opponents from the...
The Biden administration risks undermining the credibility of the Magnitsky Act that was used to impose sanctions on the Israeli billionaire
The US government has proposed a deal with Israeli mining magnate Dan Gertler that would enable Gertler to sell his remaining royalty streams in Congolese mining assets and...
Vol 65 No 11 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
After a spectacularly incompetent coup fails, the ruling party points fingers at Rwanda and Washington
Shots rang out in the Gombe diplomatic enclave of Kinshasa early on 19 May when over 50 men in combat fatigues drove in convoy towards the residence of...
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New details about President Kaka's break with the US have emerged as the election exposes some of the political manoeuvring within the elite
The campaigning which culminated in national elections on 6 May proved livelier than expected. Yet nobody doubts that President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno 'Kaka' will win, probably with...
Although his country sits on a cornucopia of critical minerals, President Tshisekedi has failed to draw in heavyweight investors
More deals between Washington and Kinshasa to secure supplies of critical minerals are being negotiated as both sides try to improve relations and avoid regulatory snafus – on...
A letter to Washington has put relations in the cooler, as overtures to the Kremlin increase and the president ponders a change of allegiance
On 4 April the Chadian government threatened to cancel the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the United States, the law that regulates the conditions under which the...
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Ahead of key elections in 2025 – in which 91-year-old Paul Biya is seeking re-election – his ministers are cracking down on political foes
The government has pressed the panic button in response to plans for two opposition alliances to fight next year's elections. Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji has...
Vol 65 No 7 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
State officials led by Kashal Katemb are bent on restructuring company ownership in favour of Congolese business people
Foreign companies in Congo-Kinshasa are increasingly alarmed at what they see as a wave of economic nationalism that revives the politics of 'Zaïreanisation' under the three-decade kleptocratic rule...
The killing of opposition leader Yaya Dillo consolidates the President's control of the elite and confirms his autocratic path
The shooting dead of opposition politician Yaya Dillo Djérou on 28 February by security forces in Ndjamena proves that Chadian elite politics are as bloody as they are...
As the post-Biya era looms, internal rivalries are dominating governance and politics in Cameroon to the exclusion of all else
With every birthday – 13 February was his 91st – the succession to President Paul Biya draws nearer, as does the intensity of the rivalry of the factions...
The proxy war between Kinshasa and Kigali is derailing the European Union's plan to secure critical minerals
Three days after an angry meeting between Congo-Kinshasa's President Félix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame on 16 February in Addis Ababa over the escalating regional conflict,...
President Kagame's strategic position is facing growing regional pressure
Rwanda has warned the Africa Union that it would see any support for the South African-led regional intervention force against the M-23 militia in eastern Congo-Kinshasa as a...
With pressure from the IMF mounting, the government has embarked on austerity measures which could impact political stability
Cameroon has had a worrying start to the year with President Paul Biya's four-decade-long dictatorship facing economic challenges that could turn political at a moment's notice. The labour...
Washington sees the possibility of China building a military base on the coast of Gabon, as well as other port investments by China on the African Atlantic coast,...
Vol 65 No 2 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
Its abundance of critical minerals encouraged outsiders to ignore election abuses but Congo's governance crisis holds up everything
Félix Tshisekedi's second presidential mandate is assured, and he has politically vanquished his domestic opposition after the 20 December elections. But his rhetoric on the campaign trail has...
Focused on consolidating power, the junta leader is bringing rivals into the tent and trying to avoid more entanglements in Sudan
The devastating war in Sudan and awkward relations with France and the United Arab Emirates are casting a long shadow over Chad this year as its military leader...
The governing elite is splitting as Biya's 91st birthday approaches, while the Anglophone insurgency grinds on and elections loom
Cameroonians do not look forward to what 2024 has to offer as all the drivers of conflict, corruption, and divisiveness in government look set to intensify amid expectations...