Patrick Smith
We start in South Africa where President Ramaphosa's motives in reforming the security sector are being questioned, and then to Uganda where a big budget increase laying the ground for oil infrastructure includes a controversial proposal to tax social med...
Blue Lines
How seriously to take the 12 June statement by Bruno Tshibala, Congo-Kinshasa's Prime Minister, that President Joseph Kabila will not seek a third term in elections due in December? Such announcements might deflect foreign pressure on Kabila to leave powe...
Patrick Smith
We start with the fast-moving developments in Zimbabwe's national elections due on 30 July, followed by a report on the non-elections in Congo-Kinshasa and mounting opposition frustration. In South Africa, ex-President Zuma has suffered reverses in his at...
Patrick Smith
This week we start with the critical governorship election in Ekiti State, Nigeria, and then to the United Nations which has published an important new report on migration trends within Africa. We also look at the claims of the power of the pro-Zuma clans...
Blue Lines
The one unsurprising thing about Zimbabwe's presidential and parliamentary elections is the date: they are now set for 30 July with a rerun on 8 September if no candidate clears 50% in the first round of the presidential poll. Few want to see a second rou...
Patrick Smith
This week we start in Nigeria where politicians of all parties are jockeying for position ahead of next year's elections. Ghana's former President John Mahama announces he wants to stand again in 2020 and Zimbabwe has applied to rejoin the Commonwealth. I...
Blue Lines
Retired Ambassador Tibor P. Nagy has finally emerged as the choice for Assistant Secretary of African Affairs 475 days after Donald Trump was inaugurated as United States President. Nagy, a Trump loyalist, now has to win approval in Congress, where his na...
Patrick Smith
We start with the Zimbabwe opposition's roadshow in Europe, which is likely to be followed by as a more discrete visit to London by Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari to see his doctor. Tunisia's leading Islamist party Ennahda has scored a win in local ...
Blue Lines
Just as France's President Emmanuel Macron was enjoying the hospitality of United States' President Donald Trump – both self-styled mavericks – in Washington, investigators in Paris were preparing to charge business titan Vincent Bolloré with corruption o...
Patrick Smith
We start in Washington with a West African theme – on the summit meeting of Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari and United States President Donald Trump. Security will dominate those talks, as it does relations between Washington and Niger where a new US...
