Patrick Smith
This week, the action starts in Abuja where the ruling party is splitting at the seams, and then to Harare where its counterpart is celebrating an election victory no one else believes in. In Accra, President Akufo-Addo has just sacked his energy minister...
Patrick Smith
This week, it's votes galore – national elections in Zimbabwe and Mali, and a constitutional
referendum in the Comoros. All
of them are high-stakes votes whose effects will reverberate beyond
national boundaries. And as the debt crisis deepens in Zambia, ...
Blue Lines
It is the conflict that gets conveniently buried, by the African Union, by its neighbour Nigeria and by the UN. Yet the deepening rebellion in western Cameroon against President Paul Biya's regime could explode his bid, announced last week, for a seventh ...
Patrick Smith
This week, Zimbabwe's elections due on 30
July top the political agenda, while business groups consider the
commercial implications of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's
reforms in Ethiopia. There was high drama in the Nigerian capital this morning (24 July) whi...
Patrick Smith
More dramatic developments in Ethiopia this week, with the arrival of Eritrea's President Issayas in Addis Ababa. Kayode Fayemi's victory in the Ekiti State governorship election boosts the Buhari government and is a blow to opposition plans. Despite the ...
Blue Lines
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's call on Nigeria to speed up consultations on joining the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) reminded officials of the complexity of economic integration, at a time when the United States has launched a tr...
Patrick Smith
We start in Kinshasa with the cancellation two high-level
meetings and what this tells us about President Joseph Kabila's
political plans. Then to Asmara for a breakthrough meeting between Eritrean President Issayas Aferwerki and Ethiopia's
Prime Minister...
Patrick Smith
We start this week in the Mauritanian capital, which has been hosting an African Union summit tasked with a tough agenda on regional security. The meeting crafted a compromise on Morocco and Western Sahara. Meanwhile, in Beijing, the Ministry of Defence h...
Blue Lines
As the ruling All Progressives' Congress held an exuberant convention in Abuja's Eagle Square on 23-24 June plotting victory in next year's elections, a few hundred miles to the north-east some 200 people were being slaughtered in clashes between farmers ...
Patrick Smith
This week, we wanted to let you know about another exclusive Africa Confidential report – this time on a devastating report on
corruption and fraud in Sierra Leone over the past eight years. We also want to flag up upcoming coverage of
the two assassinati...
