Blue Lines
In time for the start of the election campaign season, Matthew
Page of Chatham House has produced a compelling analysis of
the 'Taxonomy for Corruption in Nigeria' for the
Carnegie Foundation. Page offers a detailed guide to the types and
mechanics of cor...
Patrick Smith
We start at the Africa mega-summit in Beijing before moving
swiftly onto the contest for Nigeria's presidency
next year. In Uganda, opposition to President Yoweri
Museveni is growing after two opposition MPs claim they were
tortured by state security. And...
Blue Lines
For a few weeks Africa is shrugging off its marginal role in
international affairs.
After the tours of Africa by China's
President Xi Jinping and
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in mid-year, Britain's Prime
Minister Theresa May and German Chancellor...
Patrick Smith
This week we start in Johannesburg with the Constitutional Court order to dismiss the top prosecutor and then to Harare where Zimbabwe's Constitutional Court is considering the opposition's petition against last month's presidential election. Then, to Mal...
Blue Lines
Emmerson Mnangagwa is sending out invitations to his inauguration on 12 August. That shows how much confidence he has that the judges of the Constitutional Court will throw out a challenge to the results which gave him 50.8% of the votes, avoiding a run-o...
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 ...