Patrick Smith
This week we reflect on an apparent replay of the 2014 tragedy in which armed militants abducted dozens of girl students in northern Nigeria. Then to South Africa, where speculation intensifies about the shape of President Cyril Ramaphosa's new cabinet. T...
Blue Lines
Public debt is spiralling and the International Monetary Fund is
back in business in Africa.
That figures. But it's not a straight rerun of the testy relationship
of the 1980s and 1990s.
Now, countries such as Ghana
and Zambia are
lower-middle-income
cou...
Patrick Smith
We start in South Africa as the country comes to terms with last week's upheavals and looks forward to a new cabinet and a budget on Wednesday (21 February). Its northern neighbour, Zimbabwe, has been in mourning after the death of opposition leader Morga...
Patrick Smith
This week we start, inevitably, in South Africa with
the latest scenes from the seemingly unending drama of President Jacob
Zuma's departure. Then to Nigeria where the
government is belatedly acknowledging calls for sweeping constitutional
changes. In Tan...
Blue Lines
It took Chief Justice David Maraga to give a constitutional perspective to the political ructions in Kenya over the last week. The government has ignored court orders to lift its closure of four television stations that broadcast Raila Odinga's theatrical...
Patrick Smith
We start this week in Addis Ababa where the African Union is faced with a slew of tough decisions on security and restructuring its management. And then to Nigeria where former President Olusegun Obasanjo's open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari has sh...
Blue Lines
For the past four decades there has been a recurring motif in Nigerian politics. A new government
takes power on the crest of popular approval
but soon falls short of expectations.
The sequence started with Shehu
Shagari's National Party of Nigeria gover...
Patrick Smith
We start in Addis Ababa this week with the opening of a
critical summit of the African Union. Then to Monrovia for the
carnival-like inauguration of President George Weah. After that we go to the
European courtrooms for the latest episode in Nigeria's
pur...
Blue Lines
In politics as in economics, 2018 will be the year of the
variable-speed Africa, as our special survey of the year ahead makes
clear. Sometimes, the sharp differences are between regions:
high-growth economies in Ethiopia,
Tanzania and Kenya in the east
c...
Patrick Smith
The New Year begins with a wave of change in Southern Africa. The new leaders in South Africa and Zimbabwe are under pressure to turn around their countries' weakening economies, but they have also inherited a morass of political and legal problems. At le...
