Patrick Smith
As the week opens United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's diplomatic career seems to have ended after a brief swing through Africa. Partisans on both sides of the divide in Kenya are asking who got what at last week's summit at State House. Niger...
Blue Lines
Rex Tillerson, Washington's Secretary of State, started his swing on 6 March through Africa – Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Nigeria and Chad – with a bellicose warning to China over its regional policy. Despite the billions of dollars from China that has bee...
Patrick Smith
This week it's the Sierra Leone elections, the Tillerson tour, choosing Ethiopia's new prime minister and progress in fixing Ghana's spat with the International Monetary Fund.SIERRA LEONE: Will Candidate Yumkella break the duopoly in the elections on 7 Ma...
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 Ghanaand Zambia are lower-middle-income countr...
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 governm...
