Blue Lines
Atiku Abubakar's emergence as Presidential candidate for the biggest party challenging President Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria's elections in February guarantees a lively contest for voters but little else. For Atiku, 71, and Buhari, 75, it is a final roll ...
Patrick Smith
Finance ministers and central bank governors are heading to Bali, Indonesia for the annual meetings of the Bretton Woods institutions, where they will consumed by the threats of the expanding trade war, rising public debt and ructions in the international...
Blue Lines
First came the shocking but not wholly surprising news on 24 September that José Filomeno dos Santos, better known as Zenú, son of the former President, José Eduardo dos Santos, was being held in preventive detention in connection with a US$1.5 billion co...
Patrick Smith
Debt and finance are the big stories this week in Southern Africa this week as shown by the growing international interest in our reporting on the economic crisis in Zambia (AC Vol 59 No 18, Graft worsens cash squeeze & Bonds, bills and ever bigger debts)...
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 A...
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...
