Nigeria

It has been a good month for the opposition All Progressives Congress. The APC's successful national convention in Lagos picked Muhammadu Buhari as its presidential candidate on 11...

Crashing world oil prices and next February's elections – in which President Goodluck Jonathan must retain his grip on his base in the oil-producing Niger Delta – could...

The candidate's declaration speech is, by tradition, a key moment in the theatre of Nigerian politics. President Goodluck Jonathan's rally in Abuja on 11 November to announce that...

The received wisdom on Nigeria's elections is that they are all about money and mobilisation. Despite sheaves of glossy manifestos rolling off the presses, acres of newsprint devoted...

Telephone taps of Italian middlemen in the deal over Oil Prospecting Licence 245 reveal extraordinary detail about the manoeuvring that led to the agreement between the Nigerian government,...

Relations between South Africa and Nigeria have plunged to new depths. South African ex-President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo are working behind the scenes to try...

Italian public prosecutors have asked Britain to freeze an account holding US$85 million in their preliminary investigation into whether top officials in the ENI oil company conspired to...

Almost in concert with the political parties' calendar for choosing their presidential candidates, the Jama'atu Ahlus Sunnah Lidda'awati wal Jihad, widely known as Boko Haram, is stepping up...

The news that Western oil companies have finally offloaded over US$6.5 billion of assets to a fast-growing coterie of Nigerian oil and gas companies only six months...

The environmental devastation, lawlessness and grand corruption have not stopped in the oil-producing Niger Delta but the situation looks far less forbidding when set against the horrific insurgency...

Despite a security crisis and a poor public image, President Goodluck Jonathan's People's Democratic Party has engineered a startling political recovery. Much of the turnaround is the responsibility...

The victory of Ayo Fayose, candidate of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), in the governorship elections in Ekiti State on 21 June held some harsh lessons for modernising...

From any angle, the appointment of Sanusi Lamido Aminu Sanusi as the 57th Emir of Kano is bad news for President Goodluck Jonathan and his government. Sanusi emerged...

In what bears the hallmarks of a backroom political deal, Liechtenstein is to return 167 million euros (US$228 mn.) stolen by General Sani Abacha in the 1990s. This...

The deepening security crisis in northern Nigeria and along the borders with Cameroon and Niger has galvanised more attention internationally than in Abuja. This week, it was Britain's...

In March last year Africa Confidential reported that disagreements among the trustees over the Kiisi ('progress' in Ogoni) Trust had prevented any disbursements.

Alongside its terrible human cost in north-eastern Nigeria and the Middle Belt, there are signs that the Boko Haram insurgency is seriously damaging the government's political standing. A...

As social media resonated with reports that the government was about to offer an amnesty to Islamist insurgents Boko Haram, on 28 May President Goodluck Jonathan vowed again...

In the short term, the crisis triggered by Boko Haram's kidnapping of more than 230 schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno State damages all those involved in addition to...

The Metropolitan Police's Proceeds of Corruption Unit (POCU) in London has confirmed to Africa Confidential that it is investigating allegations of money laundering through Britain linked to Nigeria's...

Within the last week, Nigeria’s economy was confirmed as the biggest in Africa. At US$510 billion, it is well over $100 bn. bigger than South Africa’s. The first...

General Sani Abacha's son, now seeking political office with the governing People's Democratic Party (PDP), is building a coalition to obtain his part of the plunder. Middlemen are...

The children of the late dictator General Sani Abacha are making headlines. The oldest, Mohammed Sani Abacha, operates a political network based in Kano, where his father was...

To those who know both men, President Goodluck Jonathan's appointment of veteran spymaster General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau as Defence Minister on 5 March may be a case of...

Plain speaking, combative and ubiquitous, Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Sanusi Lamido Aminu Sanusi was never going to work well with the taciturn and cautious President Goodluck Jonathan....

Nigeria's most sensational political row for a decade began with a dispute over arithmetic. The figure in question was US$49.8 billion: that was the oil sales revenue between...

With some 170 million people, 250 different languages and an economy about to overtake South Africa’s as the continent’s biggest, Nigeria is in many ways a symbol for...

This year started with a row between President Goodluck Jonathan and former President Olusegun Obasanjo; and it is ending with a second and bigger row between the two....