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Making multilateralism work by other means

Pact for the Future. Pic: un.org
Pact for the Future. Pic: un.org

UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s Summit of the Future boosted reforms and delivered some wins for Africa

It bears the hallmarks of a grandiosity guaranteed to rile isolationists gearing up for the fight of their lives in the United States presidential election on 5 November. When the UN decided to organise a Summit for the Future as a preface to the opening of the UN General Assembly on 23 September, it risked proving the Cassandras right with a high risk of the enterprise dissolving into chaos as rival geopolitical interests fight it out.

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Manufacturing consent and criminalising dissent

Pic: @atikuabagudu
Pic: @atikuabagudu

A split opposition allows President Tinubu to co-opt parliament and crack down hard on protestors

Many Nigerians say the country is going through the worst hardship for 30 years, with an economy blighted by spiralling prices, capital flight and grand corruption. And rights and ...


Biya missing in action

Paul Biya meets Xi Jinping. Pic: @PR_Paul_BIYA
Paul Biya meets Xi Jinping. Pic: @PR_Paul_BIYA

At a moment of unusual diplomatic glory and with another term in sight, Cameroon’s 91-year-old ruler has disappeared from public view

Paul Biya has not been seen in public since leaving Beijing on 8 September after attending the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC). Government sources say Cameroon’s 9...


The deputy takes the fall

Rigathi Gachagua. Pic: @rigathi
Rigathi Gachagua. Pic: @rigathi

When MPs voted to impeach Gachagua they raised more questions about the Ruto government’s political direction

In the end it was a rout. Out of 345 seats currently occupied in the National Assembly, 293 MPs voted to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, comfortably above the two-thirds...


Françafrique’s high priest gives up his secrets

Robert Bourgi
Robert Bourgi

A new book by the man who filled the brown envelopes casts scandalous light on the traffic in bribes between African and French politicians

Robert Bourgi, the 79-year-old last éminence grise of Françafrique, has revealed all – mostly – in a book about his 40-year-career first as a trusted lieu...

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The presidential circle shrinks

Félix Tshisekedi. Pic: @FelixUdps
Félix Tshisekedi. Pic: @FelixUdps

Paranoia is growing as Tshisekedi uses the coup fiasco to send a clear message to his opponents

The botched coup attempt in May bordered on the farcical with bands of ill-trained recruits charging around the empty presidential offices claiming to have usurped power. But its a...


Nguema’s expensive balancing act

Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema. Pic: @oliguinguema
Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema. Pic: @oliguinguema

The country’s foreign policy allows it to maintain dynamic partnerships with the US, China, France, Russia and regional powers in the Middle East

Gabon’s President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema has extolled his country’s partnership with Beijing, hailing China’s role in bolstering Gabon’s digital econo...


Bio rids himself of a turbulent auditor

Lara Taylor-Pearce. Pic: idi.no
Lara Taylor-Pearce. Pic: idi.no

Corruption cases are mounting but the President and parliament want to end a decade of independent scrutiny by Auditor-General Lara Taylor-Pearce

When Sierra Leone’s parliament returns from recess on 31 October, one of the first orders of business will be to ratify President Julius Maada Bio’s endorsement of the ...


Salva Kiir extends his rule as the oil cash runs out

Salva Kiir signs the amendment postponing elections till 2026. Pic: @SouthSudanGov
Salva Kiir signs the amendment postponing elections till 2026. Pic: @SouthSudanGov

Juba is delaying elections for another two years as it organises a census, a political party register and a new constitution

The latest extension of the transitional government’s rule comes as regional instability spreads and South Sudan’s oil revenues crash. On 13 September, the Juba governm...


Diomaye Faye asks the people for a bigger mandate

Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Pic: @PR_Diomaye
Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Pic: @PR_Diomaye

The president’s coalition should get a parliamentary majority in November’s snap election but he needs over 60% to drive through his reform plans

Two months from now millions of Senegalese voters are due to return to the polling stations, following the dissolution of the national assembly by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, ...


Talon turns on his allies

Patrice Talon. Pic: @PatriceTalonPR
Patrice Talon. Pic: @PatriceTalonPR

The Cotonou political class is in shock following the detention of Olivier Boko, a close associate of President Patrice Talon, and former sports minister Oswald Homéky, amid...


Goma under siege

Pic: msf.org
Pic: msf.org

Massive human rights abuses, including the murder and rape of refugees and blockades of humanitarian aid, have been committed by the Rwandan army and the M23 militia group it suppo...


 A web of disinformation

Pic: RamzuYunus FB
Pic: RamzuYunus FB

A nascent effort to set up a ‘Pan African Intelligence Agency’, led by the same group linked to the creation of the ‘Russosphere’ French-language disinforma...


Faulty funding

Pic: MNFTs / stock.adobe.com
Pic: MNFTs / stock.adobe.com

Wasteful, inefficient and paying scant attention to human rights abuses was the verdict on the €5 billion EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), in a report by the Europea...


Middle powers line up behind Addis and Mogadishu

GEOPOLITICS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA: Military power and shifting alignments. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2024
GEOPOLITICS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA: Military power and shifting alignments. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2024

Egypt and Somalia have signed a military pact to scupper Ethiopia’s trade-off with Somaliland for a port in the Gulf of Aden

Nothing better illustrates the radical shift in regional relations than the defence agreement signed by Egypt and the Federal Government of Somalia on 14 August, two days after Ank...

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MK pins its hopes on Shivambu

Floyd Shivambu. Pic: Emacous Photography
Floyd Shivambu. Pic: Emacous Photography

The new national organiser, who defected from the EFF, is expected to develop clearer policies for the struggling party

Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party has wasted no time in getting its policy tsar to work, laying on motorcades around the provinces with local MK leaders, political ral...


Tensions around farcical leadership battle

El Sadeek Omer el Kabir. Pic: cbl.gov.ly

The sacking of the central bank governor triggered another round of factional infighting, disrupting oil production and exports

In a sea of disinformation, private agendas and shifting alliances, Libya moves from one crisis to another. The latest centres on the Presidency Council’s decision to sack th...


President Macron plans military cuts

AFRICA’S CHANGING MILITARY BALANCE: France’s long march out of the region from 1960 to 2024. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2024
AFRICA’S CHANGING MILITARY BALANCE: France’s long march out of the region from 1960 to 2024. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2024

Phasing down security operations in West and Central Africa, Paris keeps its diplomatic and economic ambitions


Three old hats in the presidential ring

Lazarus Chakwera. Pic: @LAZARUSCHAKWERA
Lazarus Chakwera. Pic: @LAZARUSCHAKWERA

Next year’s election will see two previous presidents take on an incumbent still struggling to make his mark amid a sea of scandal and a tanking economy


How Tigray is turning on itself

Redwan Hussien Rameto and Getachew Reda sign the 2022 Pretoria Agreement. Pic: Alet Pretorius/Xinhua/Alamy
Redwan Hussien Rameto and Getachew Reda sign the 2022 Pretoria Agreement. Pic: Alet Pretorius/Xinhua/Alamy

The fight for control of the ruling TPLF is slowing the region’s post-war recovery and playing into the hands of the federal government