NIGERIA Cost-of-living crisis forces government rethink 14th March 2024 Riot police, Lekki tollgate 2021. Pic: Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto/Alamy Armed attacks and kidnappings, combined with food riots and looting, are putting President Tinubu and his inner circle under pressure The cost-of-living crisis is becoming the most serious political challenge facing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's government a year after it was elected. Whether it is maladministration and corruption in the distribution chain, many of the government's social welfare grants aren't getting through to the poorest Nigerians. In the hardest hit northern states, people have resorted to looting food trucks and warehouses. Some militants are threatening to abandon the government's amnesty programme and take up arms.
KENYA It's the politics that counts 14th March 2024 William Ruto lays the foundation stone for the construction of an Affordable Housing Project. Pic: @WilliamsRuto Disregarding economic woes, President Ruto has asserted his authority over the ruling party and its opponents Laments over spiralling prices and multiplying taxes on transactions dominate conversations in Kenya's cities and towns these days. President William Ruto's strategy of pushing thr...
SOUTH AFRICA Parties prepare for the costliest election 14th March 2024 Pic: Vividrange / stock.adobe.com Businesses and wealthy individuals are stepping up political donations and their influence on policy Ahead of the most competitive election ever in South Africa on 29 May, local and foreign political donors are trying to influence the outcome within – and sometimes outside &...
CHAD Kaka paves a hard road to sham poll 13th March 2024 Yaya Dillo Djérou. Pic: psf-tchad.org The killing of opposition leader Yaya Dillo consolidates the President's control of the elite and confirms his autocratic path The shooting dead of opposition politician Yaya Dillo Djérou on 28 February by security forces in Ndjamena proves that Chadian elite politics are as bloody as they are inter...
ETHIOPIA How war sank the development plan 14th March 2024 Copyright © Africa Confidential 2024 After the devastating human cost of the Tigray war comes its destruction of the country’s economic base Almost six years since taking office, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed presides over an economy that falls far short of the grand ambitions set forth in the 2019 Homegrown Econ...
ETHIOPIA Addis enters the debt talks tunnel 14th March 2024 Pic: @AbiyAhmedAli Abiy Ahmed’s government is edging towards an IMF deal as it approaches a March deadline for a debt agreement Three years after Ethiopia officially requested relief under the G20-backed Common Framework for debt treatments beyond the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), Prime Ministe... READ FOR FREE
CAMEROON Contenders spar in the waiting room 11th March 2024 Pic: @PR_Paul_BIYA As the post-Biya era looms, internal rivalries are dominating governance and politics in Cameroon to the exclusion of all else With every birthday – 13 February was his 91st – the succession to President Paul Biya draws nearer, as does the intensity of the rivalry of the factions aiming to repl...
ZAMBIA Can mega discovery end debt impasse? 14th March 2024 Pic: @KoBold_Metals Bad management and lack of accountability – not the lack of new finds – have held back the mining business After its two year-long attempt to restructure US$4 billion in dollar bonds fell apart last November, President Hakainde Hichilema's government has been turning to its mining indus...
RWANDACONGO-KINSHASAEUROPEAN UNION How Brussels was caught out by the Kivu war 5th March 2024 Alexander De Croo and Félix Tshisekedi. Pic: @alexanderdecroo The proxy war between Kinshasa and Kigali is derailing the European Union's plan to secure critical minerals Three days after an angry meeting between Congo-Kinshasa's President Félix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame on 16 February in Addis Ababa over the escalati...
RWANDACONGO-KINSHASAEUROPEAN UNION Kigali pushes back against the African Union 5th March 2024 President Kagame's strategic position is facing growing regional pressure Rwanda has warned the Africa Union that it would see any support for the South African-led regional intervention force against the M-23 militia in eastern Congo-Kinshasa as a threa...
SOUTH AFRICA Ramaphosa and Mashatile clash on election date 1st March 2024 Paul Mashatile. Pic: GCIS CC BY-ND 2.0 DEED The tussle over the vote schedule is part of a wider battle for the presidential succession Fresh tensions have blown up within the ruling party after Deputy President Paul Mashatile appeared to pre-empt President Cyril Ramaphosa on the timing of the elections. The two me...
TANZANIAUGANDA Pipeline to nowhere 14th March 2024 Pic: cnoocinternational.com Two years after the final investment decision to construct the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) was taken, the US$5 billion project is limping on to an uncertain future.
ALGERIA Tebboune seeks help 14th March 2024 Pic: Zakarya Roubache / stock.adobe.com President Abdelmadjid Tebboune had a positive result from his late predecessor's mixed legacy when he marked the run-up to the holy month of Ramadan by inaugurating the new Algiers...
MALI Book guts Goïta's junta 14th March 2024 Pic: @SecuriteML Colonel Alpha Yaya Sangaré went from celebrated author to prisoner in one week. On 24 February, he presented his book, Mali, le défi du terrorisme en Afrique, (Mali: ...
SENEGAL Telescoping the campaign 14th March 2024 Pic: @Macky_Sall It is the shortest and most dramatic presidential election campaign to date in Senegal. It will be telescoped into less than two weeks after the Constitutional Council accepted Pre...
AFRICAN UNION Regional fights hold back the union project 29th February 2024 Pic: Mauro Rodrigues / stock.adobe.com Ramping up its international role, the African Union is still struggling to respond to the continent's conflicts Joining the G20 and signing a new cooperation deal on peacekeeping missions with the UN, the African Union is expanding its footprint in the international system. But its summit in...
AFRICAN UNION Veterans seek a last hurrah in Addis 29th February 2024 Copyright © Africa Confidential 2024 Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete and Kenya's Raila Odinga have thrown their hats into the ring to chair the AU Commission The race to succeed Moussa Faki Mahamat as chair of the African Union Commission (AUC) in February 2025 already has two contenders, Tanzania's former president Jakaya Kikwete and K...
SOUTH AFRICA Enoch pulls a rabbit out of his fedora 29th February 2024 Enoch Godongwana briefs media ahead of budget speech, February 2024. Pic: GCIS CC BY-ND 2.0 DEED The ANC government is struggling to raise revenue and fund vote-winning social programmes ahead of elections in May Sustained low growth is haunting the policy calculations of Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, who presented his budget to parliament on 21 February. He conceded that revised 2023 ...
NIGERIA Spiralling prices imperil Tinubu’s reforms 29th February 2024 Olayemi Cardoso. Pic: @cenbank Facing political pushback and food riots, the government is rethinking its devaluation and subsidy cuts
TANZANIA Nation mourns the 'nearly man' Lowassa 27th February 2024 Funeral of Edward Lowassa. Pic: @ChademaTz Despite his burning ambition the late Edward Lowassa was ever the bridesmaid and never the bride, but his career exemplified national politics
ETHIOPIA Taking Amhara to Washington 26th February 2024 Addis Ababa. Pic: Thiago Trevisan / stock.adobe.com Loyalists to Abiy Ahmed turned dissidents take their case to the US capital to lobby Congress and the Biden administration
EGYPT Israeli gas enters Sisi's Gaza calculations 29th February 2024 Copyright © Africa Confidential 2024 Egypt has warned that Israel will face serious consequences if it attacks Rafah, but its options are constrained by economic considerations READ FOR FREE
CÔTE D'IVOIRE All eyes on 2025 – and the northern border 29th February 2024 Tidjane Thiam. Pic: https://pdcirda.ci Recent elections have left the ruling RHDP in a comfortable political position but Tidjane Thiam's ascent in the PDCI has raised the stakes
SENEGAL After Sall's U-turn, elections likely within two weeks 19th February 2024 Pic @Macky_Sall The top court's rejection of plans to postpone the vote steers the country back to constitutionalism
WEST AFRICAECOWAS Ecowas buckles as it goes for regional unity 28th February 2024 Pic: Mohamed Bazoum FB Facing a break-up, the West African bloc drops the sanctions with which it was pressuring the Sahel putschists to restore civil rule
UGANDA Rifts threaten Bobi Wine's party 29th February 2024 Pic: @HEBobiwine The opposition party is under pressure from not only the government but also its own socially conservative supporters
BURKINA FASO Junta press-gangs the press 26th February 2024 Rasmané Zinaba and Bassirou Badjo. Pic: @BalaiCitoyen