From the surrealism of ‘missing president’ Umaru Yar’Adua, linked to the outside world via a ghostly voiced interview with the BBC, and with attendant disputes of legitimacy and sovereignty, Nigeria has solved the crisis in its own way, by effecting what some call a ‘democratic coup’. One by one, the elected institutions of state (the powerful governors’ forum and both houses of the National Assembly) and several non-elected regional councils met and agreed to support the handover to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan.
Whatever the constitutional doubts that remain, the 9 February resolution by the National Assembly, citing the ‘doctrine of necessity’, to recognise Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President was...
Now a man in a hurry, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has to stamp his authority on Abuja and quickly decide which ministers and officials can help him and...
President Faure Gnassingbé is set for an easy victory against a divided opposition in the 4 March national elections: the main opposition parties plan to boycott the vote...
The on-again off-again plan to renovate the railway
linking coastal Lagos to Kano in the north may formally start up this
year, but questions about the validity of any contract...
More than a year and two amendments later, progress is finally being
made on little-known China Union’s US$2.68 billion deal to redevelop
Liberia’s Bong Mines. In her apologetic New Year...
After President Yar’Adua’s two-month health crisis in Saudi Arabia,
Vice-President Jonathan’s supporters urge him to seize the day
On 16 January, the Vice-President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, began to sound like a Nigerian President. His many supporters across the country say it's not before time: they are...
Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan is trying to build a broad consensus across political parties and ethnic regions, with advisors outside party and government circles who are mostly from Bayelsa....
The shooting of the former junta leader, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, has triggered his exile and fresh talks about elections this year
After hours of bitter negotiation in Burkina Faso, soldiers from the junta and their civilian counterparts have agreed on a plan that will bar all members of the...
General Sékouba Konaté had tried to escape the corridors of power during the 2008 coup but destiny caught up with him a year later, following the December 2009...
Mills promises more affable politics and a welcome mat for oil companies but cannot ignore market realities or the harsh conditions in the countryside
Sporting a sharply-pressed black and white dashiki, President John Evans Atta Mills welcomed journalists into the well-guarded grounds of the Castle in Osu, Accra, on 7 January. One...