On election, President Ernest Bai Koroma gave himself three years to turn Sierra Leone around, but the first year has been unimpressive, and the smart performance of President...

Finance Minister David Carew, Foreign Minister Zainab Bangura and Lands Minister Benjamin Davies are generally held in high esteem. Other ministers are less appreciated. Rumours of corruption and...

President Laurent Gbagbo assured representatives of the United Nations Security Council - on a flying visit to Abidjan on 9 June - that the November election deadline would...

Côte d'Ivoire's Public Prosecutor, Raymond Tchimou, is leading a crackdown on corruption in the cocoa industry, which accounts for 40% of world supply. On 13 June, Tchimou announced...

Ghana seeks partners following its 19 June purchase of Alcoa's 10% stake in the 200,000 tonne/year Volta Aluminum Company (Valco) smelter, mothballed since March 2007. The statal Volta...

The wealth of Côte d'Ivoire's defunct founding father, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, was on display at an auction in the historic French town of Fontainebleau on 29 June. The sale...

Troops from Nigeria and Cameroon were put on high alert in the Bakassi Peninsula, following the unexplained slaughter of five Cameroonian soldiers and a local government official on...

Nigeria is determined to raise its oil production capacity to four million barrels per day by 2010, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua told Africa Confidential in Paris on 13...

These are tough times for Mali and its President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT). On top of the surge in prices which affects all of Africa, he faces a...

Mali's democratic credentials are wearing thin at home despite winning international plaudits in the 16 years since Amadou Toumani Touré started the constitutional revolution in 1992.