Nigerian advocates of Sharia – governance according to the norms, principles and rules laid down by Islamic law – face a reckoning this year. The poverty and frustration...

North-west Nigeria, with probably more than 30 million people, is the country's most populous zone - overwhelmingly Muslim, with significant numbers of Christians only in southern Kaduna and...

Eight months into his first term, the glister is coming off John Agyekum Kufuor's presidency. Glad-handing his New Patriotic Party government and demonising the outgoing National Democratic Congress...

Poisoned by Liberia's support for the rebel Revolutionary United Front, relations between President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's government and President Charles Taylor face a new test. They are...

Two years before the next national elections, decision-making comes a poor second to political manoeuvring - and that threatens the few recent successes in reforming the mismanaged and...

The ruling People's Democratic Party, with 209 of the 348 seats in the National Assembly and 59 of the 103 seats in the Senate, enters the electoral race...

Mountains of facts, many of them highly inconvenient to present and past governments, are emerging from Nigeria's Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, the home-grown copy of South Africa's...

The following dramatis personae have key roles in events scrutinised by the Oputa Panel...

Friendlier to President Laurent Gbagbo than most donors, Paris has persuaded the European Union to offer vital budget support to Abidjan. This may tide Côte d'Ivoire over to...

Has Sierra Leone's war run out of steam? Many rebel fighters, as well as their opponents, want a break, if not an end to the war. Their warlord...