Vol 59 No 17 | NIGERIA Blame game scuppers reform 31st August 2018 After ten years of drafting, the National Assembly has produced an unworkable bill to restructure the petroleum industry Plans to modernise the national oil industry have been derailed again by partisan politics and vested interests in a debacle that could cost Nigeria tens of billions of...
Vol 59 No 17 | SÃO TOMÉ & PRÍNCIPE Whose coup is it anyway? 31st August 2018 The government has foiled a plot to kill Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada and kidnap President Evaristo Carvalho and the National Assembly President José Diogo, it claimed on 7...
Vol 59 No 17 | CÔTE D'IVOIRE Two suitors for the FPI 31st August 2018 The political landscape has been in flux ever since Henri Konan Bédié's Parti démocratique de Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI) left the Rassemblement des houphouëtistes pour la démocratie et la...
Vol 59 No 17 | SENEGAL President plays by his rules 22nd August 2018 Opposition leaders accuse Macky Sall of bending the law courts to his advantage as the opposition flounders in the lead-up to elections With just seven months to go to Senegal's next presidential election, the political mood remains sour as opponents accuse President Macky Sall of manipulating the judicial system to...
Vol 59 No 16 | NIGERIA Barbarians at the gate 10th August 2018 A wave of defections to the main opposition party have President Buhari looking anxiously over his shoulder as elections approach The All Progressives' Congress, whose leader President Muhammadu Buhari is taking a holiday in London, has been under political siege for weeks while its senior members contemplated a...
Vol 59 No 16 | NIGERIA Politics of patronage 10th August 2018 Long-delayed legislation promises to free the oil industry from state control – but will the government want to surrender this trump card? Nigeria's governments come and go but its oil and gas governance legislation keeps rolling on. The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) was conceived during Olusegun Obasanjo's first elected term...
Vol 59 No 16 | MALI Court in the act 10th August 2018 Despite a calamitous first five years in office, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK) sailed through the first round of the presidential election with 42% of the vote amid...
Vol 59 No 16 | GHANA Gas contract claims minister 10th August 2018 The sacking of Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko on 6 August for supposedly mishandling renegotiations with the Dubai-based Ameri group on a power supply contract has triggered a crisis...
Vol 59 No 15 | NIGERIA The probity contest 27th July 2018 To convince voters of his hard line on corruption, President Buhari’s prosecutors will have to win some cases at last With primaries for the 2019 election fast approaching, President Muhammadu Buhari is under pressure to push ahead with his anti-graft campaign. The Fulani herder-farmer killings and splits in...
Vol 59 No 15 | MALI Electoral déja-vu 27th July 2018 The top two contenders in the 2013 elections slug it out again with incumbent IBK tipped to win Both the incumbent President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and his main challenger in the 29 July presidential election, Soumaïla Cissé, offer the electorate security, improved basic services and infrastructure,...