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Published 3rd April 2015

Vol 56 No 7

Nigeria

A moment of truth for the General

KADUNA: APC election campaign posters pasted on a wall. Samuel Aranda | Panos
KADUNA: APC election campaign posters pasted on a wall. Samuel Aranda | Panos

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

Returning to power after 30 years, Muhammadu Buhari has been elected President heading a coalition bent on reform

One of the first acts of President-elect Muhammadu Buhari's new government will be to establish a clear regime of accountability and transparency in managing the country's oil and gas revenue, a senior member of the transition team told Africa Confidential. The team thinks it critical to establish the new government's credibility and rebuff overtures from local and foreign vested interests which want to blunt and obstruct its anti-corruption drive.

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The rigging in Rivers

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Lekia Nkirine didn't stand a chance. He was shot in the chest at close range at six in the morning on election day when 50 thugs attacked the...

Spending for victory

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A surge in voter-friendly spending accompanies the NRM’s election campaign and there is little the opposition can do to stop it

Both public spending and borrowing have shot up over the past year as the governing National Resistance Movement gears up for next year's elections. Although the NRM faces...

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THE INSIDE VIEW

The government-elect taking shape in Nigeria under General Muhammadu Buhari will have to contend with meeting not just the expectations of its own citizens but the high hopes of the wider continent. For almost a decade, there is a feeling of an ideas vacuum at the heart of Africa’s leading countries: Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt

The government-elect taking shape in Nigeria under General Muhammadu Buhari will have to contend with meeting not just the expectations of its own citizens but the high hopes of the wider continent. For almost a decade, there is a feeling of an ideas vacuum at the heart of Africa’s leading countries: Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt and Kenya. Although all four have benefited from the wave of high economic growth that has lapped across Africa in recent years, all four have been struggling to convert that into jobs for the swelling ranks of school-leavers and to tackle worsening insecurity and criminality. And their own political systems are mired in corruption.

That is why Buhari’s promise to stop the rot in Nigeria, reinforced by his personal asceticism, is drawing attention far beyond its borders. A more youthful and martial Buhari had the same ambitions 30 years ago. This time, the rot has run deeper, even as the economy and population have grown. It is Buhari’s conversion to the tenets of pluralist politics – he has gone out of his way to praise Goodluck Jonathan for being the first elected incumbent to concede that he has lost an election – while retaining the stance of a disciplined general, that is intriguing Nigerians and giving fresh hope.

Buhari, his policy team says, will be a ‘big picture’ president. He will ask his advisors and ministers to set up policies and systems to meet the election pledges on anticorruption, jobs and security. His team of technocrats promises the same technological flair they used in the campaign.

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Jammeh cracks the whip

The consequences of the failed coup are proving dire for peaceful dissent as a wave of secret detentions takes place

The repercussions of December's failed coup against President Yahya Jammeh are still being felt in Gambia and in the United States. One of the most prominent democracy campaigners,...

Easy on the landslide

The EPRDF wants a less crushing win in the elections in May. Meanwhile, it delicately manages the ethnic balance within the party

Nobody, least of all members of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front doubts that anything less than overwhelming victory awaits it at the end of the national...

Bye any means

Renewed opposition factionalism means that some MPs are being recalled and bye-elections have to be held

Sixteen bye-elections, most of them triggered by the opposition, will be held on 10 June, parliamentary officials have decided. In the interim, the number could rise through further...

Votes, damned lies and opinion polls

Maximising the turnout and countering rigging could be the key to making a success of tomorrow’s elections

Anyone following the opinion polls for a guide to the outcome of tomorrow's presidential and parliamentary elections will be disappointed. Yet they have played an important role in...

Lungu returns the favours

The new President’s health problems and his pursuit of political vendettas are not inspiring political confidence

President Edgar Lungu has been having trouble fulfilling his reported promise to ex-President Rupiah Banda to get the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mutembo Nchito, off his back....

Fresh doubts over polls

The government shuns its own National Dialogue policy, raising more questions about this month’s elections

The ruling National Congress Party (NCP)'s refusal to attend a preparatory meeting with the opposition Sudan Call Forces in Addis Ababa on 29-30 March suggests it has dumped...

Game of provinces

A series of arrests and plans for new provinces all look like part of Kabila’s long-term plan to stay in power

Protests against President Joseph Kabila's plans to stay in power beyond the end of his term in November 2016 continue since the Commission électorale nationale indépendante (CENI) announced...

Geingob goes for continuity

The new President is putting the party to the fore in selecting his top team. He is pro-business, but pro-SWAPO first

President-elect Hage Geingob has affirmed his loyalty to the SWAPO Party and his preference for continuity with his choices for the top political offices of Vice President, Prime...

Positive deterrence

Labelled 'Top Secret', a National Congress Party document, '2015 Elections: An organisational perspective', leaked out late last year. The 28-page NCP strategy was dated January 2014 but appeared...

One-way ticket

The government tries to distance itself from the radicalisation of seven British-Sudanese students at a private medical school in Khartoum

The Islamist organisation in Khartoum which helped to radicalise seven British-Sudanese medical students who went to join the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria was disbanded days after...

Pointers

Grand union on show

The new tripartite accord over the US$4.8 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam may not provide the resolution to arguments over the use of the Nile waters that the...

A farewell to Armando

Ex-President Armando Guebuza has resigned from the presidency of the governing Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo) having lost his power struggle with his successor as national President,...

Cold war at Eskom

The suspended Chief Executive Officer of state electricity utility Eskom, Tshediso Matona, has lost his bid to overturn his suspension by the Board of Directors.

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