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Published 21st September 2023

Vol 64 No 19

Kremlin ponders its post-Wagner options

Portrait of Yevgeny Prigozhin and flowers laid in his memory at a cafe in St. Petersburg. Pic: Artem Priakhin/ZUMA Press Inc/Alamy
Portrait of Yevgeny Prigozhin and flowers laid in his memory at a cafe in St. Petersburg. Pic: Artem Priakhin/ZUMA Press Inc/Alamy

Moscow must dispose of the remnants of its most famous mercenary outfit and has some hard choices to make

The crash of Yevgeny Prigozhin's jet on 23 August was both expected and full of surprises. It was expected because no one believed President Vladimir Putin would do business as usual with someone who had tried to overthrow him. Equally, it was surprising that a man as paranoid as the Wagner Group boss would travel with his closest associates in one aircraft so soon after publicly humiliating Putin, his minister of defence and his head of the armed forces.

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Cash crunch tests Tinubu's top finance team

Olayemi Michael Cardoso. Pic: @PBATMediaCentre
Olayemi Michael Cardoso. Pic: @PBATMediaCentre

The government is hunting for foreign exchange to stabilise the naira and speed up growth after its reform shocks

The nomination of Olayemi Michael Cardoso, a former chairman of Citibank, as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) opens the next chapter of President Bola Ahmed...

Bawumia leads race for NPP ticket

Mahamudu Bawumia. Pic: @MBawumia
Mahamudu Bawumia. Pic: @MBawumia

President Akufo-Addo is helping his deputy in the succession campaign despite growing internal dissent

Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia's landslide victory in the New Patriotic Party's Special Delegates' Conference and the withdrawal of former Trade Minister, Alan Kyerematen, has put Bawumia in pole position...

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THE INSIDE VIEW

The 40 African leaders at this week's UN General Assembly contrasts with the absence of four leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and points to an imbalance in multilateralism. Geopolitics helps explain it. Russia's invasion of Ukraine breaches the UN charter and President Vladimir Putin has been indicted for war crimes.

Yet this UN summit was meant to discuss how to reform the multilateral system – UN institutions as well as the IMF and World Bank. T...

The 40 African leaders at this week's UN General Assembly contrasts with the absence of four leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and points to an imbalance in multilateralism. Geopolitics helps explain it. Russia's invasion of Ukraine breaches the UN charter and President Vladimir Putin has been indicted for war crimes.

Yet this UN summit was meant to discuss how to reform the multilateral system – UN institutions as well as the IMF and World Bank. That's not going to make much progress in New York, nor at the foreshortened IMF and World Bank meetings next month in Marrakech, still recovering from its devastating earthquake.

African leaders have filled some of the vacuum. In his maiden speech, Nigeria's Bola Tinubu made a pitch for West Africans to push back against military coups, but played down earlier threats of force against the Niger junta. And South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa passionately asserted the continent's right to green energy, saying that Africa 'would no longer pay for the industrialisation of the north'.

Kenya's William Ruto is proving adept at juggling bilaterals at the heart of UNGA summitry. On 18 September he co-hosted a food security summit with Samantha Power of USAID. The next day he met with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, pledging support and offering to establish a 'grain hub' in Kenya to address shortages in East Africa.

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Cross-party talks open, carrots provided

A new cross-party committee will strengthen ambitious politicians and steer clear of the cost-of-living crisis

The prospect of a political deal between President William Ruto and opposition Azimio la Umoja leader Raila Odinga is unsettling some of their followers and allies who fear...

Mnangagwa keeps it in the family

An enlarged cabinet stuffed with relatives and loyalists is complicating international efforts to restart negotiations on the country's finances

International and regional concerns persist about the legitimacy of President Emmerson Mnangagwa's victory in national elections last month, particularly the failure of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to...

Caught cold by the coups

Von der Leyen calls for a bolder strategy amid the wave of putsches and deepening crisis in the Sahel

European Union officials are scrambling to revise their approach to the Sahel and West Africa after being blindsided by the military coups d'état in Niger and Gabon.

Despite everything, the ANC charts a path to victory

Beefed up local organisation and a public spending push could help the ruling party avoid a coalition next year

Unheralded, the campaign for next year's national elections started this month. The ruling African National Congress will be fighting on multiple fronts: to cut state spending and rein...

Muse Bihi's political headaches worsen

After failing to conquer Dhulbahante rebels in Las Anod, which led to conflict within the Isaq clan, the President needs to repair the splits

President Muse Bihi Abdi is adding political problems to the military reverses he has suffered in his ill-judged confrontation with the Dhulbahante clan over Las Anod. That’s the...

Pointers

Bribes case on the rocks

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has decided not to prosecute government officials who may have taken bribes so long as they return them to the state, according to leaks...

Seck seeks DC clout

Former Prime Minister Idrissa Seck has beefed up his international lobbying and campaign team by hiring Bruce Fryer, a US advisor for the non-profit Vanguard Africa and Future...

Heart of the migration storm

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni continues to exert diplomatic pressure on Tunisia and Libya as the Italian island of Lampedusa continues to receive unprecedented numbers of migrants from...

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