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Published 25th April 2008

Vol 49 No 9

Nigeria

Open season on Obasanjo

Allegations of corruption under the last government are dividing the ruling parties and raising questions about the new order’s durability

The humiliation of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo is forging ahead, less than a year after he left office. In the past few months, parliamentary committees have exposed allegations of government corruption during his eight-year tenure that sit uneasily with his image as a reformer. A decade after he won international sympathy during his imprisonment by the then military leader, General Sani Abacha, Obasanjo’s reputation is sadly diminished. There has been a deafening silence from Western friends such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Nigeria’s press runs lurid tales of family scandals. Investigators have charged his daughter, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, with complicity in a scam to defraud the health ministry.

Oddly normal

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Spies and diplomats are secretly negotiating the lifting of all US sanctions on Khartoum

Khartoum’s National Congress (NC, aka National Islamic Front) regime is negotiating a ‘normalisation’ of relations with the United States, according to documents obtained by Africa Confidential. News of...

In the fog of peace

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A new, overstuffed government brings back familiar faces but offers few hopes of reconstruction

Kenyans seem relieved to have a government but baffled at the brazenness of their politicians. The deal between President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga was better than a...

BLUE LINES
THE INSIDE VIEW

As Zimbabwe’s political agony drags on, newspapers and TV networks have started asking whether the story is worth the top news slots it occupies. Some papers are inclined to dismiss it as a story in the dying embers of the British empire; several US newsrooms take a similar view despite President Bush’s decision to put Mugabe on his revised ‘axis of evil’, along with Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, which is seen as a badge of honour at Harare’s State House. It is true that Zimbabwe’s pol...
As Zimbabwe’s political agony drags on, newspapers and TV networks have started asking whether the story is worth the top news slots it occupies. Some papers are inclined to dismiss it as a story in the dying embers of the British empire; several US newsrooms take a similar view despite President Bush’s decision to put Mugabe on his revised ‘axis of evil’, along with Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, which is seen as a badge of honour at Harare’s State House. It is true that Zimbabwe’s politics are viewed through the distorting lenses of domestic politics in Britain and South Africa but that does not diminish the story’s significance. Political parties in London and Pretoria have postured instead of producing credible policies. We reporters should have been less indulgent towards those hollow professions of concern for Zimbabwe’s 13 million people. Now they are being visited again by organised political violence on top of an imploding economy. The nub of the story is that conditions in a country can continue to deteriorate as the hand wringing continues, showing up the impotence of the regional and international organisations. Meanwhile, a less headline-grabbing story is emerging from underneath the rubble: how to rebuild a free Zimbabwe 30 years after the first attempt. Let’s hope it attracts as much capital as the politics have prompted headlines.
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Gluttons for punishment

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New questions are raised about the leadership opposition's leadership

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The peace deal that wasn't

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Reforms, but not radical

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Vicious voting

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Number crunching

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Politique a l'Americaine

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Cash call

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