DISPATCHES
A 55% jump in spending and four new army divisions promise more boots on the ground – but weak oversight means the windfall risks enriching contractors more than improving security
With an eye of February’s election and his declining popularity, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is promising the biggest expansion of military force since the civil war five decades...
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As Washington shifts approach, attacks are intensifying, raising questions about Abuja’s counterterrorism partnership with Trump’s administration
When Grammy-nominated Nigerian musician Davido appeared at a FIFA World Cup countdown concert in Los Angeles last month wearing a jacket embroidered with the names of 39 abducted...
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Turnout will be the critical variable with signs that the Obi-Kwankwaso presidential ticket is cutting through
After months in which President Bola Tinubu’s strategists seemed to have neutralised his rivals by exploiting divisions in the main opposition camps, a couple of new opinion polls...
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Ahead of the election, Abuja will come under pressure to show how the incoming funds will be used
President Bola Tinubu’s government has drawn the first tranche of US$1.5 billion from a controversial $5bn derivatives deal with United Arab Emirates’ largest lender, the First Abu Dhabi...
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After the Tinubu government sold forward 14% of national oil production last year, it is borrowing US$5 billion from the UAE
The IMF’s warning on 9 June to President Bola Tinubu’s government of the financial risks of a US$5 billion loan package via a series of derivative contracts with...
Tinubu ally and Matrix Energy chief Abdulkabir Aliu is fighting a bid by an anti-corruption agency to police forward oil sales
The investigation into over US$20 billion of forward oil sales by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is widening its remit to include top officials of the...
The President holds all the cards – money, incumbency and a weakened opposition – but volatile states could complicate voting next January
With nearly 10.9 million votes at the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary, President Bola Tinubu is confident of a resounding victory at the January 2027 polls. He will...
With a regional push, Guterres’s deputy looks set to relaunch a bid for the top UN job
The growing demand for a woman to head the UN next year and backing from Africa’s 54 member states could boost the chances for a last-minute run for...
Obi and Kwankwaso’s split with Atiku has exposed their inability to convert anti-Tinubu sentiment into a disciplined electoral machine
For a moment, Nigeria’s battered opposition looked as though it had agreed a unity formula that might unpick President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s political pre-eminence.
The new finance minister wants to double federal revenues but first has to address galloping poverty levels in the face of radical reforms
When Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu quietly dropped his longtime ally Wale Edun as Finance Minister on 21 April, describing the sacking as ‘a resignation on health grounds’,...
The former Vice-President has hired US lobbyists to exploit the Trump’s administration’s enmity towards President Tinubu
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has become the latest Nigerian politician to throw money at K-Street lobbyists, hiring Von Batten, Montague, York on a US$1.2 million retainer as he...
The President is moving faster to unlock stalled investments but forward crude sales and pipeline attacks are cutting into the oil price windfall
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came to office in May 2023 promising to reverse two decades of decline in Nigeria’s petroleum sector, and on paper the progress is real:...
Expelled from the Sahel and estranged from Washington, the EU has signed its first African security pact with Ghana and wants Nigeria as an Atlantic anchor
Amid its fraying ties with the United States, the European Union is shoring up defences on its eastern flank and negotiating security deals in North and West Africa...
When Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the World Trade Organization’s director-general, finally called time on its biannual ministerial conference in Cameroon in the early hours of 30 March, the sticking point...
By getting MPs to back spending increases taking the 2026 budget to US$49.4 billion, a 15% increase on the plan tabled in December, President Bola Tinubu is leaving...
Vol 67 No 6 |
- NIGERIA
- BRITAIN
With rivals co-opted, detained or outmanoeuvred, and a new electoral law, the President has engineered near-total political dominance
When they meet Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on his 18-19 March state visit hosted by Britain’s King Charles III at Windsor Castle, some politicians in the ruling...
Opposition activists claim that the new electoral act, hurriedly signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is aimed at disqualifying all the substantive opposition from contesting in national elections...
The spreading security emergency and foreign political interference will cost President Bola Tinubu votes
A claim by a United States Congressional committee that Nigeria is the deadliest place in the world to practice Christianity has reignited tensions between Washington and Abuja as...
Abuja is spinning President Tinubu’s stay in the Palace – and warmer ties with the British government – as part of a reset of bilateral relations
On the back foot since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu made France the centrepiece of his foreign policy, Britain is trying to restore its waning relationship with Nigeria. To...
DISPATCHES
Funding disputes intensify alongside the better oil company results
The state owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) has had its wings clipped by President Bola Tinubu’s plans to cut to 20% the share of profits that the...
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Growth, reserves and inflation are improving but the government’s new revenue drive is politically risky
Almost a year before they seek re-election, President Bola Tinubu and his All Progressives Congress (APC) administration continue to promote the much debated benefits of their ambitious reform...
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Trial of detainees is due to open but investigators continue probe into the financing of the plot
At least 16 military officers are to face trial accused of plotting to overthrow President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as security concerns are becoming a critical issue in next...
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DISPATCHES
Eighteen months after taking power, the President has appointed ambassadors to his country’s leading trading partners
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has unveiled a new senior diplomatic team, including a new ambassador to the United States, in a hint at which countries are its diplomatic...
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By paying $9 million to US lobbyists through a pop-up law firm, the Abuja government has outbid Christian secessionists
Scrambling in the wake of US President Donald J Trump’s threat to ‘go into Nigeria guns ablazing’ on 1 November to end what he called a ‘Christian genocide’,...
Diezani Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s former Petroleum Minister (2010-15), appeared at Southwark Crown Court on 19 January ahead of her trial on 26 January. She faces six bribery charges, including...
A master of electoral politicking, the president is still threatened by rumbling insecurity and shockingly low federal revenues
Only a fool hell-bent on a suicidal path can dare to challenge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, 73, in 2027, says Vice President Kashim Shettima. Discounting politicians’ default sycophancy,...
Both governments are turning jihadist operations to their political advantage
Few confirmed details have emerged about the Pentagon’s attacks – launching 16 GPS-guided missiles from MQ-9 Reaper drones – on claimed jihadist camps near Jabo in Sokoto State...
DISPATCHES
Desperately trying to balance the books, Abuja is centralising control of all federal revenues
President Bola Tinubu has rejected opposition calls to delay the implementation of a new tax regime, as the government pins its hopes on streamlining administration and collection to...
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