Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has unleashed a storm of controversy by appointing three of her sons and a nephew to important jobs in government. Most attention centred on her eldest Robert...

After regional leaders called his bluff with financial sanctions and threats of military action, putsch leader Captain Amadou Sanogo beat as dignified a retreat from power as he co...

Tuareg separatists of the Mouvement national de la libération de l’Azawad are in a bitter struggle with a jihadist faction – Iyad ag Ghali and his Ansar Eddine group. Ag Ghali has ...

Niger won much praise for the smoothness of the 2011 presidential poll, which returned the country to democracy after a year under the military junta that had deposed President Mam...

In September 2011, Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi’s son Es Saadi el Gadaffi arrived in Agadez in the dead of night in a mysterious convoy of vehicles, surrounded by equal mystery over ...

After President Yahya Jammeh’s victory in November’s presidential poll surprised nobody, the parliamentary elections of 29 March were similarly predictable. Anticipating fraud, th...

With Islamists, putschists and nationalists claiming all the attention in Mali, the growing food crisis in the Sahel is in danger of slipping under the radar. There were poor rains...

On the eve of the national convention of the governing People’s Democratic Party on 24 March, former President Olusegun Obasanjo deplored the lack of discipline in the PDP. Loyalis...

• Chief Mike Oghiadomhe, Chief of Staff to the President: as Edo State Deputy Governor, he made friends with his opposite number in Bayelsa, Goodluck Jonathan. He is powerful and r...

The protests in Bamako started out with disgruntled soldiers, angry at how politicians had allowed their comrades to be overrun by Tuareg rebels. This then snowballed into a more g...