A long history of failure does not discourage Western leaders
who believe their intervention can improve conditions in the oil-rich
Niger Delta. Yet judging from recent history, the capacity of
outside intervention to make things even worse in the Delta looks
assured. After the United States' stalled efforts at training
Nigeria's military and Royal Dutch Shell's attempts at corporate
responsibility, Britain and France have offered military assistance
to tackle continuing violence in the Delta.
Offering military assistance to a country that did not request it is extremely bad manners, responded a seasoned Nigerian analyst after French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Britis...
Nigerian suspicion of foreign military support creates opportunities for the security professionals, some of whom are looking for business openings since an agreement between the U...
Just as the government runs out of money before the elections,
along comes an offer that is hard to refuse
It is a rule of politics that any substantial sale of state assets agreed less than six months before national elections needs close scrutiny. The government's decision to sell a ...
Political controversy has dogged Ghana Telecom since the telecom sector was deregulated in the mid-1990s under the National Democratic Congress government. Its performance under th...
A tempting iron ore deposit on the Liberian border triggers
fierce rivalries, national and international
The shock must have been great when mining giant Rio Tinto was told on 4 August that it had just lost its greatest potential asset, the gigantic Simandou iron ore concession. The ...
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's appointment of new service chiefs and a new Chief of Defence Staff on 20 August will further reduce the political power of former President Olusegun...
Justice and politics are uneasy bedfellows under the hesitant
President's new regime
Since President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua came to power after a widely-criticised election and started extolling the rule of law much has changed. Yar Adua's own electoral case will be h...
The tortuous prosecution of a former state oil company boss raises questions about the independence of the judiciary
Even his opponents concede that Tsatsu Tsikata is a gifted lawyer, whose ties with ex-President Jerry John Rawlings have kept him at the centre of Ghana's bitter political battles....
Vol 49 No 16 |
- CAMEROON
- NIGERIA
Cameroonian security forces in the disputed oil-rich Bakassi peninsula are on maximum alert after fatal attacks by the Niger Delta Defence and Security Council. The NDDSC, a little...
Vol 49 No 14 |
- SIERRA LEONE
Slow progress on the economy and against corruption is rubbing
the sheen off last year's free elections
On election, President Ernest Bai Koroma gave himself three years to turn Sierra Leone around, but the first year has been unimpressive, and the smart performance of President Elle...