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Published 23rd June 2022

Vol 63 No 13


Nigeria

Tinubu summons the ghosts of Abacha's kleptocracy

Bola Tinubu and Muhammadu Buhari Pic: @NGRPresident
Bola Tinubu and Muhammadu Buhari Pic: @NGRPresident

The ruling party's flagbearer brings together democracy campaigners and beneficiaries of the country's most venal dictatorship

This year's Democracy Day celebrations on 12 June were muted, overshadowed by the expensive shenanigans of the national election campaign mixed with a pervasive disenchantment with the political class.


The man behind the sofa story

Cyril Ramaphosa poses with his Ankole cattle. Pic: Daniel Naude
Cyril Ramaphosa poses with his Ankole cattle. Pic: Daniel Naude

Former securocrat Arthur Fraser, who revealed the 2020 burglary at the President's farm, may have ulterior motives

Once a key associate of President Jacob Zuma in the state security and intelligence apparatus, Arthur Fraser has leapt onto the front pages with his claims about the burglary at Pr...


'Farmgate' rocks Ramaphosa

Union Buildings, Pretoria. Pic: flowcomm (CC BY 2.0)
Union Buildings, Pretoria. Pic: flowcomm (CC BY 2.0)

The 'cash-in-the-couch' scandal has damaged the President. It is being exploited to the full by his enemies, but it doesn't look enough to unseat him

On a wintry day on 13 June in Johannesburg Carl Niehaus, the chief spokesperson of the African National Congress's so-called Radical Economic Transformation (RET) faction, led a de...



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THE INSIDE VIEW

The spectre of an institutional crisis hangs over Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kigali from 20-26 June as the organisation tries to manage the first challenge to a Secretary-General seeking a second four-year term.

Support for incumbent Baroness Patricia Scotland is ebbing with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government leading the campaign to replace her with Jamaica's foreign minister Kamina Johnson Smith. Johnson claims that Scotland has failed to deliv...

The spectre of an institutional crisis hangs over Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kigali from 20-26 June as the organisation tries to manage the first challenge to a Secretary-General seeking a second four-year term.

Support for incumbent Baroness Patricia Scotland is ebbing with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government leading the campaign to replace her with Jamaica's foreign minister Kamina Johnson Smith. Johnson claims that Scotland has failed to deliver institutional reforms and his aides raise questions over transparency on procurement. Tradition dictates the position is agreed by consensus so there is no mechanism for a contested election. Scotland, a former Attorney General and supporter of Britain's opposition Labour party, is refusing to go. Instead, she launched a counterattack via media briefings on the eve of the summit accusing Johnson of undermining and dividing the Commonwealth.

The timing of the summit in Kigali is woeful given its implicit endorsement of Rwanda's President Paul Kagame. He is accused by neighbouring Congo-Kinshasa of sponsoring armed attacks by the M23 militia – tactics for which Rwanda has been sanctioned. And the Britain-Rwanda 'cash for asylum seekers' deal, under fire from the UN, religious leaders and opposition parties in Westminster, is weakening Commonwealth efforts to project itself as a promoter of human rights.

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KwaZulu-Natal braces for a showdown

Next month the ruling ANC will elect a new leadership in the province pitting President Ramaphosa's supporters against those of his predecessor

Once the powerhouse of the African National Congress (ANC) under former President Jacob Zuma, his home province of KwaZulu-Natal has become a seething hotbed of economic sabotage, ...


Bamako refuses to look to France

With French and European troops leaving, the junta turns its ire on UN peacekeepers and seeks new foreign allies

Malian military ruler Colonel Assimi Goïta is determined to show that his forces can tackle a growing Islamist onslaught, despite the withdrawal of French and European troops,...


Civilians stand firm as crisis talks falter

General Burhan's alliance with Islamist forces is blocking progress on talks to restart the transition and end Khartoum's isolation

A week of false starts and crisis talks to reinstate the transition to elections and constitutional rule made clear there is no prospect of progress without the participation of th...


How manganese pipeline helps the ANC

The ruling party's ambivalence on Ukraine reflects its parlous finances as well as its internal feuding and ideological posturing

A transparency law on political party funding has embarrassed the ruling African National Congress by revealing its links to Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch under global sanc...


Plans for urban forest raise hackles

Many suspect a scheme to turn a protected forest into Accra's answer to Central Park are ecologically dangerous and a cover for corruption

A decision by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's government to reclassify a large part of the Achimota Forest reserve in Accra – the only urban forest in the country &nd...


Plan mooted to settle east-west split

The country is back to rule by two governments – but support is growing for devolution instead of the stalled international push for national elections

Libya looks more divided than at any time since the 2011 revolution. It boasts one government in Tripoli ruling the west, and another in Sirte which is recognised in the east &ndas...


Spiralling prices dominate budgets

Uganda’s and Tanzania's oil and gas plans offer little short-term help amid ballooning state deficits and public debts

As East Africa's economies began to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, the effects of the war in Ukraine on food supply and inflation have been a hammer blow to economic prospects ...

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Pointers

Poll ban fans the flames

Ousmane Sonko, co-leader of the opposition Yewwi Askan Wi electoral alliance, promises major protests on 29 June in protest at the killing of protestors by security forces on 17 Ju...


Raila's old clothes

Of all the promises made on the campaign trail, Kenyan presidential contender Raila Odinga's plans to curb the import of second-hand clothes, known as mitumba, has caused the bigge...


Gaps in Glencore's guilty plea

By pleading guilty in Britain and the United States to grand corruption and paying out some US$1.5 billion in penalties, commodity giant Glencore has been trying to draw a line und...