The opposition in Sierra Leone has chosen a presidential candidate with a political past that could make or mar his chances in next year’s election, writes Desmond Davies The grandees of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) have plumped for Julius Maada Bio as the party’s candidate for the crucial presidential election scheduled for the [...]
The recurring orgy of violence which is clearly along socio-religious lines continues unabated in Maiduguri , North Eastern Nigeria, with some politicians cashing in , on the issue , purely to promote their political interests. The city and its environs continue to smolder with hundreds of people who can afford to, fleeing the area while [...]
The worst drought in two decades has left about 11 million East Africans in acute need of food and water. Western NGOs are urging people to donate money while images of malnourished children appear on the world’s TV screens. Is Africa still the helpless and weak continent the media portrayed it to be twenty years [...]
In the middle of a roundabout in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba there is a 23 feet tall digital clock counting down the days, minutes and seconds until the 9th of July. Tomorrow, the world will have a new country. It is uncertain what will happen when South Sudan takes leave from Khartoum 55 [...]
A report by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has suggested that the Democratic Republic of Congo might be on the verge of collapse, as widespread disaffection for President Joseph Kabila grows. Endemic corruption and the failure to bring broad and sustained economic growth have led to the grave possibility, the report predicts, of violence [...]
As many former British colonies around the world continue to celebrate 50 years or more of independence, a group of Commonwealth academics gathered at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London recently to debate the merits and faults of the so called “Westminster Model”, the basis at the time of the newly emerging countries’ constitutions [...]
For the second time, South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma went Libya to seek peace accord. In the first visit as part of an African Union delegation, Zuma headed to the strife-torn northern country in order to push for a deal which would bring fighting between Libyan government troops and the opposition to an end. The [...]
The International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, has produced a business report on what will soon become Africa’s newest country, South Sudan. When South Sudan is officially recognised as its own entity on 9th of July – following January’s decision vote to secede from the north of the country – it will [...]
The new president, Alassane Ouattara, in his inaugural speech said he hopes to reunite Ivorians after the ‘the victory of democracy’, and promised parliamentary elections before the end of the year. Ouattara was inaugurated Saturday 21st May 2011 as president following a bloody crisis caused by his predecessor’s refusal to concede election defeat. ‘The time [...]
The country’s latest local elections ‘went well’, according to Pansy Tlakula, the Chief Electoral Officer of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). She spoke with pride at seeing a higher turnout than in previous years during what was a remarkably smooth process that has left most party leaders satisfied. The campaign itself was a lively one, [...]
