The hope is that Buhari will be honest and efficient — but his post comes with significant baggage.
- Professor of World Politics, SOAS, University of London
It’s absurd that Europe continues to blame migrants seeking a better life for their own fate.
In the end, Nigeria managed what once seemed impossible and transferred political power relatively peacefully. What now?
The 2015 elections in Nigeria were chaotic, but the country’s voters displayed immense courage in showing up at all. More than 20 people were killed, not in electoral violence between competing parties…
Last year I shared a panel with Nigeria’s deputy electoral commissioner, who assured our audience without reservation that everything would be ready on time for the 2015 presidential election. It is apparently…
The Zambian presidential election of January 20, held to choose a president to eke out the late Michael Sata’s term, were conducted amid thunderstorms that struck the entire country. Thanks to the awful…
The Roman god, Saturn, ate his children, but was overthrown by one who got away. For politicians, the moral of the story is that you have to keep eating them, and hunt down all who might escape. That is…
I was living and working in Africa at the time of Band Aid 1984. I found the song Do They Know it’s Christmas? cloying, but I recognised that it was mobilising ordinary citizens towards concern and compassion…
To Zambians, the international community’s astonishment that, for 90 days, the acting Zambian president will be a white man seems remarkable. The first fully white president of an independent majority-ruled…
The word Ebola is conjuring up fear around the world; breakdowns in Western infection control procedures have led to cases in Spain and the US, and have given the non-African world a taste – or a foretaste…
There are many African presidents whose age far outstrips that of their peers on other continents. David Cameron (47), Barack Obama (53), François Hollande (60), Merkel (60), Vladimir Putin (61) – these…
The US-Africa summit held last week in Washington DC was a damp squib. Barack Obama had to host at least one such summit, given how successfully the Chinese have used such meetings, but the occasion was…
Writing about conflict is always difficult because of the romantic Western need for good guys and bad guys. That makes it difficult to make sense of things when everyone’s hands are dirty. Writing for…
One of the main features of the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza is an explosion of emotive, poorly informed claims and counter-claims – finger-pointing attempts to excuse today’s violence by recourse to…
Nigeria and Algeria both fell out of the World Cup at the last 16 stage, competing heroically against France and Germany and showing amazing discipline and shape for 70 of the 90 minutes. Then tiredness…
It has been an interesting month for leaders across Africa. Goodluck Jonathan finally declared a “total war” against Boko Haram despite not having the means to wage one, and after a puzzlingly sluggish…
Jacob Zuma’s ANC won the 2014 South African election with 62% of the vote, 3% down from 2009. Its nearest rival, the Democratic Alliance, won 22%, 6% up. And the newcomers, Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom…
The Robert Mugabe who returned from Singapore for his 90th birthday celebrations was sprightly and energised. His Singapore sojourns, officially designated as trips to treat eye problems, invigorate more…
At the end of 2012, I published a deliberately surreal novel entitled Joseph Kony and the Titans of Zagreb. In it, using satire and magic realism, I tied together the corrupt destinies of figures on both…
When the South African president, Jacob Zuma, returned from the African Union summit last weekend, his press statement said almost nothing that could not have been written before he left. The summit decided…
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